This article has brought out a lot people to comment who don't know anything about sports cars, but feel necessary to insist they do. It's bad enough that I had to login in to dispell this reoccurring canard:
"EVs are faster in a straight line! EVs have a flat/high torque curve!" -- big whoop.
1) 0-60 times are biased against ICEs as their torque curves _aren't_ flat and so the start of range is mostly when the engine is at a disadvantage. In an actual road situation the ICE is already at speed and therefore at or near the peak of their torque curve.
2) Actual roads have these things called "curves". Your bulky heavyweight EV handles like a brick on 3 wheels. And it doesn't have as responsive braking due that weight.
Your second point misses an important fact: the Tesla Model S Plaid set a 7:25 Nurburgring lap time, and the Porsche Taycan did it in 7:07. Both of these lap times are faster than many high-performance ICE cars, and close to GT2/3 times which are just below 7:00.
As you might expect, the technology will continue to evolve, too.
This person is explicitly ignoring that EVs use tire and braking configurations that maximize efficiency over performance in order to make their point. It's like saying ICE cars are inherently bad at performance because of Ferdinand Porsche's VW Beetle design choices or because my 3000lb vehicle (lighter than a modern Porsche) Jeep XJ isn't a sports car ICE vehicles can't be performance vehicles.
To keep the comparisons honest, I honestly couldn't care less about the performances of Taycan. That's not what I drive and that's not what everybody on my roads drive. Yeah maybe I see one hypercar a week but I definitely won't keep that as the bar for driving behaviour. So maybe we should compare between (pick your specific models) Dacia and Toyota?
True, but you do still feel the weight. Even with good tires, they give up time around the corners and make it back with insane acceleration. That's why you generally see hybrids for the most extreme hypercars, at least over the past decade or two. They have most of the advantage of electric without the weight penalty. (I own and track both ICE and electric cars and find both have advantages and disadvantages.)
Lmao, so basically you dislike EVs and are an ice fan.
The truth of the matter is that EVs win out in so many categories already and are improving year on year.
2: batteries are getting lighter and more energy dense. Your point is essentially moot in an era where everyone is buying giant trucks and SUVs anyway, that they drive with a single occupant to the supermarket to pick up a sandwich.
I'm a programmer, not an engine guy. From the description in the article, they do one intake stroke, two pairs of compression-power strokes, followed by an exhaust stroke.
Also, it seems the initial compression-power strokes are done with the piston moving lower, ie both lower top dead center and bottom dead center, hence would have lower compression, and the second moving higher so with higher compression.
From my understanding of more fuel means less compression is tolerated before knocking[1], and vice versa.
So do I understand it correctly that their idea then to make the first power stroke rather rich with lower compression ratio to eliminate knock, and the second at a higher compression ratio to burn the remaining unburnt fuel? Or the other way around, ie lean with high compression first?
If so, it seems like an evolution of variable compression ratio engines[2].
edit: my morning-brain is having issues with thinking about how air-fuel ratio change in rich-burning vs lean-burning scenarios. So perhaps they aim for a good stoichiometric ratio and rely on the exhaust gasses to avoid knock when increasing compression the second time around?
>more fuel means less compression is tolerated before knocking
Generally, no.
Knocking happens from pre-detonation, that's usually caused by heat from compression causing the fuel/air mix to ignite before it's triggered by spark.
To avoid this engines will run a fuel/air mix that is not stoicheometrically ideal, to make the mixture less likely to ignite early.
It is safer to run a fuel rich mix than to run a fuel lean mix as it keeps combustion chamber pressures low (unburned fuel takes heat out of the exhaust). It is more economical and more ecologically friendly to run fuel lean since you paid for that unburned fuel and it's kinda gross.
In general, more fuel than ideal means more resistance to knock. But these things are complex.
EDIT: Knocking happens from pre-detonation. Knocking can also happen from predestination, like in the case of turbocharged Subarus.
>Knocking happens from pre-detonation, that's usually caused by heat from compression causing the fuel/air mix to ignite before it's triggered by spark.
No, it usually happens because the normal flamefront from the spark causes a rise in pressure that triggers compression-ignition in other parts of the cylinder. It's not solely from the compression, usually. That scenario is rare primarily because as you reduce the knock margin, you'd hit knock from what I said before you get to the state where it's so bad it ignites from compression alone.
Look at this picture; this is a typical waveform of cylinder pressure vs. crank angle. The spark happens 28 degrees before TDC, so basically the left edge of each of the graphs. As the flamefront consumes the air-fuel mixture inside the cylinder after the spark, the cylinder pressure gradually rises. During knock events, the cylinder pressure as risen by the normal combustion process gets to a point where it starts igniting the fuel elsewhere in the cylinder, away from the gradually expanding flamefront. This causes rapid combustion which causes the pressure to rise suddenly, which causes damage to the engine (if severe enough)
Ah yes, read that engine knock article the wrong way around, guess my mind was drawing on intuition from things like gun powder where more stuff crammed more tightly together is worse.
So then, if they're doing a non-ideal initial burn it would have to be a lean lower-compression burn, followed up by a higher-compression secondary burn?
Pretty sure it's just a way to get more expansion from the same air charge.
It's a similar idea to the Atkinson cycle. You have dissimilar compression and expansion strokes. In normal engines, there's a limit to compression ratio because if it's too high, it causes knocking. But a bigger expansion ratio lets you extract more energy out of the combusted gas, which leads to higher efficiency.
The original Atkinson cycle idea was to use some complex linkage to get dissimilar compression and expansion strokes, but the way it's implemented in things like the Prius is to have a high compression engine, but mess with the intake valve timing such that you only use a small part of that compression during the intake phase so you effectively handicap your compression ratio to avoid knock, while still retaining the full stroke during the expansion phase.
I am sure that I don't understand the specifics of what Porsche is doing, but the article says the cycle is intake-compression-power-compression-power-exhaust. For that to be the case they have to be burning the same fuel and air mixture twice, and I don't understand the chemistry there enough to even speculate how it works.
I think it's safe to assume that the second stroke is burning incomplete combustion products left over from the first stroke. I think that the second compression stroke would have to be higher compression than the first in order to get more complete combustion of what's left behind.
That actually makes a lot of sense merging with some comments from above.
Second stroke goes lower and there are some ports to add air which are not accessed during the initial compression stroke...so the stroke is longer (higher compression) and more air is added to help with the reburn.
Kinda sounds like combining the idea of the Miller cycle with a variable compression/stroke setup (see Nissan).
There are a lot of ideas out there that create gains individually...glad to see them being combined more and more in modern engines. (ex. VRIS, VVT, DFI,)
I personally think there is still another few decades of playing around with ICE to be done...not sure it will be viable for the market...but the research will lead to a lot more interesting engineering.
Ah, extra ports, that makes a lot more sense. I had missed that detail.
So the first phase is like a regular 4-stroke engine, and the second phase is more like 2-stroke engine, where extra air (and possibly fuel) is introduced into the cylinder, like a 2-stroke, through ports located below the position of the piston during the bottom dead center of the first phase.
So I guess you have something like intake (high), compression (high), power (high->low), compression (low), exhaust (low->high), where in parenthesis is the adjustable piston height?
So a richer higher-compression first phase, followed by a leaner lower-compression second phase?
Finally got time to read a bit of the patent, which talks about two TDCs and BDCs, which I'll denote as "high" and "low", as related to the distance of the piston to the crankshaft. So the high TDC has maximum compression, and low BDC has the maximum cylinder volume, and the scavenging port(s) are between high BDC and low BDC.
Unless I screwed up my notation shift, the strokes from the patent are as follows:
1. Intake (low TDC -> high BDC)
2. Compression (high BDC -> high TDC)
3. Power (high TDC -> low BDC)
4. Compression (low BDC -> high TDC)
5. Power (high TDC -> high BDC)
6. Exhaust (high BDC -> low BDC)
So during the first power stroke, stroke 3, the cylinder moves from "high" to "low" and thus is the longer power stroke. Also during the second compression stroke, stroke 4, the cylinder position moves from "low" to "high". So technically leading to higher compression ratio. I was thinking it would cost too much energy to do so, hence dismissed that alternative, but I guess not.
The patent also notes that the extra scavenging ports are not needed, fresh air-fuel mixture can be introduced via the inlet valve(s) while the piston moves between the two BDCs.
Would be fun to try to simulate it in Ange's engine simulator[1].
I would imagine that pulling the air from the bottom would help more with scavenging the cylinder than the top but yeah...I can imagine it wouldn't matter.
That all makes sense. Pretty much what I assumed. The compression stroke at #4 is the longest stroke. Then it also has the benefit of the Power stroke at #5 being shorter which will mean it will have the benefit of a short(er) stroke motor on the power (more torque?) during that cycle.
The shorter stroke on #1 is desirable since you are using boost (I am assuming Miller cycle here) to control the beginning of compression as opposed to the intake valve.
Once the mechanical timing is down I assume it isn't too bad to keep all in line though...but a mess if it gets out.
I suspect the second stroke is higher compression. First stroke has the compression "shape" controlled by the boost (miller cycle).
With direct injection they could even be injecting more fuel into the cylinder for the second stroke...but I suspect the second stroke F/A ratio is determined by the first stroke remnants combined with the extra air allowed in at the bottom of the second stroke.
All of this with the cam variators, timing control, boost control and fuel setup that VW already runs would be fairly easy to control with the proper sensors and code.
Just speculating at this point...but it makes sense to me.
Heh all along I'm wondering, what kind of thermodynamic cycle is it? By six strokes, does it mean there are actually distinct new phases to the PV graphs compared to Atkinson/Carnot/Miller?
Or is it just masquerading a well-known cycle underneath six strokes, only some parts are being optimised?
Seems to be like it is a Miller cycle (or could be) on the initial 4 strokes. Which would allow you to control the timing of the "Compression max point" in the stroke by varying the boost. That may also vary the amount of spent fuel remaining for the second "scavenge" stroke...which if I am reading comments above correctly it pulls air from ports lower in the cylinder which would help clear the cylinder for the next 4 stroke cycle.
Seems to me more focused on reburning/scavenging to make a "cleaner" burn than anything else though.
*Not an engineer...just a shadetree mechanic who reads too deep into engine papers.
I always wonder about premises in cases like this. a pair of compression-power cycles is a nice way to question the usual. has anyone gone through all the features of a conventional engine and asked: what if there's an alternative?
for instance, what if we're just interested in range-extension? can we transform the motion created by combustion into electrical power in a clever way? cylinder-solenoid coils?
are poppet valves so great? suppose we have some other mechanism to create the motion (solenoids?) or rotating valves? something electromagnetic appeals because it gives complete control over timing (rather than a crankshaft).
rotary engines are appealing, for the same contrarian reasons. but they seem to either have practical problems (wankel) or don't seem to be making it to market (peanut-shaped rotors, etc).
if 6 cycles makes sense (presumably in combustion physics), does it make any sense to burn in one chamber, then move those products to another chamber for some further (potentially different) cycle?
would it help if you could ignite from more than a single place? multiple plugs sounds like a bit of a pain, but could you generate an annular spark? would you want to control the location-timing of the combustion front? does rotating-detonation have any meaning in this context?
are there ways to reconsider the materials engineering of engines? make them dramatically cheaper, lighter? one of the best EV arguments is simplicity, but how much of current IC engineering is based on assumptions that can be broken?
According to that Wikipedia article, the modern Atkinson cycle trades time spent creating power in the compression phase for time spent extracting energy during the expansion phase, gaining efficiency at the cost of total power.
Other than the potential energy of either the heat or the compressed gas, what "power" is created in the compression phase of a normal four stroke ICE?
Pumping losses are greater in a Otto cycle engine due to the increased resistance in compressing the whole stroke. In an Atkinson-cycle you get a longer power stoke than compression stroke and thus are more efficient. There is always another cylinder that get does i take during the short time when valve is open during compression in another cylinder. Thus that cylinder get some free assistance during intake.
> for instance, what if we're just interested in range-extension? can we transform the motion created by combustion into electrical power in a clever way?
A recuperated Brayton cycle operating at a fixed RPM could be competitive with existing approaches. It is also mechanically feasible to produce engines of this type with a single moving part, zero effective wear and no lubrication.
Rotating valves exist - look up "spool valves." Much like rotary engines, seal wear is the main drawback. Poppet valves also have the upside that they inherently spread air-fuel mixture out laterally.
They’ve got loads of other cool thinking outside of the box solutions. Like the Lightspeed transmission with 7 clutches, providing instant shifting between any gears and ability to slip freely between them.
Yes and no. Their 3 cylinder engine that was supposed to be in their 4 person mega car was to be the first product engine with it. That is no longer the case because rich people didn't like the idea of a 3 cylinder engine in their hybrid mega.
As a result they are only producing a V8 hybrid version. Their v8s do not use the free valve.
Since hybrids are now so popular, rethinking how a gasoline engine fits into that picture might be worth it. Question is whether the market will shift again from hybrids to full EV, and if so, when. Designing and building a new engine might cost 5 billion, without a real certainty you will earn it back.
BEVs will never take over in North America. There are too many people spread out or living in places with no hope of charging infrastructure. People are going to balk when they find out they can only charge from a 20A circuit if even that is available.
It would take a severe lack of vision to not be able to imagine that the following will -never- improve: charging infrastructure, charging technology (specifically, charging time), and BEV range
New York is mostly a semi-rural state where long distance travel in a BEV is a problem. One city where most residents don't drive doesn't mean anything.
Electrification will happen for the vast majority of people. Of course, a small minority won’t be able to make the switch right away and will have to hang on to gas. That’s fine!
Even to this day, 98% of houses have refrigerators. According to your logic, we shouldn’t allow businesses to sell refrigerated milk because of this 2%.
Know nothing about automobile engineering but somehow this feels like WordPerfect releasing a fantastic version for DOS when Windows was already capturing all the market.
I actually miss DOS. I could focus on one task for hours without being distracted by other apps trying to get my attention. There was something raw and engaging about being a few layers closer to the hardware without all the bloat. And, while I'd never go back to mechanical hard drives, you could hear the computer 'thinking'. It was more visceral.
I think it's a great analogy. It's all the little quirks and flaws that make ICE cars feel like they have a 'soul'. The more you have to engage with it, the more it feels human and machine are having a conversation. Many car enthusiasts seek out manual gearboxes (despite being slower to 60mph than a modern auto), because it's _fun_ and gives you some mechanical sympathy.
I own an EV, which is a fantastic daily, and a 911 for weekends. I've never felt like taking the EV out for no reason other than to enjoy a mountain pass. It's too heavy in the corners and too sterile.
Do you actually miss DOS or just long for the CLI? Due to the culture of the x86 ecosystem, DOS hasn't gone anywhere; and the CLI is pretty much the default UI for most UNIX like operating systems out there.
Considering that people still love vinyl, automatic watches, fountain pens and hand made notebooks, I think this will still has its niche, and more interesting designs will follow to push the internal combustion engines forward.
On the other hand of the spectrum, Hyundai Ioniq 5 N can emulate a sports car with an internal combustion engine and 8 speed sequential gearbox.
ICE aren't niche, and there isn't strong evidence that they will be. There doesn't seem to be a public Come-to-Jesus moment for electric cars on the horizon. There seems to be solid reasoning behind that reluctance. That is, it will be difficult to displace. If phasing out ICE comes down to regulations only, then the antique interface analogy doesn't fit.
>On the other hand of the spectrum, Hyundai Ioniq 5 N can emulate a sports car with an internal combustion engine and 8 speed sequential gearbox.
Sports cars are sometimes for vanity, which is a role that a Hyundai wouldn't fill. But you referenced driving characteristics. Fair enough, and so no need to talk about the vanity attraction of a future all electric Porsche. When not for vanity only, sports cars are for people who like a driving experience. Sports car culture is strongly critical of any deviation from an ideal experience even with better ICE cars. Therefore, it tends to detest "the other end of the spectrum" the most.
