Velocity is a vector quantity and hence needs two characteristics for its full description: magnitude and direction. In contrast, speed is a scalar and can be described by magnitude itself, without any need of its direction. Thus, we can say that the car had an average speed of 30 km/h; however, when talking about velocity, it needs to be modified like this: "the car had a velocity of 30 km/h in southwest direction."
Since velocity is a vector, the laws of vectors apply to it. This also means that the velocity of an object can be resolved into x, y and z directions--all the three dimensions. And we can use the laws of vectors to determine its magnitude. For a velocity vector with x and y components, Vx and Vy, the magnitude will be:
V = `sqrt(V_x^2 + V_y^2)`
Hope this helps.
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