Sports cars are integrating electric motors, but mostly as horsepower and torque supplements for ICE. The most well regarded sports cars for the common man err toward being ultra-light weight, relatively low power, and high rpm with a manual gearbox. With the rest being as analog as possible. With incremental deviations from that ideal only as preferred for specific owner comfort. None of that criteria speaks to an appropriate / desired role for an electric motor.
>need to talk about the vanity attraction of a future all electric Porsche
Future? You can buy an all-electric Porsche Taycan since 2019 - and it’s faster than the 911.
Sports cars are fully adopting electrification, due to the huge torque numbers and high scalability. M-B and BMW of course, but also Porsche and soon to be Ferrari. It’s not just hybrids used for a boost (as in the decade past): those are full electrics.
Unfortunately, EV’s are incredibly heavy, so “faster” is scoped to straight lines. As soon as you try to wrestle the 2300kg Taycan through twisties, the 1500kg 911 gets faster. And it’s still massively overweight compared to proper sports cars (the 911 is a GT).
Kind of, but not really. It accelerates from 0 faster but that's just about it. I don't think anybody would prefer a Taycan on the track versus a 911, and if you were actually racing them, I think the 911 would win every time.
Serious [sports] car enthusiasts don't care about faster; especially not in a straight line.
I by no means fall into this category completely, but I much rather have a moderately slower car than an electric, with real engine/intake/exhaust noise that handles well on turns.
What's your point? Future or now, my point about vanity remains. I don't see any point in arguing over my use of the word "future" here.
Again, "faster" isn't the most important metric for car enthusiasts. Which is what I described in my post. I know that's disappointing to people who would like it to be in order to claim total justification for electric motors.
To say that "sports cars are fully adopting electrification" seems to want to imply that sports cars are moving mostly to full electrification. This isn't remotely true. Their customer base wouldn't stand for it.
Under-appreciated point you make: not about speed.
I own a 2014 Boxster S. 315 hp, 266 lb/ft torque, 6-speed. It is NOT the fastest car out there. In fact I own an automatic 3-series BMW that's faster in a straight line every time.
But the Boxster is under 3k pounds curb weight. It is laser-precise on the road. And it sounds glorious, especially with sport exhaust.
I'm often driving between 20-35 mph in second gear because it's the best day-to-day way to hear the engine's sounds.
Otherwise, there are people out there buying 911s/etc. because they can rather than because they care, and those people don't care that Porsche is moving sports cars to hybrid, or less interested in putting manuals in their cars.
But lots of us still want the pure sports experience.
All electric sports cars have been a thing for a while, even at the supercar level. Car enthusiasts have in fact embraced electrics. Go on youtube and look up drag race comparison races and a Model S Plaid is very frequently the one people want to beat.
Double clutched automatics have taken over h pattern manuals.
My understanding isn't out of date whatsoever. Your understanding is wishcasting.
You citing the appearance of the Model S Plaid at "youtube drag races" reflects more of your lack of understanding than my own.
The double clutch vs manual debate isn't relevant to the one under discussion. Its an interface argument that is more niched than ICE vs electric, is specialized to each particular car, and each particular use and driving preference.
> You citing the appearance of the Model S Plaid at "youtube drag races" reflects more of your lack of understanding than my own.
No it's just a simple example of how attitudes are changing. You'd expect the drag/Hoonigan crowd to be ICE diehards, but instead they've embraced electrics as interesting and worthy competition.
You asserted that the sportscar world would "detest" any change away from ICE, when clearly that's not what we're seeing.
Porsche and others are embracing all electric platforms. Even hypercar manufacturers like Koenigsegg are embracing hybrids as a transitional technology.
Then look at the cutting edge stuff like the Perry Sterling and it's obvious electric race cars have a bright future indeed. Look at the electric cars and bikes running exhibition at Pikes or Isle of Man. People in the racing world are excited about these developments.
> The double clutch vs manual debate isn't relevant to the one under discussion.
You're the one that mentioned manual gearboxes in your comment.
There's another block of folks who look at Tesla like a company who's making great software in 1994, but it only runs on Windows NT.
Yes, EVs are better in a lot of ways, but in 2024 there are severe barriers that make EVs impractical for a lot of people. Throughout most of the world, charging infrastructure just isn't good enough.
Because cities have better charging infra than rural areas, EVs are at their best as commuter cars. Ironically, there was already an alternative to commuter cars that's hypothetically even better than EVs - public transit - and it also suffers due to lack of investment in infrastructure development.
Regarding "cheapskates" - I think you have to see the EV prices in combination with typical German salaries. If a middle-class EV costs more than the yearly gross income of an average German software dev, you know there is not much room for rising sales figures. Especially figuring in the large difference between gross and net income here. Add the lacking charging infrastructure and the current decline in sales is no surprise at all.
I think it's more like every keyboard player still lusting after physical analog synths even though everyone has perfectly usable, deterministic, digitally perfect software synths for a fraction of the price (or even the amazing free version of Vital).
We are talking hobbyists not corporate office software users. ICE is boring to my monkey brain looking to be entertained/engaged even if vastly superior.
- Dyer/Crower engine = 5th stroke compresses air only, then inject cold water into the overheated cylinder and has another power stroke on 6th (from the generated steam)
- Ilmor/Schmitz = the exhaust stroke from two normal 4-stroke cylinders power the down-stroke of a 3rd larger cylinder, alternatively, then evacuates the gas on 6th up-stroke. [1]
Not to say that modern IC engines are any sort of "simple"...but there appear to be a lot more high-precision moving parts, under load, in their clever new crankshaft assembly. (Vs. traditional 4-cycle IC engines.)
Obviously, Porche's target market isn't likely to care about that.
But for possible down-market uses of this technology - are there any mechanical engineers in the house, to comment?
I drive a 24 year old Porsche and the engine already has a lot more mechanical complexity than most other engines- especially for their variable camshaft timing system. You’re right that Porsche and their target customers don’t care much. I’d say German engineering culture in general is to make things work better (when new), and not worry about complexity.
I Do Cars did a tear down of the M96 engine from a 986 Boxster S. Seeing inside of them, it makes sense how these motors cost $20K to teardown, rebuild and remedy Porsche's cost cutting in their first water cooled engine. I would own another 986 or 996 in a heartbeat. Tear down video: https://youtu.be/qrkALiq5hTU?si=0OmBKYcim-cflJEy
Thanks! I’m not sure what people expect from these engines- they’re somehow basically the most reliable car engine from that era (they regularly came out at the top of reliability ratings), while still making ~1.5x the power per displacement that was standard at the time. Things like the D chunk failure and IMS failure can happen, but most people will get a reliable 200-300k miles before they do, and the IMS can easily be prevented with a new bearing kit that is fairly cheap and easy to do. The 2.7 Boxster engine had none of the cylinder issues- that’s the Porsche to get if you want low hassle fun transportation IMO.
It’s true they’re expensive to rebuild properly but you can get used engines with a lot of life left for just a few k.
Not a ME but many modern ICE’s have tons of mechanical complexity in the valvetrain to handle varying timing and lift. From multiple valves driven by different camshafts to various ways to switch between camshafts or rotate cams, this stuff gets crazy.
Presumably Porsche’s design still has all of that, too.
It looks like the patent describes a weird hybrid of a conventional 4-stroke and a uniflow 2-stroke.
At the bottom of the first power stroke, the cylinder drops lower to expose scavenging ports. That both forces air in (at the bottom of the cylinder) and helps push exhaust out (through conventional exhaust valves).
Uniflow 2-strokes tend to have high thermal efficiency, but poor emissions, especially particulates. So the idea here might be to gain some efficiency without another emissions-gate.
It says the goal is efficiency, so I assume the point is that if the first does say 80% combustion, then another cycle eeks out another 80% of 80% or whatever. (Brb, have an 8 stroke engine to patent.)
When Porsche says efficiency they mean making more power, not using less fuel. Porsche has a long track record of adopting efficiency tech and using them to make fast cars that still use a ton of fuel.
I'm not sure if that's supposed to be a correction, but if so I don't understand. The description of the two new strokes is as an addition to the normal four, one of which is the fuel intake, I was not assuming that decreases in quantity or anything. It could do, it's just orthogonal to the point - if you don't entirely combust whatever amount you inject in the first ignition , then the idea here aiui is to compress & ignite again to, yes, get some more 'power' out of it.
A recent example of what (I think) the parent is saying, is the new 911 GTS which is now a T-Hybrid [0] engine. But the electric motor doesn't give it better gas mileage than its predecessor, it is just used to eliminate turbo lag which allows them to use a bigger turbo, giving it more horsepower, and using a leaner fuel mixture at full throttle to meet the latest emissions standards.
It is not a correction, but additional context. Indeed Porsche cares about efficiency- but there are different ways to then leverage that efficiency- for either a more powerful car, or a more fuel efficient car. Porsche will choose the more powerful car, because they sell sports cars, not economy cars. Also see my other reply in this thread.
Efficiency in fuel/mile.
Efficiency in Power output/liter of displacement.
But that is just my assumption.
You can have a relatively small engine and force a ton of air/fuel into it under boost and get tons of HP but it tends to lose the ability to maintain fuel economy. Tune it for fuel economy and it tends to lose power. It is very difficult to have both in the same package for many reasons. Adding mods like discussed in the article start to allow for the overlap to be wider.
Extremely simplified, when you drive a sports car, you want to maximize power (work per unit of time), period, you don’t care about fuel.
If you want to go the farthest with a full tank, you want to maximize the total work (proportionate to traveled distance) for unit of fuel.
Reality for practically all cars are between these two extremes, you want to enjoy driving, go relatively fast, and still not wasting 25 liters for traveling 100 km.
Those are correct statements that don’t answer the question I asked. You’ve explained the difference between not caring about efficiency and caring about efficiency. The article said the 6-stroke design is for “efficiency” and did not say Porsche doesn’t care about fuel and only wants to maximize power, contrary to the comment I replied to above. If an engine gives you more power with a fixed quantify of fuel, then it must also give you less fuel for a given quantity of power, right? There’s no such thing as more efficient only for power.
BTW Porsche makes consumer vehicles, not just race cars. And they make engines for other types of vehicles, not just cars. It’s ridiculous to claim that Porsche doesn’t care about fuel just because they happen to make some race cars. Nothing in the article suggests this design is for a race car, nor would it; a patent is designed to be broadly applicable and if a 6-stroke design is shown to be more efficient than a 4-stroke design for fuel-efficient consumer cars, you can bet Porsche will be happy to sell you the engines or license the design.
Porsche cares a lot about efficiency, and their cars are generally designed to be very efficient- but they use the extra efficiency to sell a more powerful car, not a more fuel efficient car.
Beyond some historical agricultural tractors, Porsche has only ever made high performance cars, they don't make general purpose "commuter" or "family" cars. Even their large SUVs like the Cayenne are very high performance vehicles.
The base model Cayenne takes almost 6 seconds to get to 60mph when floored. That’s not particularly fast, even by family SUV standards, it’s comparable to a Honda Passport, and slower than SUVs from Audi, BMW, and Ford, and quite a few others. The Cayenne is an SUV in the first place. What exactly is a publicly available SUV if not a general purpose family commuter car? One of my friends bought a Cayenne to shuttle his kids to school and soccer practice. Porsche absolutely does make a general purpose commuter/family car, and you named it.
Porsche may well care often about high performance, I’m not disputing that at all. The problem with your repeated statement is claiming they don’t care about fuel efficiency. That’s not what “efficiency” means. They absolutely can get more power out of an engine and sacrifice fuel efficiency, and some of their models do, but if the intent of the 6-stroke design is “efficiency”, then by definition they care about fuel efficiency. Whether they use that to achieve higher power, or lower fuel consumption relative to some other car is irrelevant to what is meant by efficiency. Also you’re just assuming that their 6-stroke design is intended for high performance. You might be right, but there are other possibilities you’ve ignored or haven’t thought of.
The Cayenne (and also the VW Touareg which is it based on) is an offroad exotic supercar platform from the bottom up- the handling, engineering, etc. is really unique. It is also, by now, and outdated design that is over 20 years old and not changed very much. It is also a very heavy vehicle with a suspension and chassis that can survive hard offroad racing- jumping it large distances, and landing it hard, etc. The frame, suspension, etc. - it can also tow as much as a full sized pickup truck.
You can get a base model with a smaller engine, but it is still a high performance car design from the ground up. They are also pretty small inside- not much more room than a VW Golf. Yes, (wealthy) people take their kids to school and soccer practice in them. I also take my kid to school in my Boxster... which also on paper is slower than a lot of regular Japanese passenger cars, which in practice it could easily lap on a track because it handles so much better.
To really understand the Cayenne, look at a fully equipped model with air suspension, multiple differential locks, skid plates, sway bar disconnects, and a twin turbo V8 - and look at what people on YouTube do with them. Also look at the V10 and V12 Touareg models.
If you're into performance car driving, you will notice that a Cayenne drives nothing like those other SUVs even if the specs on paper are the same. On a track (off road or paved) with a skilled driver it will easily lap those other vehicles. Specs don't account for finely tuned weight distribution, handling, braking, steering etc. that make a Porsche a Porsche, or the fact that all of the systems (oil supply, etc.) can survive sustained high rpm high g-force track use which would destroy other cars quickly.
You are also misunderstanding my point about efficiency- obviously Porsche cares about efficiency, but they don't design or advertise their vehicles to get low fuel consumption. Efficiency factors into the overall vehicle- more powerful, more range, etc. Improved fuel efficiency is also a selling point, but not the main one.
> Improved fuel efficiency is also a selling point, but not the main one.
Great, this new claim isn’t wrong, so now we agree. ;)
The base model Cayenne can’t do any of the stuff you described, you’re talking about race-equipped cars, which isn’t what Porsche is selling at the base model. You could argue the exact same thing about almost any car manufacturer; most of them compete in track and off-road races. Subaru would be a great example- their consumer cars share design elements of their rally cars. That doesn’t mean an Outback is an exotic supercar, just like it doesn’t mean that a base Cayenne is either exotic or a supercar. In fact, it’s not. The lowest 2 Macan models are even slower than the base Cayenne. These are just “nice” cars, compared to cheaper brands of family SUV commuters, not high performance cars.
You are only seeing how it is used by people that can afford something exotic they don’t need or use and not understanding what it really is engineered for- sort of like concluding the Jeep Rubicon must be a cheap commuter car because they are popular as rentals in vacation destinations where nobody goes offroad. Or seeing urban people wearing arcteryx hardshells as raincoats, and not realizing they really are functional mountaineering gear.
You need to look deeper than the specs at the design and driving characteristics to understand what it is capable of. What makes a Porsche a Porsche is not a low 0-60 time. I have torn down and rebuilt every system on the vehicles, and used them in some of the most extreme conditions on the planet- deep water fording, hundreds of miles unsupported in unpopulated desert, etc. The triple door seal waterproofing and gearbox ventilation systems for deep water fording are alone really unique. You can drive a 20 year old Cayenne deep with water to the top of the grill all day long and not a drop will leak into anything.
A stock even base model Cayenne is one of the few “off road supercars” ever designed and built- and is capable of such things with just the right tires. Of course, some of the rarer factory options radically improve the vehicles capabilities.
I was talking about factory Cayenne options, not race modifications- but the basic design of the vehicle is also really unique to enable those capabilities. For example- other unibody SUVs are mostly on car based platforms, the Cayenne was engineered from the ground up to survive heavy off road use. It is one of the unusual creations of Ferdinand Piech- look up the other vehicles he was responsible for…
The Cayenne’s max wading depth is just shy of 20 inches, about the same as Subaru Forester.
I can find some evidence that people called the Cayenne Turbo GT a hypercar, but nobody calls the base model a supercar. Know why? It doesn’t have the engine. You completely dismissed the small family commuter engine. The engine is the primary thing that makes a high performance car high performance, and base Cayenne simply does not have a high performance engine. And so far you’ve ignored the Macan entirely. These base models don’t have the suspension or brakes or other components for good off-roading. People seem to prefer the Turbo with off-road suspension, better brakes, off road tires, and many other upgrades that together more than double the price compared to a base Cayenne.
It’s true that Porsche makes a supercar, like the 911 GT3, but the base Cayenne and Macan models are just widely considered luxury SUVs and nothing more. Maybe Porsche doesn’t make very many family commuter cars, but they do make a few (that happen to sell well because they’re cheaper than sports cars.)
The fording depth thing really makes my point so I am just going to focus on that. You can't really appreciate the Cayenne design unless you are a person that uses the vehicle in a way that pushes its limits- and have firsthand experience that other vehicles will fail in those same conditions.
The specs vary a bit, but a 957 for example has a steel spring fording depth of 500mm (19.68") and air suspension depth of 555mm (21.85"). Those specs don't really tell the story though.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I pulled up the 2024 Forester owners manual- and it has no factory fording depth- and says to never drive through standing water of any depth, whereas the Cayenne manual has detailed specs on depth under different configurations, and even factory instructional videos on fording technique. Few vehicles explicitly have a factory fording rating depth, and if they do it will be well below the actual physical limits to give a margin of safety.
But looking at the specs ignores the massive engineering differences that make the Cayenne extremely good at fording:
-Triple door seals on all of the doors
-Air tight cabin with continuous positive pressure inside (although personally I keep windows down when fording)
-The differentials, gearbox, etc. are all vented way high up on the vehicle with hoses, through ventilation boxes that pass only air pressure and not water
-The engine intake is mounted at the top front of the engine bay behind the grille, with baffles that allow it to keep water out if moving at the right speed, even if you are much deeper than the intake depth with a bow wave over the hood
-Every electrical connector is completely waterproof and submersible
I was once stuck in deep wet mud half way up the doors in one of these vehicles, and it sat there for ~2 hours before I successfully recovered it, and there was no water in the transmission differential, through the door seals, etc. - something that essentially no other factory vehicle could do, even other expensive offroad vehicles.
Moreover, I have crossed some really deep river crossings- such as the Mojave river in the spring after heavy rains. This was much deeper than the factory rating but just below the air intake level, where lifted jeeps were getting flooded and stranded, and it made it through without drowning. There was a drowned Jeep right next to where I entered, that was waiting for an expensive offroad recovery. I was in a completely stock base model steel spring vehicle, with only all terrain tires added.
Look up "Otis"- a stock Cayenne owned by a friend of mine that has driven it 150,000 miles almost entirely offroad, through some of the most challenging overlanding routes in North America. It is not a high end model, and is unmodified other than tires and a slightly better skid plate.
In both of those the water is probably some 35" deep based on going well over the top of the tires.
Now consider that all of this is on a vehicle which also handles like a sports car, and can make good lap times on a race track totally stock- two totally competing engineering goals. It is not the powerful engine options alone that makes it a supercar, but attention to detail for specific engineering goals - to reliably do things other vehicles cannot - from the bottom up. A regular car with a powerful engine is still not a supercar. The Lamborghini Urus and Bentley Bentayga are also both essentially a Cayenne.
Well alright, I believe you that the design and build is superior, and you have more experience with Cayenne than I do. My main datapoint is my buddy who shuttled kids and complained his Cayenne was breaking down a lot and in the shop too often. But if the thing is generally as high end and robust as you say compared to other cars, then the base model sounds like a good deal even at $84k. Maybe I’ll get one someday. ;) I appreciate the links and stats and details.
Porsche cares a lot about efficiency, because with higher efficiency they can make more power. They are a sports car company, and ultimately are building high performance vehicles. That is in contrast to other less performance focused car companies, which would use efficiency gains to allow them to use a smaller engine- thereby making it both more fuel efficient and cheaper/lighter, but not faster.
The Porsche 918 Spyder for example is a plug in hybrid supercar, which uses the hybrid system together with a massive gasoline engine- to make it really really fast.
Porsche can get more power without higher efficiency. That they’re choosing efficiency means they’re looking for higher power with lower fuel consumption. How they choose to use that efficiency is their business, I’m just pointing out that they do, in fact, care about fuel consumption, and claiming otherwise just because they sell high performance cars, is incorrect.
Might also be possible to inject water into the compressed exhaust gasses. The water evaporates and creates the second power stroke, while lowering the temperature of the exhaust gasses. There's quite a lot of energy left in the exhaust gasses otherwise.
This is not a new idea but it creates mechanical complexity and higher requirements on the materials of the piston and cylinder.
You can overfill the cylinder for the first stroke, because the unspent fuel will burn on the next cycle instead of being exhausted.
High power engines exhaust a lot of unburned fuel, because you can't guarantee an exact 100% fill for the cylinder, and there's more power to be had at 120% fill than 80% fill. Oversimplified of course.
> To do this, Porsche's patent shows a crankshaft spinning on a ring with two concentric circles—an annulus. ... this engine has two top and bottom dead centers.
Instead of doing this complicated crankshaft, I wonder if you could do this with opposed pistons. The difference between the two top dead centers (and bottom dead centers) is small, so the secondary piston wouldn't have to move far to create the same change in volume.
I can see some advantages and disadvantages. The crankshaft gets simpler, but you need to move the secondary piston somehow, presumably off the camshaft? Which sounds pretty rough on the timing chain. Also, it would have to go where the valves currently are. And another piston ring to wear out.
On the other hand, the crankshaft gets simpler, and it's a critical component since it's transmitting all the engine power. Also, with the opposing piston, you could use a cam to get greater control of exactly when the volume changes happen.
2-strokes opposed pistons engine already has a phase shift between bottom and top crankshaft for spooling purpose. Controlling the position of the top crankshaft relative to the bottom crankshaft seems doable.
I'm sure one day we will look back and laugh about how we used to install actual mobile power plants in our cars. But as of today, they are still objectively better on many criteria.
It personally strikes me as a little humorous, particularly from the perspective of a human in (say) 2150. But, not in a mean spirited way. Of course, much respect for the pioneers of the ICE engine and on-going improvements today.
I thought the nuclear powered aircraft concepts were very cool. None every flew though (as far as we know). Russia claims to have a nuclear powered missile.
If I remember correctly the engine in the Mazda Millenia was a Miller cycle engine and did something unconventional like this. Props to Mazda for trying new stuff.
Miller cycle (IIRC) was a bit different. It simply kept the intake valves open longer and used boost from it's supercharger to emulate a valve "closing".
It used a boost level that was significantly higher than a supercharged Otto cycle would use.
Volkswagen is doing something similar with the EA888.3B (B cycle) motor that is in the most recent Tiguans. https://www.motortrend.com/features/inside-volkswagen-ea888-...
This six stroke is doing something a bit more complex...more impressive, IMHO.
Similar in complexity to what Nissan is doing with their variable compression engine they are currently using https://www.nissan-global.com/EN/INNOVATION/TECHNOLOGY/ARCHI...
There was also a 6 stroke diesel a while back that injected water into the empty cylinder after the exhaust stroke to gain an extra compression stroke from waste heat...Bruce Crower (Crower Cams fame) built one years ago but I never heard anything more about it. https://www.autoweek.com/news/a2063201/inside-bruce-crowers-...
Note that the motortrend link you give says that the Miller cycle "closes the intake valves much earlier." I'm just reading about this for the first time, but this is exactly the opposite of the description on Wikipedia [0], and from a quick glance at the patent Wikipedia is correct, and motortrend is exactly wrong here.
Mazda has marketed half a dozen weird engines, all of which were crap. It has been a remarkable streak of stubborn, unwanted innovation from such a small carmaker.
There was quite an overlap between the use of bows and guns. Bows were reliable, accurate, quiet, would work in the rain and reloaded quickly. Guns took a long time to exceed them.
I think there is still quite a bit of time left for internal combustion engines.
Long distance is a big one, as is racing. Fuel is lightweight and can still be added quickly.
It's all in a weird state. Tweaking ICE engines was a fun hobby with lots of 'consume' products to dream about. Electric just out of the box stomps ICE, but not in the same 'acquiring things and putting together a puzzle' type way that feeds our monkey brains.
That said Porsche is dead and the super wide Audi's pretending to be Porsches just because they have a Porsche skin are lame.
I think many of people here live in US and assume that it everywhere things look similar.
in my European country electric infrastructure is not ready for electric cars and with current energy prices this makes no financial sense.
I own plug in hybrid and I live in apartment meaning I have no possibility to charge at home.
near me (about 10 min of walking there is public single phase allow charger with 2 plugs machine maxing 3.5kW total (for both)) and if I'm lucky I manage to find free slot one a week, but usually that's one every two weeks. This is only "free" charger in reasonable distance from me, and free means that I can use it when I have ticket for public transportation with I need to have anyways.
there are some normal chargers, but they cost 2x for slow charging or 3x for fast charging than energy prices here + you have to pay per minute of taking parking spot.
in summary when I calculated how much does it cost $/km it is very similar to gasoline but it's much trickier to recharge.
I would love to own fully electric but without also owning house with solar this makes no sense right now.
> in my European country electric infrastructure is not ready for electric cars and with current energy prices this makes no financial sense.
I’m always amazed by statements like this. People who have lived through the rollout of the internet to the masses can’t see how we’d modify existing structure to accommodate needs. We had phone lines initially, 20 years later now we have 5G, fibre, satellites.
They just dug up every street in my European town to put fibre internet in. We already had broadband in the town. They dug up every street to give us fibre that most people won’t even need over their existing connection. People look at this and say “how will we charge electric cars” when we are already surrounded by electricity.
Not even that: We have managed to extract some dense and flammable black oil hundreds of meters deep under the ocean soil, transport it thousands of km again to remote countries where it is processed and again transported and distributed daily to many storage locations where any layman can again transfer it to their own vehicles. That is a feat.
Electricity infrastructure already exists everywhere where we have civilization. And production is usually just hundreds or less km away. For lots of people it even happens at their own home.
The average amount of km every European drives is around 40km. For a standard EV that is around 7,2 kWh of energy per day, which can be charged in 2-3 hours from a normal 240V Schuko plug at home.
If there’s no option to charge at home, a weekly load on newer EVs with around 500km range would be more than enough, taking around 3-4 hours on standard 22kW chargers or less than 2 hours in a DC 50kW chargers.
EVs are a real option for lots of people. Main blocker for most of people according to most statistics is lack of knowledge on how to operate, and as a consequence fear of the unknown.
That would be fine for second car. I need form time to time visit family that is about 270km one way mosty on a highway
The 500km mark is calculated in ideal conditions, flat street at 60km/h or something like that in more realistic highway conditions it's about 300km
That's why plugins have so much sense even when they cost about the same that EV would. I can drive fully electric on everyday short distances (my car is rated for 33km of electric range, but I'm able to squeeze about 40 by careful eco driving)
That usually covers my city driving and at the same time I have 700-1000km backup of ICE/hybrid range
In my observation hybrid approach have about 30% better fuel efficiency than pure petrol.
I agree that having 22kW charger nearby that is affordable could solve all of that. But for many people that is not the case and if so they are so expensive.
In my case petrol costs me about $0.12/km and electric from supercharger would be $0.14/km (assuming 19kW/100km). Why would I want to switch to more expensive car to pay more per driven distance?
Of course everything changes when you have solar installation and you have basically free electricity (of course I omit here installation cost that would make if free after about 10years or so) then driving basically everyday for free and paying for fast charging few times a year when doing very long distance trip makes is fine.
But again, not everyone can have solar installation.
I have high hopes for new sodium batteries, give them 2 more generations and we could afford ev cars with 1000km of range in cars less expensive than ice and that would be very compelling.
500km range cars are still stupidly expensive right now, and the fact that paid chargers are quite expensive compared to home charging remains. This may change in the future, but we live in the present.
People aren't that stupid as you think, you are just ignorant. EV preachers take the easy route and ignore issues which are inconvenient to them, or focus only on home charging.
The average price of a new car sold in Germany for private individuals is 42.000€. Around $47,000 in USA. Prices are even higher if you include company or fleet purchases.
A RWD Model 3 and Model Y with around 500km range is even less than that right now in their available stock.
How can that be stupidly expensive if it’s even below average price?
Street chargers are more expensive than home charging, that is right. However it is still cheaper than gas and diesel by 50-70% by average in mainland Europe.
You can look up facts instead of calling me ignorant.
We have two massive parallel energy transfer systems in the world. And they are massive. Consider the electrical grid for all it's behemoth costs and regulations, at least it exists and is a known monster. Doubling it is a technical challenge but not an unknown. Akin to laying fiber. On one side of the grid you could even just change how the energy is produced at a few thousand plants and have zero change on consumer side if you wanted (for a given territory the size of a USA avg state)
Now imagine we came along and said we were going to add to the electrical grid a parallel system of transporting explosive liquid to billions of distributed combustion engines. Not only that, the explosive liquid is only available in a few politically charged areas in the world. Add all the tankers refineries pipes truck lines holding tanks pumps etc so that most people live at most a few miles from a holding tank that will distribute hundreds of gallons to them for their own micro power plant that only exists for their commute.
It seems crazy. We built both systems incrementally over time so we're in a massive sunk cost analysis whenever we think about replacing gas cars.
In addition to electricity and gasoline, there's also natural gas, which is shipped around in giant tankers and via pipelines, and then piped into homes to be used for heating and cooling in many places. Also for systems we transfer energy around on Earth, consider the infrastructure used to ship coal all around the world, on trains and ships.
Naturally, the infrastructure arises when the demand is there. But nobody was ever hesitant to buy a 4G-only phone for fear of insufficient 4G service because every 4G phone also worked on 3G.
The same is not true of electric cars. People have real mileage anxiety because they can’t use petrol when a charger isn’t available
The big question is not whether the infrastructure will be built, but whether it will owned by rent-seekers who charge everyone without their own driveway a massive premium to charge their vehicles.
You need to acknowledge that in Europe, the high price of electricity mean consumers aren't getting any discounts in money/distance ($/mile being inappropriate in the EU), if not being charged more to charge an electric vehicle over an ICE vehicle.
Saving the environment is nobel, but affording it is another thing.
If price hikes in the US continue, there are places in the US where that may soon be the case, too. Then we're screwed. Thankfully hybrids aren't going anywhere. They may be more complicated, but they have the most critical feature, regenerative braking. instead of shedding the energy spent slowing down as pollution and heat, it gets saved and is used to move the vehicle later.
I can’t acknowledge anything without numbers to compare. In the UK some suppliers give cheaper rates at night (1/4 the rate). Is that not the case elsewhere? What is the cost per mile in Europe vs ICE?
Transferring so much electricity to everywhere in an efficient way is more expensive and harder though, not counting electricity generation, only partially clean, noy enough, very expensive.
There is a reason that I pay 7p/kWh (3p/mile) to charge at night compared to 30p/kWh during the day. There is already spare capacity at night. In my country it’s mostly wind.
No, but even if it was demand would still be lower than 2002:
> The highest peak electricity demand in the UK in recent years was 62GW in 2002. Since then, the nation’s peak demand has fallen by roughly 16% due to improvements in energy efficiency.
> Even if we all switched to EVs overnight, we estimate demand would only increase by around 10%. So we’d still be using less power as a nation than we did in 2002, and this is well within the range the grid can capably handle.
If I may disagree: I live in a flat with a fully electric vehicle. It's just a matter of planning around charging a bit. Once you think ahead (and it's not dramatic), you don't notice anymore.
I find plug in hybrids make no sense: electrification is the future.
I would really hate having to keep going out to move my car to a charger, then go out again to move it back to another parking spot when it's done (usually you pay a fine if you keep it at the charger). It's just so much work and it means I can't sit down and relax. And parking spaces in my area are extremely limited at night so every time I move I'd have to worry about finding one again (and a free charger too obviously which also seem to be extremely rare, I just know of one about 1km away)
For me a car is about convenience and having to worry about it and going out and doing things with it when I'm not even using it is the opposite of convenient. It should just be there and ready when I need it and forgotten when I don't. And it should be as cheap and low-maintenance as possible. If every parking space had a charger and I could just plug it in and forget about it when I park it, it'd be acceptable (in fact better than an ICE because at times I also had to remember to refuel it for an early trip). What adds to this also is that I don't really have a 'routine', my life is really ad-hoc.
So for me it would be a huge dealbreaker to have an EV until chargers are everywhere. But right now I have the perfect solution anyway which is not even having or needing a car at all :) My city has amazing public transport and 20 euros gets me an unlimited monthly travel pass. I don't even like spending money on cars, and when I did still own one it was usually a 1500-2000 euro old banger meaning that EVs are out of my price range anyway (even used ones will never be that cheap).
Really, just a bit of “planning around charging”? The less predictable your life is the less this is an option. The most extreme example of this is Hertz having to walk away from billions invested in 100,000 Teslas. Short term renters simply don’t tolerate the uncertainties that EVs bring.
So spend on that infrastructure instead, or mandate it. Honestly, spending resources on anything ICEs (outside of special industries) in this day and age is just wrong.
What are you looking for? Typically when people say sports car they mean high-torque (and thereby acceleration)... which ... you will not get an ICE motor that gives you similar performance to an electric drive
I am also an environmentalist and burn some fuel from time to time, I’m not a zealot.
For me to operate and support the environment the best I can I also need to be mentally fit and have life enjoinment. And riding my old classic carbureted Triumph helps me with that.
According to my dictionary an environmentalist is "a person who is interested in or studies the environment and who tries to protect it from being damaged by human activities".
I can't see how buying a Porsche (or any car really) is compatible with that.
That's a bit like saying, I'm pro athlete (or even just very health conscious), but going out for a night out with my friends to a fast food joint is not compatible with that.
Where do you draw the line then? If I spend the week jetting across the Atlantic but then take a reusable bag to the supermarket am I an environmentalist?
I'll note I've seen people struggling across the supermarket carpark to avoid buying a plastic bag only to get in a giant SUV. It's a form of moral licensing[1], there is a huge amount of dissonance around environmental issues.
I'll agree on that example. But that's different to what's been discussed in this thread.
A sports car, used fairly sparingly for fun, and not a daily driver - is different to the horrible trend of daily driving done via ugly, honkingly big SUV's.
There's a line somewhere out there that enables humanity to have fun and not destroy the planet ... probably related to the 80/20 rule.
Fortunately the definition of wrong is very personal. We still have at least 40-50 years of ICE vehicles running on the Earth. Making them even more efficient and cheap is a valuable feat for many millions.
I like to compare this to SSD vs HDD.
Why even invest in HDD development when SSDs are so much better?
Right now almost all consumers use SSDs because they are affordable for space most people need.
And I remember how we were transitioning where I bought 128gb drive for cost of 4TB HDD to have super snappy system and I had to manage system much more to not burn writes too quickly (ram drives for logs and temp etc)
That where I believe we are right now with EVs. But they are more affordable and have better range every year.
But to go further with this comparison we still develop new generations of HDDs even after all that time, even when everyone believe that at some point in the future we will abandon that technology completely
> I think many of people here live in US and assume that it everywhere things look similar.
Most of the US is in the same boat as you. Where I live, there is nowhere to charge and there are fairly great distances between things. You rarely ever see electric cars here, because they are only useful for people who have invested quite a bit in their house to build a charging station.
The people here on hn that have the attitude you mention, are people who live in large populated regions, especially congregated around the coasts.
I'm all for electrifying, and I think it is very necessary, but people do love to put the cart way in front of the horse.
My condo (sort of) put chargers for every parking spot and garage in the whole "complex". Wasn't that expensive and raises the value of the units more than the cost per charger.
Presumably as Porsche is not about efficient transportation; it is about emotion, driving as an experience, making a statement, etc.
Chances are there will be - or, at least, Porsche appears to bet there will be - a sufficient number of well-heeled enthusiasts who prefer the sound, smell and vibration of an ICE to the quiet performance of an electric motor.
I am really curious to see how this pans out in a generation or two - I suspect nostalgia plays a significant role in the 'performance cars should have ICEs' mindset, so what happens when the generation who grew up on EVs enter middle age and have the disposable income for a performance car?
As for the rest of us, if, say, 1 in 1000 cars in a couple of decades' time burns fossil fuels, it is hardly going to be a nuisance. I'd be more worried (If I owned an ICE-powered vehicle) about the infrastructure needed to get the fossil fuels I needed in the tank.
(Glancing anxiously over at my 1949 S1 Land Rover (1.6l I4 petrol) and 1981 Land Cruiser 42 (3.4l I4 diesel) - neither of which are performance cars by any stretch of the imagination! The 3B engine in the Land Cruiser will merrily chug along on just about anything vaguely combustible you pour in the tank, though.)
If you're into that exotic hobby long after ICE cars are obsolete, you'll need to purchase synthetic fuel for it or purchase the equivalent amount of CO2 direct air capture. Sounds okay to me.
Oh, they will be, no worries - doubly so as the fuel they need goes from being a necessary evil of civilization to a niche product for enthusiasts.
There's going to be along tail of ICE vehicles out there, though - say, I have a tractor on my farm (which is not being worked commercially, it is basically an expensive and time-consuming hobby seeing as my wife's family has tilled this plot of land since the dark ages. Literally.)
Anyway, even if diesel prices soar to $25/l (That's $100/gal for the metrically challenged), with our current usage, it will still be cheaper to buy diesel at that cost than to invest in a new, EV tractor. Hence I can't see that tractor going anywhere anytime soon.
Because it’s a dead-end tech that’s holding us back and destroying the place where we all live. If you insist on pursuing it for your own pleasure, knowing what we all know now, you may be a villain.
but the grandparent poster's problem isn't with ICE itself, but with "emotion, driving as an experience" etc.
In other words, the grandparent poster's argument is merely that people shouldn't be basing decisions on their (flawed) emotional attachment to driving as an experience, and would like such to be shamed and vilified.
This is a moralistic argument. It has nothing to do with environmentalism, but is using climate change as a platform to push a personal agenda or world view. In other words, it's a woke argument.
It’s amazing how much the luxury car industry has advertised what is essentially a shaking and noise complement to going fast.
The “smooth” revs. The “visceral” feel. The “connection” to the road. It’s just a few metal cylinders going up and down real fast, tuned to sound nice in a packaged product.
It’s like brainwashing. Impressive really. I like going to the track when I can, but that’s a bit different. The statement is the work you’ve put into your car, not how “exclusive” your statement is.
A tax can help common infrastructures (building road) or limit something (cigarettes price)
Some people think the ICE car tax(es) already in place are not sufficient compared to the damage they cause. To reduce usage, both tax and public opinion (shaming, vilifying) works great.
It’s regrettable the efforts only focus on a car motors, the most dangerous property of a car is it’s weight (and emissions depends on that weight).
Vilifying things doesn't accomplish anything because the negative opinion becomes a cultural split. People don't care about the hatred of their out-group and lots of people will seek it out to burnish their status with the in-group.
Or maybe you're not particularly interested in cars or the people who are interested in cars and you can't tell the difference / assume all of "those" people are the same,
I actually am - mostly the engineering part of them though and to me, to paraphrase a prominent local motoring journalist, motoring is dead - EVs are a transition propulsion method and the end state is no motoring as we currently understand it and maintaining a car broadly considered lame.
The only people I've met who are car enthusiasts and don't go for the reckless/loud style of driving are people like my friend - a car mechanic who managed to form a single, road worthy Nissan Z31 from two defunct halves.
Your proposals are a bit contradictory. If you heavily tax something, it becomes a money source for the government; does it then make sense to try to extinguish said activity through artificial social aversion? Also, whatever is vilified by the government, but stays legal or at least feasible, will act as a magnet for the counterculture.
If you really hate something, just propose an outright ban. It would work for Porsches; no one can secretly grow a Porsche in his backyard.
i’m not particularly supportive of people who think fun needs to be vilified and taxed out of existence. it just so happens that this mindset is common among europeans who will never be able to afford a nice vehicle
I was at a local track in my older bmw (non M), a Tesla 3 (on lowered springs) was next to me in the grid. It did not compete with the corvettes or Porsches but with the Miatas and Me, it just weighed too much in the turns to carry the speed.
Since paintings are mostly made by someone they are under income tax which is at least in my country the highest percentage of all taxes. Plus VAT like everything else. A painter this easily pays 60% tax on what you have to pay
Ah yes we should all live in a gray bloc working in a gray factory until the end of time
Vilifying a d taxing any luxury not only is a ludicrous position, it will only make inequality worse. Its not like the 0.1% will renoujce to it, and taxes don't matter to them.
Which ICE performance car? I went from an SRT8 back in 2012 to a Tesla Model 3 performance + mods and now most recently went back to ICE via an AMG GT63. I can confidently say that the GT63 is leagues more fun than the Tesla ever was. Sure the Tesla was quick off the line, but outside of that it felt sterile and the ride was quite uninspired.
Model 3's didn't exist in 2012. Did you mean something else? I've driven an M3P for 5 years, and I wouldn't call it sterile.
I haven't been cross shopping it with vehicles that cost 3x as much and get only 15% of the mileage, so maybe I'm missing something? But weighing 10% more and taking 20% longer to reach 60 doesn't seem particularly compelling.
If it's the only car you've driven for five years of course it doesn't feel sterile, it's a wonderful car, and nothing against it, but it is not a fun car / "enthusiast" car insofar as enthusiast refers to the thin slice of all automotive enthusiasts that are primarily interested in handling that is dynamic and communicative
-True, but I believe (at least this holds true for me) - the tinkerability, if you like, of ICEs is much higher. You can work on them at home, install all sorts of modifications and upgrades - real or perceived - to a much larger extent than you (currently) can on your EV.
It all depends on what makes cars interesting to you, of course - but a lot of the car enthusiast clientele would merrily start tinkering with their pride and joy even if all is well, just because they can.
The fastest EV is nothing compared to the fastest ICE.
Top fuel dragsters accelerate from 0 to 100 mph in 0.8 seconds.
I have tried fast EV and it's boring. I prefer my loud meth injected turbo diesel BMW (520 lb/ft at the wheels, pulls like a Tesla but is not boring to me)
One car being objectively faster than another does not mean that it is more fun.
And even if one vehicle is more fun in some total measure, it will not be fun in all the same ways as all other fun vehicles.
There are plenty of people who alternate between something like a modern Mercedes V8 and a classic Mini. There is no question of which one is faster, but it might be the slow one that gives the most joy of sporty driving
911 Turbos are faster than Teslas. Regardless, EVs feel like driving a washing machine. Some people are just not into that, or expect more. I’ve never been excited by any EV I sat down in, no matter how quickly they go 0-60.
I drove stick for a couple of decades. They were fun at the time (except in traffic jams), but I'm no Luddite. I can enjoy being thrown back into my seat with roller coaster acceleration without the accompaniment of vroom vroom noises, exhaust, and shifting.
The model 3 is a track car [0], literally with a tunable track mode. It weighs less than other track competitors like the M3 competition. It is fun in the bends.
Pedantry: they aren't the same horses, though: in 1915 they were mostly draft horses, with a few sport/pleasure; in 2023 they're mostly sport/pleasure, with a few draft.
I believe this has a lot to do with the failure of the Maginot line: it had been constructed to slow down an army with horse-drawn logistics (after all, germany had no oil) but the germans did their end run with mechanised units (having researched synfuels in the meantime).
From 1940 to 1943, one can readily explain Axis strategy as an insatiable quest for more oil: no barrels, no Blitz.
You seem to be using “actual” in a way that suggests proportion to population is a key part of the definition. But although a company that served a market for 20 million might well have failed as the market shrank, it also had the opportunity to survive and continue serving an actual market with an actual demand for 7 million actual horses.
ICE engines and every type of motor have a Power Curve. Many things go into the power curve including the construction, configuration, fuel and general type of motor. The power curve graphs engine power output as it relates to engine rotational speed. Every one of these different motors and transmissions out there including electric as well, have differing characteristic curves which effect the handling of the vehicle to great effect. This affects their possible applications.
Controlling the power and efficiency curves of motors is the entire story of the very well known "VTECH" Variable Valve Timing technologies, super and turbo chargers or other forced air intake, and even the way that Tesla electric motors arrange the magnets in their electric vehicle motors.
Inventing a new way to operate an ICE is good for many things. This patent looks cumbersome, and a bit complex. In my mind the long-term future of ICE for vehicles is in more specialized use cases as fossil fuels reach the long tail. Certain highly reliable, or certain types of safety prohibiting voltage or battery chemistry, types of standby vehicles, certain rugged vehicles, industrial equipment, small motors, these might be better off being petro-like. It might be better to make corn-gasoline than to stash a huge battery onto your lawnmower all year in this case.
But please do not discount: They are enjoyable.
Even during the end-of-days, we can process something like biofuels into "gasoline replacements". We can use waste vegetable oil to create biodiesel today. Small volumes are pretty easy and although we desperately must reduce fossil fuels to near zero (I dont need to have a blast gunning my Porche in bumper-to-bumper traffic, for example...) I don't see a reason why people can't still buy a motorcycle, even if we are living under sci-fi-like domed cities.
All else, people would simply make them themselves in their own garages. For Fun.
I think it’s likely we have passed the peak of R/D spend on ICE, but the momentum of research that has gone into it for decades is going to continue to produce innovations for a while longer.
The engineers are still there (where else would they go!) and with ICE development moving far out of strategic focus, there might actually be more room now for trying odd curveball approaches than back when ICE refinement was still a cornerstone of success.
ICE aren't going to go away any time soon. Battery tech has a long way to go before it can compete with the energy density of liquid dinosaurs, and if it did there are plenty of cases where ICE has major advantages over battery power. But even if say 90% of the vehicles on earth could be replaced with electric, should we really stop innovating on that last 10%?
>try to grasp the concept of deep geologic time, a talent possessed by very few people. Try to wrap your mind around the enormity of the figures: bacteria and single-celled organisms were the dominant forms of life on earth for a whopping two and a half to three billion years, a virtually incomprehensible stretch of time when measured against human civilization, which is only about 10,000 years old, and even against the reign of the dinosaurs, which lasted "only" about 165 million years. That's a lot of bacteria, a lot of time, and a lot of oil.
Electric cars still consume fossil fuels. It’s just earlier in the pipeline.
People love to talk about combustion engines being pollutants but few people talk about just how damaging it is mining for rare metals to make those batteries. Nor how harmful for the environment it is disposing of old batters (we haven’t yet solved the problem of recycling them either).
And that’s before you even touch on problems at the power grid. Eg many addresses don’t have high quality enough power infrastructure to cope with everyone switching to electric, so that would need to be upgraded. And a lot of countries still rely on fossil fuels to generate electricity to begin with.
Electric cars are likely the future. But they’re not as green as people like to think. In fact for some use cases they can actually work out both more expensive to run and less environmentally friendly once you total up their carbon footprint in full. And I think it’s going to be a long time before they become the greener option of everyone.
Whereas in the meantime, research into combustion engines can provide benefits for more than just petrol-fuelled sports cars.
> The highest peak electricity demand in the UK in recent years was 62GW in 2002. Since then, the nation’s peak demand has fallen by roughly 16% due to improvements in energy efficiency.
> Even if we all switched to EVs overnight, we estimate demand would only increase by around 10%. So we’d still be using less power as a nation than we did in 2002, and this is well within the range the grid can capably handle.
> Nevertheless, at National Grid we’re working with the distribution networks, government, the regulator and industry to provide the green energy infrastructure around Britain – the wires, the connections to charge points – to support the needs of a decarbonised transport network into the future.
> In the US, the grid is equally capable of handling more EVs on the roads – by the time 80% of the US owns an EV, this will only translate into a 10-15% increase in electricity consumption.1
> Since then, the nation’s peak demand has fallen by roughly 16% due to improvements in energy efficiency.
Energy demand in UK declining because prices went up which accelerated deindustrialisation and forced people's to use less energy e. g. heat homes less .
It will take a long, long time to move to heat pumps for heating the majority of homes. Last time I looked into it I would have to change all the pipes and radiators in my home. Same with my mums house. The savings would have to be massive to offset the disruption and cost.
> That article addresses literally just one of my claims
There are two articles in my post that address multiple points. Luckily I don’t even have to argue with you about this as ChatGPT can do it for me.
AI content below:
### Analysis of the Original Post and Response
The original post critiques the environmental benefits of electric vehicles (EVs), raising several concerns about their production, usage, and infrastructure. The response refutes many of these claims by providing evidence from reputable sources, notably *Carbon Brief* and *National Grid UK*, which seek to correct common misconceptions about EVs. Let’s analyze both the original post's claims and how the response addresses each point.
---
### Claim 1: *Electric cars still consume fossil fuels—just earlier in the pipeline*
- *Original Post's Argument*:
The claim suggests that although electric vehicles do not burn fossil fuels directly, the electricity used to charge them is often generated from fossil fuels, thus shifting pollution earlier in the supply chain.
- *Response*:
The *Carbon Brief article* acknowledges that while electricity generation still relies on fossil fuels in some countries, the grid is becoming increasingly decarbonized over time. As renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and hydroelectricity grow, the carbon footprint of charging EVs is steadily shrinking.
> "Many countries, including the UK, have rapidly decarbonised their electricity grids, meaning that electric cars are already far cleaner than petrol and diesel cars, and will get cleaner as the grid continues to decarbonise." - **Carbon Brief**
This directly counters the argument, indicating that while fossil fuels are still used, the grid is moving towards cleaner energy sources, making EVs progressively greener over time.
---
### Claim 2: *Mining for rare metals in batteries is damaging to the environment*
- *Original Post's Argument*:
The post highlights the environmental impact of mining rare metals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel, which are essential for EV batteries. It also points out the issue of disposal and recycling, suggesting that current methods for handling old batteries are inadequate.
- *Response*:
The *Carbon Brief article* acknowledges the environmental costs of mining but contextualizes it within the broader benefits of EVs. It points out that while battery production has a higher upfront environmental cost, EVs offset this over their lifetime by producing lower emissions during use compared to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.
> "The manufacturing of electric cars can indeed produce higher emissions, particularly due to the energy required to produce the battery. However, this is offset by the much lower emissions during the use of the vehicle." - **Carbon Brief**
Additionally, the article touches on battery recycling, noting that significant research is being undertaken to improve recycling technologies and reduce the environmental impact of batteries. For example, companies are exploring second-life applications for batteries and refining recycling techniques.
> "Recycling of electric vehicle batteries is improving, and the EU has introduced regulations requiring EV batteries to be recycled." - **Carbon Brief**
---
### Claim 3: *Power grids are not equipped to handle widespread EV adoption*
- *Original Post's Argument*:
This claim suggests that the infrastructure for delivering electricity to homes is insufficient to support a mass switch to EVs, particularly in areas with outdated grid systems. The post implies that upgrading the grid would be costly and challenging, and that many countries still rely on fossil fuels to generate electricity.
- *Response*:
The *National Grid UK article* directly addresses the concern about grid capacity, arguing that the national grid is more than capable of handling an increased demand from EVs. In fact, the article notes that peak electricity demand in the UK has been falling due to improvements in energy efficiency, and that even with widespread EV adoption, the grid would still use less electricity than it did in 2002.
> "Even if we all switched to EVs overnight, we estimate demand would only increase by around 10%. So we’d still be using less power as a nation than we did in 2002, and this is well within the range the grid can capably handle." - **National Grid UK**
In the U.S., a similar analysis found that the grid could easily support the growth of EVs.
> "By the time 80% of the US owns an EV, this will only translate into a 10-15% increase in electricity consumption." - **National Grid UK**
This contradicts the claim that grids are ill-prepared and highlights that grid modernization efforts are already in progress to support EV infrastructure.
---
### Claim 4: *Electric cars are more expensive to run and may not always be greener over their full lifecycle*
- *Original Post's Argument*:
The post suggests that, in certain cases, EVs may be both more expensive to run and less environmentally friendly when considering the total carbon footprint, including production, use, and disposal.
- *Response*:
The *Carbon Brief article* provides a nuanced answer, recognizing that while the upfront cost of EVs can be higher due to the price of batteries, the total cost of ownership is often lower in the long run. This is due to reduced fuel and maintenance costs, as well as government subsidies and incentives for EV owners.
> "Electric cars can have higher upfront costs, mainly due to the cost of the battery. However, they are cheaper to run, due to lower fuel and maintenance costs." - **Carbon Brief**
On the environmental side, the article argues that EVs have a lower lifecycle carbon footprint compared to ICE vehicles, especially as grids become cleaner.
> "Studies consistently show that, even when powered by relatively carbon-intensive grids, electric cars still emit less CO2 over their lifetime than conventional cars." - **Carbon Brief**
---
### Conclusion:
The original post raises several valid concerns about the environmental and infrastructural challenges of EV adoption, but the response effectively refutes most of these claims with data and evidence from *Carbon Brief* and *National Grid UK*. The articles emphasize the following:
- EVs are becoming greener as grids decarbonize.
- The environmental costs of battery production are offset over the vehicle's lifetime.
- Power grids in countries like the UK and the U.S. are equipped to handle increased EV demand.
- EVs offer lower running costs and, overall, a smaller carbon footprint compared to internal combustion vehicles.
The original poster's assertion that the reply only addresses one of their claims is inaccurate. Both the *Carbon Brief* and *National Grid UK* articles provide detailed information that counters multiple points raised in the original argument.
I’m particularly interested in last three points. Do you mind to share some data?
For instance, where one recycle a Tesla battery, say in Poland?
I do not see to many chargers around and I believe the grid is not very modern here. Why do you think it can easily handle millions EVs? What about peak hours like nights? Do you think it will be env friendly, provided that majority of electricity in Poland is produced on coal plants.
EV initial cost is about 5-10 times more than a slightly used ICE in a perfect condition. Such a car car drive decades and will never reach in total spendings even initial cost of EV. I’m not counting charging that may not be very cheap. As electricity prices went up in recent years and may go up more.
When you stating something, think beyond your household. Your statements are not universal.
I think shifting them to static applications when they hit 70% capacity makes more sense, personally. For now, just recycle the ones that have actually failed. Or even just warehouse them until they can be recycled.
(Whether we actually do that or not, capitalism being what it is....)
> Electric motors use low amounts of rare earth metals, or in some cases none. Batteries generally don't use them either.
Maybe the term “rare” was poorly chosen. But mining those metals is the damaging part, not the abundance of the metals.
So my point is still correct.
> Automotive batteries have been demonstrated as >90% recyclable, far better than most materials we consider "recyclable" today such as plastic
Citation needed.
EV batteries are reused in some less demanding domains for a couple of years after their life in EVs. but everything that I’ve read thus far has said recycling the batteries themselves, after their life is done, is still very much in its infancy.
> The electric grid has sufficient capacity to onboard millions of electric cars without issue, and will not be impacted by the transition to EVs
Most country’s electric grids do. That’s the bloody point of a grid. It’s the last mile that’s the issue in some counties.
However I will concede that this point is a little unfair because it’s non-specific.
> Cost of ownership of EVs is significantly lower than ICE vehicles in their class, as is the lifetime carbon footprint
That depends. If you’re an occasional driver and charging your car at home, then the cost of electricity in some countries is going to be greater than the cost of petrol.
However if you travel lots and are heavily use charge stations at super markets et al, then EVs will be much cheaper to run than ICE.
It’s definitely not as clear cut as a lot of EV marketing claims.
(I’ve been adding up the costs just this month because was looking at buying an EV and it just wasn’t a cost saving for my particular requirements).
>> Automotive batteries have been demonstrated as >90% recyclable, far better than most materials we consider "recyclable" today such as plastic
> Citation needed
It shouldn't be hard to believe. The components of a battery aren't consumed during operation. An old battery weighs the same as a new battery, and the chemical reactions taking place inside are reversible (because that's how a chemical battery works).
I believe, though, the the previous commenter erred. 90% of _batteries_ are recycled.
According to Wikipedia, lithium battery recycling can see up to 96% recovery rate of material. Lead acid is over 98% of the lead.
> However if you travel lots and are heavily use charge stations at super markets et al, then EVs will be much cheaper to run than ICE.
This statement is confusing to me.
In my experience in the US, charging away from home is far more expensive.
Charging at home has added an average of $10/month to our electric bill. Charging at a commercial charger can easily cost $5-$10 _per charge_.
At home I have a 3kw charger, one of the lowest options you can buy. I prefer to take time and keep the battery cool. Heat kills batteries faster.
Your statement about your cost comparison doesn't mention maintenance, which is a significant savings. No oil changes, no rusted exhaust pipes, no spark plugs, etc. Over the life of the car, that's tens of thousands of dollars unspent.
> in my experience in the US, charging away from home is far more expensive
We have lots of free charging points in the UK. Or at least they do around me.
> Your statement about your cost comparison doesn't mention maintenance, which is a significant savings. No oil changes, no rusted exhaust pipes, no spark plugs, etc. Over the life of the car, that's tens of thousands of dollars unspent.
In my experience the maintenance costs is usually more tyres, suspension, breaks, and other similar things that would equally need to be maintained on EVs.
Oil changes and spark plugs are cheap. Never had an issue with my exhaust pipe but I’m sure that’s a thing. Have had clutches burn out but that’s always been more specific to manual shifts rather than ICEs. Cam belts is definitely one big ICE consumable that EVs wouldn’t require though.
I’m sure EVs will have their own specific areas of maintenance as well, but I’ll admit I haven’t done much research in that specific area.
> In my experience the maintenance costs is usually more tyres, suspension, breaks, and other similar things that would equally need to be maintained on EVs.
You'll go through tires _slightly_ faster because the cars are heavier. With the exception of some standouts like Tesla's Cybertruck, which reportedly is only getting 6k miles on a set of tires, the wear rate is slightly higher. Low rolling resistance tires are slightly more expensive. Plan on whatever you're paying now plus 20% to cover the difference.
I've never had to change the suspension on any of my cars. I wouldn't even consider it in a maintenance list unless you live somewhere with truly shit roads, but the mileage and repair cost would be the same in EV or ICE.
Brakes last forever in an EV. 100k miles easily.
Oil changes in the US cost $50+, and are done every 3-4k miles (or $75+, 7-10k miles if you choose synthetic oil).
Spark plugs are cheap, but paying someone to replace them is not.
Some EVs have liquid cooling, but it lasts longer than coolant in an ICE.
I'm so used to people around me driving automatics, I forget to consider a clutch - but I get >100k per clutch so it's not a frequent or predictable cost for me.
Most recent cars, even the small ones, seem to have swung back to using timing chains rather than belts, and don't need regular changes. You can consider it if you like, but you have to take it on a case-by-case basis.
Unless you don't keep your cars long enough to notice, your exhaust system will rust. Water is a byproduct of combustion, after all, and steam corrodes faster than liquid water. It's worse if you make lots of short trips - which is where an EV shines.
Also consider non-regularly-replaced things in your maintenance list: oxygen sensors, water pumps, thermostats, heater cores, etc. You can't predict when these things will fail, but over 10 years you'll almost certainly have to replace some of them.
Consider, also, downtime while your car is in the shop getting the work done.
Contrast to an EV: none of that. A new battery in 150k-200k miles for $5k, unless you're still satisfied with the reduced range.
My wife and I have owned an EV since 2019. We also still have a couple of ICEs for me and my daughter. I'm not going to throw a car away just because.
I see the cost savings of an EV up close and personal. The only downside has been range for long trips, but 364 days of the year that's not a problem and for the remaining days my ICE does the job. When that car dies, I'll rent one when it's needed.
So you’re comparing EVs that are > 5 years old with ICE vehicles that are < 5 years old. Or there’s a massive disparity between American and European ICE cars under 5 years. But I definitely have never spent the kind of money on maintenance you’ve described on cars younger than 5 years old.
I think your last sentence is it: those track for American vehicles. Longer driving distances, worse road conditions, and people buy unnecessarily large SUVs/trucks so most parts are 30-50% more expensive.
Considering how early we get rid of cars that are still usable. I wonder how well the cost of ownership actually holds over when a battery change can overshadow many years of maintenance of an ICE.
I really think as soon as batteries get even cheaper and denser there will be no chance for ICEs to be dominant but right now the balance is still against the change.
The grid is quite country specific. For example in the Netherlands there are significant grid capacity issues, so much that people with solar panels are paid on some areas to turn them off.
EV adoption here is high compared to the European average (similar to Norway). Public charging stations in affected areas are reducing capacity or even shutting down at certain times.
You've gone from false to unfalsifiable! (or at least unnecessarily vague).
- Plenty of electric drivetrains still use neodymium for example[0]. Whether it's too much or likely to change soon I don't know, but I feel like that's crucial to making a judgement on the overall harmfulness.
- Battery recycling is happening[1], but so is plastic recycling. Are batteries likely to be recycled, and are the environmental benefits and available profit sufficient to make it significant in the near future? Seems like yes, but it's not clear to me.
- Which grid? Is capacity sufficient just on average, or also at peak demand? Would that still be the case if EV adoption increases in the next five years? (or some timescale to short to build more plants). Looks like the US will do ok[2] but again it's not obvious.
- Does this also apply to buying new? Are you including resale value? What about carbon generated at power stations to provide the electrical power? This is a complex claim and it's hard to do anything with unless it's sharpened and given some numbers or at least references. Seems like price to consumer is roughly the same[3] and CO2 emissions even over about five years of normal use and will improve if the grid moves towards cleaner fuel[4].
Overall I think it's annoying for a commenter who knows the truth to go to the trouble of being convincing, but it's critical for having an interesting discussion that might change someone's mind.
> few people talk about just how damaging it is mining for rare metals to make those batteries
thank goodness oil production isn't damaging at all and has zero cost, then
if you're going to talk about mining, every other environmental cost of the fossil fuel lifecycle is fair game. how confident are you that oil and gas come out ahead?
I’m not claiming oil mining comes out ahead either. I’m just saying the environmental cost of EV suffers from a lot of greenwashing. They’re not always as green as people like to think.
Unfortunately, this is a massively complicated subject and it’s hard to definitively make claims because there’s also a large element of locality (where you live) and user-specific circumstances (like how long you keep a car, how often you drive, etc)
My original comment was just that it’s easy to say “EV is the future” but really we need to be extremely mindful that EV still has a long way to go itself and thus we shouldn’t be dismissive of any research happening in the automotive industry.
>how damaging it is mining for rare metals to make those batteries.
Even thought I'd agree mass EV would not be carried by the current grid, or that charging density and time is not satisfactory (in most of Europe)... LiFePO4 doesn't contain rare earth metals, unless you count Li for 'rare'.
On top of that, the commenter is completely ignorant of the rise of saltwater batteries which don't even use lithium.
Also probably unaware that with the rise of extremely low cost, solar and wind, Fossil fuel use on the grid is economically nonviable long term.
Even so, the fossil fuels consumed on the grid are very likely to be combined cycle natural gas, which has less carbon emissions than have equivalent. Amounts of energy were burned in ice engines.
Also, The energy efficiency of electric vehicles is much higher than an ice car, so if solar and wind do not generate the electricity, it still will emit less carbon than an ice.
The only useful new engine technology I am interested in is an extremely compact recharging engine for use in plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. There was something about the inside out rotary engine a couple years ago but nothing has come off of it.
>On top of that, the commenter is completely ignorant of the rise of saltwater batteries which don't even use lithium.
I'd not call the rise, yet. The Na ones' energy density (and specific energy) is even lower than Li based (LiFePO4 is lower than cobalt ones). They might be okay for grid storage, of course.
Saltwater batteries and lfp batteries don't require nearly as much active heating and safety measures as nmc chemistries.
So the pack level they become a lot more competitive. Rise of high density, salt, water and lfp. We should be able to produce 300 and 400 mile range sedans with sodium ion and LFP chemistries.
Just go look at the catl density numbers all the stuff they have going into production. Obviously has not scaled to the level it needs to. That's a big ramp up.
I believe the current numbers are 160 Watt hours per kilogram for sodium ion and a little over 200 for lfp. With cell to pack projections of 90%, while pack density of nmc is like 60-70% to the cooling and safety system requirements, sodium ion is a revolutionary development for the cheap EV.
The five year road maps for sodium ion gets it close to 200 watt hours per kilogram. Lfp should be reaching 250 Watt hours per kilogram in the next five years.
China specific. So not really mass market. Though I am glad to see that there are cars entering the market with sodium ion batteries. That does give me hope for the long term future of EV.
No need for personal snark comments. Not everybody lives in the US. The worst part moving there was surviving the lack of sun light during the winter but that was many years back.
Maybe “rare” was a poor choice, but it’s definitely harmful to mine for and the recycling story is far from solved so there’s a serious risk of having these harmful components ending up in landfills (I hope it doesn’t come to that)
On top of all the other replies debunking this, one thing left is that they're not the greener option for everyone. Auke Hoekstra has been pretty active (on Twitter etc) debunking this - electric cars' additional footprint gets paid off under 20k miles even at the emission levels of electricity grids of yesterday. As the grid decarbonizes further it will become even less. The number of cars driven less than 20k miles is irrelevantly tiny.
Did you actually read my comment and the replies? Because most of the replies didn’t even address the points I was making, let alone debunk it.
Just like with your post. I never actually made any claims about mileages. However as it happens, I do specifically fall into that uneconomical bracket. That’s why I ended up buying petrol despite wanting an EV. I work from home and thus rarely drive. EV isn’t yet ready for my specific use case. It will get there, but it’s not there today.
And thus we are back to the crux of point is was making: that this topic is far more complicated than the OP suggested.
I read it carefully. Your claim was it's not greener for everyone. It is because the additional costs in terms of emissions are paid off in less than 20k miles. This is a little bit more than the average per year. It's possible a car travels less than that during its life span, but it's so small it's irrelevant. That's like saying it makes financial sense playing the lottery just because someone occasionally wins.
No, my point was “EVs aren’t all that green either”.
Things are going to improve. But people so often forgot about all the other environmental costs involved with EV.
In an ideal world we’d be using push bikes, but clearly that’s not practical either. However it’s fair to say that this whole transportation debate is a lot more complicated than people like to summarise.
> It is because the additional costs in terms of emissions are paid off in less than 20k miles.
Again, that was never my claim. That’s a strawman argument you’ve constructed.
In fact for some use cases they can actually work out both more expensive to run and less environmentally friendly once you total up their carbon footprint in full.
End quote.
No, once you total up their carbon footprint they make up their additional costs in carbon in less than 20k miles.
As far as bikes are concerned, I've never owned a car in my life and I'm 40. Locally I go on foot, bike and rarely public transport and long distance by train and I rarely fly. So if you want to join me, fell free to, it's am awesome way to live. If not, EVs are a much better option.
Exactly. That quote doesn’t mention mileage. You mentioned it.
> No, once you total up their carbon footprint they make up their additional costs in carbon in less than 20k miles.
You’re being overly generalised. There are different ICE cars that have different carbon footprints. Hybrids too. Different driving styles that can affect fuel consumption too.
Just as there are different EVs that have different running costs, different mileage per charge, and different carbon footprints to manufacture.
Then you have questions about how that electricity was generated. Most countries are improving with their use of renewables but there are some counties out there that are just going to burn fossil fuels anyway.
However even if you ignore external factors like driving style, and where the electricity comes from, you still have literally thousands of different variables just on the vehicles alone.
These are all important variables that shape the results. Saying “20k miles” is completely bullshit headline made by people trying to greenwash people into buying EV. There isnt this magic line you claim there is. Instead we have a massive fuzzy grey area.
I also think you massively underestimate just how different European cars are to
American cars.
Plus the fact that even your grossly generalised statement acknowledges that there is a cross over point, means I’m still factually correct; even ignoring how overly simplistic (to the point of being factually incorrect) you are.
> As far as bikes are concerned, I've never owned a car in my life and I'm 40.
Right. So your points are from a theoretical perspective rather than actual experience. Understood.
> So if you want to join me, fell free to, it's am awesome way to live.
I’m getting really sick of your assumptions about me. I’ve already said I work from home and rarely need to drive. That was literally in the comment you claimed to have “read carefully” - thus proving my point that you hadn’t.
I live in the countryside. So I do walk and cycle lots. That’s the entire reason I chose to live where I live.
———
You have this impression that cars are literally one thing and it’s a Boolean decision. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. People like yourself need to understand that life is fully of nuance. Which was the point of my original comment: that the issue around EVs environmental footprint is still being understood but even by conservative estimates, there’s still a lot of room to improve.
Yet you missed all of that when you “carefully read” my comment and instead focused on some meaningless generalisation you saw on twitter coupled with a bunch of incorrect assumptions about myself.
I didn't read much because actually the point about the way electricity is generated was already mentioned. It's right there in the first post - with the electricity grid of yesterday. If you'd followed the link you'd see how it was based etc.
Things aren't really that unclear or case to case either. A person buying a tiny IC car will not suddenly decide to buy a 7 ton Hummer EV where suddenly their carbon footprint is much higher. They will buy a Volt or whatever it's called. So there really is nothing really that important other than mileage. EVs are clearly better in every use case, as long as we're talking about the environment.
And lastly first hand experience in driving and owning a car is not helpful in determining carbon footprint. The research I linked to is helpful. Under 20k miles per car (on average - if it makes you feel better, but please note I am not insinuating it will make you feel better) with the electricity grid of yesterday. As the grid decarbonizes, this will be even less.
> Things aren't really that unclear or case to case either.
Of course its case by case. A 3.2lt Maserati Quattroporte is obviously going to have a lower MPG than a 1lt Vauxhall Corsa. And that’s without taking any into account the types of road you drive on and the exact year of build of the car.
> A person buying a tiny IC car will not suddenly decide to buy a 7 ton Hummer EV where suddenly their carbon footprint is much higher.
I never suggested they would. But also not every model of ICE vehicle will have an exactly equivalent model of EV. In fact I ran into the exact problem myself. And I did look.
> So there really is nothing really that important other than mileage.
And this is where your lack of experience with cars is apparent. I don’t mean to be snarky but I’ve given numerous examples and you’re still sticking firm to this fallacy that there isn’t much variation in cars.
> EVs are clearly better in every use case, as long as we're talking about the environment.
It wasn’t just about the environment. I did also talk about cost too. In that post you “read carefully” in fact.
This is why I’ve been getting a little snarky. You claim to read my comments but then completely ignore everything I’ve said and draw your own strawman arguments instead. Presumably a knee jerk reaction because you’ve incorrectly labeled me as a petrolhead.
> And lastly first hand experience in driving and owning a car is not helpful in determining carbon footprint.
It is very helpful because you start to understand that even the same car can have different fuel consumption characteristics depending on who’s driving it, on what type of roads, and the length of those journeys. Let alone the wildly different characteristics of different cars even in the same class of vehicle.
You don’t seem to understand that different engine sizes matter. The weight of the car matters. The gear ratios (automatic) or how you shift gears (manual). The roads (do you need to shift gears a lot or cruise at a constant speed?). Even how heavily you break can have a massive impact on fuel consumption. Wheel sizes, tyres, road surfaces. Is your local area flat or hilly? Do you drive longer or shorter distances? Does your car have a stop-start engine? Or hybrid? How many cylinders? Turbo injection? Etc.
There simply isn’t a standard. So if you then take averages you’re going to find that all those sporty ICE cars will massively skew the results against those small European cars. And the people who buy EV for environmental reasons are more likely to be buying a small ICE vehicle if EVs weren’t an option.
You seem to think all cars are roughly equivalent and that demonstrates just how little you actually know on this subject.
> As the grid decarbonizes, this will be even less.
I agree. Which is why I also said that in my original comment. The one you “read carefully”.
> More EVs please
I agree. I was never arguing against EVs. I was just saying that EVs seem to suffer a lot from greenwashing when actually there’s still a long way for them to go before they live up to the claims people make about them.
It’s still a young industry though so that will change. But people like yourself need to understand that doesn’t mean EVs are the silver bullet. What we really need is better types of fuel. EVs are a step in the right direction but it still largely just pushes the problem upstream. We still need to clean up electricity production even with EVs.
Oh absolutely. I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t be investing in EV nor renewables. I’m just saying the case with EVs isn’t as simple as some like to generalise.
I’m getting a lot of hate for my comment but actually you’re all missing the point.
I’m not suggesting people shouldn’t buy EV nor that EV isn’t greener than ICE.
What I actually said is that EV still does a lot of harm to the environment and it’s a long way from being the saviour to our private transportation woes that a lot of people like to greenwash it as.
Does this mean that we shouldn’t buy EVs? Of course not. But it also means:
- we shouldn’t put all of our eggs into one basket. Research into other engines still brings us gains
- for some specific individuals, EVs are yet the best choice for their needs
The problem we have in this thread is everybody is jumping to one extreme or the other rather than acknowledging that this is actually a massively complex topic and thus theres going to be a lot of contextual factors and shades of grey.
So please don’t assume I’m trying to spread FUD about EVs just because I’m promoting awareness that we still have a lot more work to do before mass produced cars of any design becomes green.
Because large manufacturers are seeing EVs are struggling to take off.
Might as well spread your bets. They are also working heavily on efuel, that works with ICE engines, does not pollute much, but currently would cost 2x at the pump. If they could shave that cost in half we could keep most ICEs (plus an add on catalyst). Distribution networks could be kept. Batteries and their chemicals would not be needed.
Just to clarify: I had to do an analysis on car markets across 10 countries in EU, Mexico and Latin America recently.
If 100% of new vehicles were electric today, it would take 15 to 20 years to renew the whole fleet in those countries. But today the share of new EVs were between 0 to 5%.
While there is a subyacent network effect (when 30% of gas stations close, it will be so hard to refuel that adoption will spike, which in turn will kill more gas stations), it still seems way off. The people I interviewed at car makers seemed to see EV as a new segment more than a new paradigm.
> Seems pretty dumb considering it still consumes fossil fuels.
Internal combustion engines are not limited to fossil fuels. For instance, here in Brazil it's common to use sugarcane ethanol as an alternative fuel, and many cars come from factory ready to use either gasoline or ethanol (the keyword to look for is "flex fuel").
ICEs have a lot of advantages that make them much better suited than EVs to certain tasks (extreme climates and remote locations, for example). They will likely stick around for niche use cases (at least) for quite a long time.
As for why Porsche is spending money on ICE engines...well, no one really buys a Porsche because it's a "practical car", do they?
Here in Oslo, Norway, they got BEV busses for a lot of lines, and last year was a really cold winter. Somehow, the ones in power were shocked to discover the range dropped to half due to the electric heaters needing a lot of power, causing a public transportation chaos as busses queued up for charging instead of transporting passengers.
Now the busses are getting retrofitted with fuel-based heaters, which will be running on bio-diesel... better than nothing I guess.
> As for why Porsche is spending money on ICE engines...well, no one really buys a Porsche because it's a "practical car", do they?
I don't know. I find my daily very practical: a Porsche Panamera MY2013, now nearing 125 000 miles and 12 y/o. Still under extended manufacturer warranty. I have it since more than five years now (bought it used). Next car is another used Panamera (probably a 2020 or something). Very sweet, comfy, luxurious ride and yet if you push the pedal to the metal, way funnier to drive than, say, a Mercedes Class S.
Well, in a big city I wouldn't call a 5m long car that drinks 12 or more liters "practical". Also it's an expensive and high maintenance car even when functioning properly (I'd be scared of the bill for changing those tires or doing Porsche's maintenance...)
But, you said it: sweet, comfy, luxurious, funnier. Valid reasons, of course, but different :-)
Could be any of several reasons. As a backup plan, for niche uses, or just uses that you are not considering such as small aircraft. Could be a stop gap as well, it seems like there was a quick uptake in EVs but they aren’t replacing petrol engines just yet, even in cars.
I'm really looking forward to when someone manages to bring to market an EV that is light and efficient with small battery pack and lowish range that is purely about driving pleasure and fun, but E/V early adopters still want massive ten thousand pound luxury tanks, for now!
Unsurprisingly, Lotus (aka the maker of the car that Tesla converted into their Roadster) did not completely abandon their lightweight sports car identity in the BEV age. The Evija advertised with a range of 315 km.
Seems brilliant to me, as this is true marvel of engineering, contrary to electrocars which... well are not. They could've been should the engine be powered by fuelcells, but in their present form the electrocar movement took off only because of green deal, climate change, etc, which forced governments to allow business create the needed infrastructure of batteries and powerstations.
Besides, you'd be surprised at the amount of work geard towards hydrogen-based economy which is still about burning stuff to turn wheels (even when electricity is produced) as they did in 1890s...
Yeah. It looks pretty cool. There is something satisfying about a complex mechanical mechanism. However, in its current form it is not the future. Combustion engines in general are not going to be the future. Hydrogen is a joke. Not energy dense enough. And expensive to make (energy wise). It also needs a vast network of gas stations.
Who says so? Batteries been available for hundred years yet we keep talking about fusion being the future, and we have fission. Which both drive turbines, which are a thing from the past? No? What is joke and when?
To me is a joke that we keep heating water to move magnets to get energy in 2024 with all the quantum entanglement, Johnson teleportation, lasers, etc. engineering magic happening around. And we do what? heat water to move magnets to squeez energy? So why is then hydrogen bad, just because it goes boom? Plenty of things we use daily go boom now and then, not meaning recent news, but in general.
I also invite you to take a look at the Tokamak and then try to argue again that metal tubes wired around to pump liquids and do some combustion is not the future.
Compressed hydrogen has low enough density that even at dangerously high pressures it would take up most of the luggage & passenger areas of a car, just to get mediocre range. Liquid hydrogen has better density (roughly 2x), but it's still not great, & you're dealing with a cryogenic propellant that's constantly venting explosive gas (so it runs out of gas when parked for ~3 days, can't be parked in an enclosed space, & still doesn't deliver impressive range). I'm all for using hydrogen for things in general, but as I understand it there are hard physical limits that make it a poor choice for personal motor vehicles as we understand them today (size, safety & range in particular).
Methanol or renewable synthetic gasoline seem like they'll always outperform hydrogen for ICE cars.
Hydrogen airships would be cool though & we could make them safe with modern technology (both preventing fires & making the passenger compartment an under-slung survival cell with parachutes & giant airbags so a catastrophic loss is survivable)
All of this is very interesting, and I'm aware of the many challenges hydrogen is still facing./ But I think material knowledge is also improving rapidly, so perhaps we'll see some very nice new lattices to safely contain it in some compartmentalized manner. But what I meant about hydrogen was not really about cars, but heavy industry. Heavy industry is hungry and will produce its own solar, then dump it in hydrogen and burn it overnight. Then it can feed the electric cars perhaps.
> One in seven new car sales worldwide is now electric
> Year-to-date figures show that nearly 10.6 million EVs have been sold globally as of July 2024, marking a 16.3% increase compared to the same period last year.
Legally+Economically. After seeing how badly their cars were doing against Chinese EVs, it seems the EV-only mandates in the EU and US are on shaky ground; only heavy tariffs on imported cars seem to be giving local producers a chance. I do not think they will figure it out by the 2030-ish targets, and bet that European and American companies will be allowed to sell combustion engine cars after that.
> marking a 16.3% increase compared to the same period last year
This is buoyed a lot by growth in China (which is not nothing, I guess), but growth in Europe and the Americas is slowing.
Even 2035 is not happening. Politically, parties that are not enthusiastic about climate change mitigation are gaining ground in Europe. A lot of western car companies are scaling back their ev targets, and announcing more ICE car research (like this article we are discussing). Those bans will keep getting postponed/cancelled the closer they come.
I need to check that source but I guess is heavily per country. In Southern Europe is under 5%, south from the US border between 0 to 1 % (source: per country Car Makers Association report)
Globally, if I recall, you need 20 years to replace the whole global fleet (so around 5% replacement rate). Let’s assume this global number is fixed (installed base is growing, as more vehicles are being created that destroyed, actually)
1/7 is 15%. 15% of 5% is 0,75%. So this means that every year 0,75% of global installed base is replaced by EVs. So 130y for full replacement?
Yes, the 1/7 weight will increase. But so will expand base. Even if suddenly today every car made now on the planet is EV only, iCE will still be around for 20-30 years.
Not to pile on, but the linked article you presented backs their data on
New AutoMotive’s Global Electric Vehicle Tracker, a UK based group fostering EV adoption.
NAGEVT site only shows data for UK, is unclear which data sources they used, and whether they added PHEV (still ICEs) into the mix.
Don’t mean to come obnoxious, I just spent a few weeks researching the topic for 10 countries and my data differs a lot from theirs.
Not the op but in NZ there has been a significant drop in demand due to removal of subsidies and introduction of a distance-based tax (road user charge) for EVs.
“In 2023 January through August, one in four new light passenger vehicles sold were EVs. Fast forward to 2024 and EVs make up just one in 11 new light passenger vehicles sold”
“Current sales of EVs in Europe have stalled at just over 2 million a year, as early adopters and corporate purchasing peaked out. Schmidt Automotive Research said during the opening third of 2024 Western Europe EV market share stalled at 14.4% compared with the same period last year, according to its provisional data.”
It’s fascinating the language used around EV sales. You have used “sluggish” where others might have used “stable”. In the past we had articles saying sales were “slowing” when in fact they were growing, just not growing as fast.
There are other regions that are growing, but I see little relevance to the original point unless people expected continued growth in every region with no blips?
Honestly, i can’t get my head around how many folks actually think that it is an either or situation.
There’s zero chance we will be able to electrify all personal mobility let alone the elephants in the room being construction equipment, planes of all sorts and above all marine vessels that ship our goods globally.
EVs are well suited for a couple use cases but far from a monolithic solution.
It is beyond me how a group this large actually thinks that ICEs are facing “death”.
Once line is done going up in that field, i sincerely hope the discussion around this will mature and become less histerical.
Even the most ambitious petrol car bans are normally targeting 2035 or so, new cars only. That’s probably time for one more engine generation iteration.
Until somebody comes up with a replacement technology that so the same or more there will be a place for it.
Military contracts can make anything make economic sense.
The same reason people still do R&D for vinyl records: There's enough customers who want to buy the old thing, for ideological, emotional or other reasons
So if you built your fortune on IT running in datacenters which consume magnitutes more energy to feed your customers; or else - if your business is about delivering stuff with 1000s of vehicles regularly being wasted... Tell me, at what point you start giving a damn about environment, and what pollution are we talking about at all?
Sorry, but HN is full of people who made fortunes not giving major fucks about lots of rules. Not being one of them, I still find it perfectly appropriate to see this article and appreciate it here precisely, and not on... CNN or DW.
You may go ask "Founder mode" whether he can dever be blamed into "not giving a damn", considering his caring character towards all humanity.
One thing I agree - nobody cares if a Porsche is putting a 0.00001 KG of CO2 out now and then, as its aesthetic value is much much higher.
That's a flawed analogy. Datacenter draw X power to do X work, and people using them don't care about the brand or aesthetics. Give techies and companies less power hungry alternatives and look how quick they will migrate.
That is quite different for cars, unless their perceived value has nothing to do with their #1 function, which brings us back to my post: most people buying luxury cars give more importance to appearance rather than any environmental issue. I completely understand, but cannot agree.
It’s a ridiculous argument. You are typing this comment just because this damn not environmental friendly data center exists.
But you pay nothing for HN. Hence someone’s do. That maybe this damn dude who made a fortune.
But more than that, this dude has had to work hard long ago so that the data Center could be built and some nerds have got their jobs.
Telling people why they do things is 1) bad wording; 2) puts them in defense mode; 3) projection; 4) etc.. you name it not OK.
I pay nothing to HN, but HN exists thanks to lotta money moved around by people running HN. What are you telling me now, that HN would not emerge in some other form, had it not been for Founder Mode to showcase Algolia's search? Sorry, I doubt that it is how society evolves. HN can emerge from anybody persistent enough to go forward with it.
Slashdot, Craigslist, Reddit and 4chan if you want are very apparent examples of how smart people fill in when they have the chance. HN may well disappear very soon, I would miss all the smart voices, but I won't miss HN itself and the fair amount of very obnoxious people who tell others 'how they should feel, or felt'.
I’m not sure what your point is. The comment you’re replying to never argued that this data center is unnecessary. Both prestigious cars and data centers are necessarily evil. Just for different audiences.
Lol, I really want to see a 150-year old EURO6 200kw diesel engine coupled with a 150-year old 9-speed automatic dual-clutch allowing me to drive on the 150-year old roads for 4 liters per 100 km at German highway speeds.
BTW, electric cars are older technology than ICE cars.
The main innovation in modern electric cars isn't just about swapping fuel with electricity, but eliminating all junk in between that wasted power only to overcome ICE inherent flaws.
More simple electronics aside, clutch, gearbox, then driveshaft are all gone, and they contributed to a huge waste of power, which burned a lot of fuel for nothing. This is so bad that where possible and economically feasible (trains and ships) they use mixed diesel-electric pairs with the diesel engine working as generator so that it would always run at maximum torque not being forced to start from zero rpm and not having its speed related with train and ship speed.
The electric engine is indeed older than internal combustion one, however what makes it a better option also for cars required modern development, especially in batteries and rare earth magnets which would have been unthinkable only a few decades ago.
> clutch, gearbox, then driveshaft are all gone, and they contributed to a huge waste of power which burned a lot of fuel for nothing.
Practically, they are replaced by even more "junk" in the form of literal tons of batteries weighing more than the part they replaced, the electric motor having to expend more energy to carry this extra weight around..
> what makes it a better option also for cars required modern development, especially in batteries and rare earth magnets which would have been unthinkable only a few decades ago.
Is it, though? I'd like hard facts on that. From what I can find, battery chemistry hasn't seen any breakthrough, only their cost has steadily decreased, in large parts thanks to economies of scale and an oversight for externalities mostly in the extraction and refining supply chain. Similarly, high efficiency electric motors have been a solved problem for a century. I think the whole charger infrastructure and finally getting to the end of the chicken and egg conundrum has more to do with EVs becoming a thing than some new tech having enabled it.
Know nothing about automobile engineering but somehow this feels like Wordpress releasing a version for DOS when windows already captured most of the PC market.
This article has brought out a lot people to comment who don't know anything about sports cars, but feel necessary to insist they do. It's bad enough that I had to login in to dispell this reoccurring canard:
"EVs are faster in a straight line! EVs have a flat/high torque curve!" -- big whoop.
1) 0-60 times are biased against ICEs as their torque curves _aren't_ flat and so the start of range is mostly when the engine is at a disadvantage. In an actual road situation the ICE is already at speed and therefore at or near the peak of their torque curve.
2) Actual roads have these things called "curves". Your bulky heavyweight EV handles like a brick on 3 wheels. And it doesn't have as responsive braking due that weight.
Your second point misses an important fact: the Tesla Model S Plaid set a 7:25 Nurburgring lap time, and the Porsche Taycan did it in 7:07. Both of these lap times are faster than many high-performance ICE cars, and close to GT2/3 times which are just below 7:00.
As you might expect, the technology will continue to evolve, too.
This person is explicitly ignoring that EVs use tire and braking configurations that maximize efficiency over performance in order to make their point. It's like saying ICE cars are inherently bad at performance because of Ferdinand Porsche's VW Beetle design choices or because my 3000lb vehicle (lighter than a modern Porsche) Jeep XJ isn't a sports car ICE vehicles can't be performance vehicles.
To keep the comparisons honest, I honestly couldn't care less about the performances of Taycan. That's not what I drive and that's not what everybody on my roads drive. Yeah maybe I see one hypercar a week but I definitely won't keep that as the bar for driving behaviour. So maybe we should compare between (pick your specific models) Dacia and Toyota?
True, but you do still feel the weight. Even with good tires, they give up time around the corners and make it back with insane acceleration. That's why you generally see hybrids for the most extreme hypercars, at least over the past decade or two. They have most of the advantage of electric without the weight penalty. (I own and track both ICE and electric cars and find both have advantages and disadvantages.)
You logged in to dispell a point that doesn't occur in this comment section…?
Lmao, so basically you dislike EVs and are an ice fan.
The truth of the matter is that EVs win out in so many categories already and are improving year on year.
2: batteries are getting lighter and more energy dense. Your point is essentially moot in an era where everyone is buying giant trucks and SUVs anyway, that they drive with a single occupant to the supermarket to pick up a sandwich.
I'm a programmer, not an engine guy. From the description in the article, they do one intake stroke, two pairs of compression-power strokes, followed by an exhaust stroke.
Also, it seems the initial compression-power strokes are done with the piston moving lower, ie both lower top dead center and bottom dead center, hence would have lower compression, and the second moving higher so with higher compression.
From my understanding of more fuel means less compression is tolerated before knocking[1], and vice versa.
So do I understand it correctly that their idea then to make the first power stroke rather rich with lower compression ratio to eliminate knock, and the second at a higher compression ratio to burn the remaining unburnt fuel? Or the other way around, ie lean with high compression first?
If so, it seems like an evolution of variable compression ratio engines[2].
edit: my morning-brain is having issues with thinking about how air-fuel ratio change in rich-burning vs lean-burning scenarios. So perhaps they aim for a good stoichiometric ratio and rely on the exhaust gasses to avoid knock when increasing compression the second time around?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_knocking
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_compression_ratio
>more fuel means less compression is tolerated before knocking
Generally, no.
Knocking happens from pre-detonation, that's usually caused by heat from compression causing the fuel/air mix to ignite before it's triggered by spark.
To avoid this engines will run a fuel/air mix that is not stoicheometrically ideal, to make the mixture less likely to ignite early.
It is safer to run a fuel rich mix than to run a fuel lean mix as it keeps combustion chamber pressures low (unburned fuel takes heat out of the exhaust). It is more economical and more ecologically friendly to run fuel lean since you paid for that unburned fuel and it's kinda gross.
In general, more fuel than ideal means more resistance to knock. But these things are complex.
EDIT: Knocking happens from pre-detonation. Knocking can also happen from predestination, like in the case of turbocharged Subarus.
Friendly correction for others because your auto correct failed you...
"predestination", pretty sure parent meant "pre-detonation"
A.k.a. Autoignition aka "it goes boom before you planned on it"
Only adding this as it's a pretty crucial word for understanding the comment.
That fuel is totally depraved, and has no hope of salvation.
This is why TULIP oil makes a great fuel additive.
I totally, unconditionally, agree. My own limits do not account for the irresistibility of this combination. I hope you persevere with this message.
Ah you're right, thank you!
>Knocking happens from pre-detonation, that's usually caused by heat from compression causing the fuel/air mix to ignite before it's triggered by spark.
No, it usually happens because the normal flamefront from the spark causes a rise in pressure that triggers compression-ignition in other parts of the cylinder. It's not solely from the compression, usually. That scenario is rare primarily because as you reduce the knock margin, you'd hit knock from what I said before you get to the state where it's so bad it ignites from compression alone.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/In-cylinder-pressure-tra...
Look at this picture; this is a typical waveform of cylinder pressure vs. crank angle. The spark happens 28 degrees before TDC, so basically the left edge of each of the graphs. As the flamefront consumes the air-fuel mixture inside the cylinder after the spark, the cylinder pressure gradually rises. During knock events, the cylinder pressure as risen by the normal combustion process gets to a point where it starts igniting the fuel elsewhere in the cylinder, away from the gradually expanding flamefront. This causes rapid combustion which causes the pressure to rise suddenly, which causes damage to the engine (if severe enough)
> caused by heat from compression causing the fuel/air mix to ignite before it's triggered by spark.
I would think the usual cause is the timing was off and the spark plug fires before the cylinder reaches TDC.
This edit is brilliant!
Ah yes, read that engine knock article the wrong way around, guess my mind was drawing on intuition from things like gun powder where more stuff crammed more tightly together is worse.
So then, if they're doing a non-ideal initial burn it would have to be a lean lower-compression burn, followed up by a higher-compression secondary burn?
Pretty sure it's just a way to get more expansion from the same air charge.
It's a similar idea to the Atkinson cycle. You have dissimilar compression and expansion strokes. In normal engines, there's a limit to compression ratio because if it's too high, it causes knocking. But a bigger expansion ratio lets you extract more energy out of the combusted gas, which leads to higher efficiency.
The original Atkinson cycle idea was to use some complex linkage to get dissimilar compression and expansion strokes, but the way it's implemented in things like the Prius is to have a high compression engine, but mess with the intake valve timing such that you only use a small part of that compression during the intake phase so you effectively handicap your compression ratio to avoid knock, while still retaining the full stroke during the expansion phase.
I am sure that I don't understand the specifics of what Porsche is doing, but the article says the cycle is intake-compression-power-compression-power-exhaust. For that to be the case they have to be burning the same fuel and air mixture twice, and I don't understand the chemistry there enough to even speculate how it works.
I think it's safe to assume that the second stroke is burning incomplete combustion products left over from the first stroke. I think that the second compression stroke would have to be higher compression than the first in order to get more complete combustion of what's left behind.
That actually makes a lot of sense merging with some comments from above.
Second stroke goes lower and there are some ports to add air which are not accessed during the initial compression stroke...so the stroke is longer (higher compression) and more air is added to help with the reburn.
Kinda sounds like combining the idea of the Miller cycle with a variable compression/stroke setup (see Nissan).
There are a lot of ideas out there that create gains individually...glad to see them being combined more and more in modern engines. (ex. VRIS, VVT, DFI,) I personally think there is still another few decades of playing around with ICE to be done...not sure it will be viable for the market...but the research will lead to a lot more interesting engineering.
Ah, extra ports, that makes a lot more sense. I had missed that detail.
So the first phase is like a regular 4-stroke engine, and the second phase is more like 2-stroke engine, where extra air (and possibly fuel) is introduced into the cylinder, like a 2-stroke, through ports located below the position of the piston during the bottom dead center of the first phase.
So I guess you have something like intake (high), compression (high), power (high->low), compression (low), exhaust (low->high), where in parenthesis is the adjustable piston height?
So a richer higher-compression first phase, followed by a leaner lower-compression second phase?
Finally got time to read a bit of the patent, which talks about two TDCs and BDCs, which I'll denote as "high" and "low", as related to the distance of the piston to the crankshaft. So the high TDC has maximum compression, and low BDC has the maximum cylinder volume, and the scavenging port(s) are between high BDC and low BDC.
Unless I screwed up my notation shift, the strokes from the patent are as follows:
1. Intake (low TDC -> high BDC)
2. Compression (high BDC -> high TDC)
3. Power (high TDC -> low BDC)
4. Compression (low BDC -> high TDC)
5. Power (high TDC -> high BDC)
6. Exhaust (high BDC -> low BDC)
So during the first power stroke, stroke 3, the cylinder moves from "high" to "low" and thus is the longer power stroke. Also during the second compression stroke, stroke 4, the cylinder position moves from "low" to "high". So technically leading to higher compression ratio. I was thinking it would cost too much energy to do so, hence dismissed that alternative, but I guess not.
The patent also notes that the extra scavenging ports are not needed, fresh air-fuel mixture can be introduced via the inlet valve(s) while the piston moves between the two BDCs.
Would be fun to try to simulate it in Ange's engine simulator[1].
[1]: https://github.com/ange-yaghi/engine-sim
I would imagine that pulling the air from the bottom would help more with scavenging the cylinder than the top but yeah...I can imagine it wouldn't matter.
That all makes sense. Pretty much what I assumed. The compression stroke at #4 is the longest stroke. Then it also has the benefit of the Power stroke at #5 being shorter which will mean it will have the benefit of a short(er) stroke motor on the power (more torque?) during that cycle.
The shorter stroke on #1 is desirable since you are using boost (I am assuming Miller cycle here) to control the beginning of compression as opposed to the intake valve.
Once the mechanical timing is down I assume it isn't too bad to keep all in line though...but a mess if it gets out.
I suspect the second stroke is higher compression. First stroke has the compression "shape" controlled by the boost (miller cycle).
With direct injection they could even be injecting more fuel into the cylinder for the second stroke...but I suspect the second stroke F/A ratio is determined by the first stroke remnants combined with the extra air allowed in at the bottom of the second stroke.
All of this with the cam variators, timing control, boost control and fuel setup that VW already runs would be fairly easy to control with the proper sensors and code.
Just speculating at this point...but it makes sense to me.
> Miller cycle
Heh all along I'm wondering, what kind of thermodynamic cycle is it? By six strokes, does it mean there are actually distinct new phases to the PV graphs compared to Atkinson/Carnot/Miller?
Or is it just masquerading a well-known cycle underneath six strokes, only some parts are being optimised?
Not sure myself...
Seems to be like it is a Miller cycle (or could be) on the initial 4 strokes. Which would allow you to control the timing of the "Compression max point" in the stroke by varying the boost. That may also vary the amount of spent fuel remaining for the second "scavenge" stroke...which if I am reading comments above correctly it pulls air from ports lower in the cylinder which would help clear the cylinder for the next 4 stroke cycle.
Seems to me more focused on reburning/scavenging to make a "cleaner" burn than anything else though.
*Not an engineer...just a shadetree mechanic who reads too deep into engine papers.
I always wonder about premises in cases like this. a pair of compression-power cycles is a nice way to question the usual. has anyone gone through all the features of a conventional engine and asked: what if there's an alternative?
for instance, what if we're just interested in range-extension? can we transform the motion created by combustion into electrical power in a clever way? cylinder-solenoid coils?
are poppet valves so great? suppose we have some other mechanism to create the motion (solenoids?) or rotating valves? something electromagnetic appeals because it gives complete control over timing (rather than a crankshaft).
rotary engines are appealing, for the same contrarian reasons. but they seem to either have practical problems (wankel) or don't seem to be making it to market (peanut-shaped rotors, etc).
if 6 cycles makes sense (presumably in combustion physics), does it make any sense to burn in one chamber, then move those products to another chamber for some further (potentially different) cycle?
would it help if you could ignite from more than a single place? multiple plugs sounds like a bit of a pain, but could you generate an annular spark? would you want to control the location-timing of the combustion front? does rotating-detonation have any meaning in this context?
are there ways to reconsider the materials engineering of engines? make them dramatically cheaper, lighter? one of the best EV arguments is simplicity, but how much of current IC engineering is based on assumptions that can be broken?
Cylinder solenoids are indeed a thing
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-piston_engine
And the Prius uses the Atkinson cycle which is slightly different from the traditional Otto cycle somehow, although I couldn't find a good explanation
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkinson_cycle
According to that Wikipedia article, the modern Atkinson cycle trades time spent creating power in the compression phase for time spent extracting energy during the expansion phase, gaining efficiency at the cost of total power.
> creating power in the compression phase
Other than the potential energy of either the heat or the compressed gas, what "power" is created in the compression phase of a normal four stroke ICE?
Pumping losses are greater in a Otto cycle engine due to the increased resistance in compressing the whole stroke. In an Atkinson-cycle you get a longer power stoke than compression stroke and thus are more efficient. There is always another cylinder that get does i take during the short time when valve is open during compression in another cylinder. Thus that cylinder get some free assistance during intake.
> for instance, what if we're just interested in range-extension? can we transform the motion created by combustion into electrical power in a clever way?
A recuperated Brayton cycle operating at a fixed RPM could be competitive with existing approaches. It is also mechanically feasible to produce engines of this type with a single moving part, zero effective wear and no lubrication.
Rotating valves exist - look up "spool valves." Much like rotary engines, seal wear is the main drawback. Poppet valves also have the upside that they inherently spread air-fuel mixture out laterally.
Iirc Koenigsegg is using camless valves (using solenoids?)
Freevalve yes.
They’ve got loads of other cool thinking outside of the box solutions. Like the Lightspeed transmission with 7 clutches, providing instant shifting between any gears and ability to slip freely between them.
This guy created a hobbyist version. Very impressive.
https://youtu.be/E9KJ_f7REGw?si=hlMQIA9wNkQBniDX
Yes and no. Their 3 cylinder engine that was supposed to be in their 4 person mega car was to be the first product engine with it. That is no longer the case because rich people didn't like the idea of a 3 cylinder engine in their hybrid mega. As a result they are only producing a V8 hybrid version. Their v8s do not use the free valve.
Christian and his team over there are actually pushing boundaries and doing really cool stuff.
Since hybrids are now so popular, rethinking how a gasoline engine fits into that picture might be worth it. Question is whether the market will shift again from hybrids to full EV, and if so, when. Designing and building a new engine might cost 5 billion, without a real certainty you will earn it back.
The Obrist Zero Vibration Generator is exactly that: reimagining ICE tailored to series hybrid application.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0s5Du7qrPoM
https://www.obrist.at/powertrain/components/
BEVs will never take over in North America. There are too many people spread out or living in places with no hope of charging infrastructure. People are going to balk when they find out they can only charge from a 20A circuit if even that is available.
"Never" is a really long time.
It would take a severe lack of vision to not be able to imagine that the following will -never- improve: charging infrastructure, charging technology (specifically, charging time), and BEV range
So North America is limited to its large places? New York isn’t in North America.
The last mile problem doesn’t negate the fact that for 85% of people an electric vehicle is possible in five years.
New York is mostly a semi-rural state where long distance travel in a BEV is a problem. One city where most residents don't drive doesn't mean anything.
One city ? One city !?
Electrification will happen for the vast majority of people. Of course, a small minority won’t be able to make the switch right away and will have to hang on to gas. That’s fine!
Even to this day, 98% of houses have refrigerators. According to your logic, we shouldn’t allow businesses to sell refrigerated milk because of this 2%.
That's because apartments and houses have indoor power, which took a while. Neighborhood streets still don't have outdoor power at every curb.
They never said it shouldn’t be allowed.
who/what can only charge from a 20A circuit?
This just in, houses in the world's greatest country don't have electricity. Really?
Lol.
There was a lot of variation in aircraft engines before jet engines took over. They often used sleeve valves for e.g.
The number of the Porsche patent application:
20240301817
(which can be used on various sites, e.g. https://pat2pdf.org/ to retrieve the document)
https://ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadBasic... o
{ "message": "Too many requests" }
Know nothing about automobile engineering but somehow this feels like WordPerfect releasing a fantastic version for DOS when Windows was already capturing all the market.
Btw they did that. Rest is history.
I actually miss DOS. I could focus on one task for hours without being distracted by other apps trying to get my attention. There was something raw and engaging about being a few layers closer to the hardware without all the bloat. And, while I'd never go back to mechanical hard drives, you could hear the computer 'thinking'. It was more visceral.
I think it's a great analogy. It's all the little quirks and flaws that make ICE cars feel like they have a 'soul'. The more you have to engage with it, the more it feels human and machine are having a conversation. Many car enthusiasts seek out manual gearboxes (despite being slower to 60mph than a modern auto), because it's _fun_ and gives you some mechanical sympathy.
I own an EV, which is a fantastic daily, and a 911 for weekends. I've never felt like taking the EV out for no reason other than to enjoy a mountain pass. It's too heavy in the corners and too sterile.
Interesting perspective from someone that owns both. I only know ICE unless as passenger.
Yes manual steering and gearbox are fun. The response is linear predictable.
But if I were a kid entering college I'll be scared to choose automotive engineering as it's mostly likely to be wasted knowledge..
Do you actually miss DOS or just long for the CLI? Due to the culture of the x86 ecosystem, DOS hasn't gone anywhere; and the CLI is pretty much the default UI for most UNIX like operating systems out there.
Considering that people still love vinyl, automatic watches, fountain pens and hand made notebooks, I think this will still has its niche, and more interesting designs will follow to push the internal combustion engines forward.
On the other hand of the spectrum, Hyundai Ioniq 5 N can emulate a sports car with an internal combustion engine and 8 speed sequential gearbox.
ICE aren't niche, and there isn't strong evidence that they will be. There doesn't seem to be a public Come-to-Jesus moment for electric cars on the horizon. There seems to be solid reasoning behind that reluctance. That is, it will be difficult to displace. If phasing out ICE comes down to regulations only, then the antique interface analogy doesn't fit.
>On the other hand of the spectrum, Hyundai Ioniq 5 N can emulate a sports car with an internal combustion engine and 8 speed sequential gearbox.
Sports cars are sometimes for vanity, which is a role that a Hyundai wouldn't fill. But you referenced driving characteristics. Fair enough, and so no need to talk about the vanity attraction of a future all electric Porsche. When not for vanity only, sports cars are for people who like a driving experience. Sports car culture is strongly critical of any deviation from an ideal experience even with better ICE cars. Therefore, it tends to detest "the other end of the spectrum" the most.
Sports cars are integrating electric motors, but mostly as horsepower and torque supplements for ICE. The most well regarded sports cars for the common man err toward being ultra-light weight, relatively low power, and high rpm with a manual gearbox. With the rest being as analog as possible. With incremental deviations from that ideal only as preferred for specific owner comfort. None of that criteria speaks to an appropriate / desired role for an electric motor.
>need to talk about the vanity attraction of a future all electric Porsche
Future? You can buy an all-electric Porsche Taycan since 2019 - and it’s faster than the 911.
Sports cars are fully adopting electrification, due to the huge torque numbers and high scalability. M-B and BMW of course, but also Porsche and soon to be Ferrari. It’s not just hybrids used for a boost (as in the decade past): those are full electrics.
Unfortunately, EV’s are incredibly heavy, so “faster” is scoped to straight lines. As soon as you try to wrestle the 2300kg Taycan through twisties, the 1500kg 911 gets faster. And it’s still massively overweight compared to proper sports cars (the 911 is a GT).
> and it’s faster than the 911
Kind of, but not really. It accelerates from 0 faster but that's just about it. I don't think anybody would prefer a Taycan on the track versus a 911, and if you were actually racing them, I think the 911 would win every time.
Serious [sports] car enthusiasts don't care about faster; especially not in a straight line.
I by no means fall into this category completely, but I much rather have a moderately slower car than an electric, with real engine/intake/exhaust noise that handles well on turns.
I have never based a car purchasing decision on how much noise the car makes.
What's your point? Future or now, my point about vanity remains. I don't see any point in arguing over my use of the word "future" here.
Again, "faster" isn't the most important metric for car enthusiasts. Which is what I described in my post. I know that's disappointing to people who would like it to be in order to claim total justification for electric motors.
To say that "sports cars are fully adopting electrification" seems to want to imply that sports cars are moving mostly to full electrification. This isn't remotely true. Their customer base wouldn't stand for it.
Under-appreciated point you make: not about speed.
I own a 2014 Boxster S. 315 hp, 266 lb/ft torque, 6-speed. It is NOT the fastest car out there. In fact I own an automatic 3-series BMW that's faster in a straight line every time.
But the Boxster is under 3k pounds curb weight. It is laser-precise on the road. And it sounds glorious, especially with sport exhaust.
I'm often driving between 20-35 mph in second gear because it's the best day-to-day way to hear the engine's sounds.
Otherwise, there are people out there buying 911s/etc. because they can rather than because they care, and those people don't care that Porsche is moving sports cars to hybrid, or less interested in putting manuals in their cars.
But lots of us still want the pure sports experience.
[dead]
Your understanding is very out of date.
All electric sports cars have been a thing for a while, even at the supercar level. Car enthusiasts have in fact embraced electrics. Go on youtube and look up drag race comparison races and a Model S Plaid is very frequently the one people want to beat.
Double clutched automatics have taken over h pattern manuals.
My understanding isn't out of date whatsoever. Your understanding is wishcasting.
You citing the appearance of the Model S Plaid at "youtube drag races" reflects more of your lack of understanding than my own.
The double clutch vs manual debate isn't relevant to the one under discussion. Its an interface argument that is more niched than ICE vs electric, is specialized to each particular car, and each particular use and driving preference.
> You citing the appearance of the Model S Plaid at "youtube drag races" reflects more of your lack of understanding than my own.
No it's just a simple example of how attitudes are changing. You'd expect the drag/Hoonigan crowd to be ICE diehards, but instead they've embraced electrics as interesting and worthy competition.
You asserted that the sportscar world would "detest" any change away from ICE, when clearly that's not what we're seeing.
Porsche and others are embracing all electric platforms. Even hypercar manufacturers like Koenigsegg are embracing hybrids as a transitional technology.
Then look at the cutting edge stuff like the Perry Sterling and it's obvious electric race cars have a bright future indeed. Look at the electric cars and bikes running exhibition at Pikes or Isle of Man. People in the racing world are excited about these developments.
> The double clutch vs manual debate isn't relevant to the one under discussion.
You're the one that mentioned manual gearboxes in your comment.
There's another block of folks who look at Tesla like a company who's making great software in 1994, but it only runs on Windows NT.
Yes, EVs are better in a lot of ways, but in 2024 there are severe barriers that make EVs impractical for a lot of people. Throughout most of the world, charging infrastructure just isn't good enough.
Because cities have better charging infra than rural areas, EVs are at their best as commuter cars. Ironically, there was already an alternative to commuter cars that's hypothetically even better than EVs - public transit - and it also suffers due to lack of investment in infrastructure development.
In Germany, where Porsche is from, sales of EVs are on the decline. The same is true for other countries in Europe as well.
https://www.teslarati.com/electric-vehicle-eu-sales-drop/
In August. After a 38% tariff.
Check out the diagram at the top of this article: https://www.autozeitung.de/assets/styles/article_image/publi...
As you can see, compared to 2023, the sales numbers have been worse month for month in 2024, not just in August.
Think this is short term. Again no expert just based on what I see. Solid batteries give it few years then the maths will be very different
Not sure. Germans are traditionally both tech xenophobes and cheapskates - two arguments against EVs.
Regarding "cheapskates" - I think you have to see the EV prices in combination with typical German salaries. If a middle-class EV costs more than the yearly gross income of an average German software dev, you know there is not much room for rising sales figures. Especially figuring in the large difference between gross and net income here. Add the lacking charging infrastructure and the current decline in sales is no surprise at all.
This says less about consumer habits than about thr quality of EVs being sold in Europe and North America
The main reason is price.
I think it's more like every keyboard player still lusting after physical analog synths even though everyone has perfectly usable, deterministic, digitally perfect software synths for a fraction of the price (or even the amazing free version of Vital).
We are talking hobbyists not corporate office software users. ICE is boring to my monkey brain looking to be entertained/engaged even if vastly superior.
I like the old 6-stroke engines better:
- Dyer/Crower engine = 5th stroke compresses air only, then inject cold water into the overheated cylinder and has another power stroke on 6th (from the generated steam)
- Ilmor/Schmitz = the exhaust stroke from two normal 4-stroke cylinders power the down-stroke of a 3rd larger cylinder, alternatively, then evacuates the gas on 6th up-stroke. [1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muq1xlF8Gu4
PS: For some reason, the Ilmor/Schmitz is call a 5-stroke engine.
Not to say that modern IC engines are any sort of "simple"...but there appear to be a lot more high-precision moving parts, under load, in their clever new crankshaft assembly. (Vs. traditional 4-cycle IC engines.)
Obviously, Porche's target market isn't likely to care about that.
But for possible down-market uses of this technology - are there any mechanical engineers in the house, to comment?
I drive a 24 year old Porsche and the engine already has a lot more mechanical complexity than most other engines- especially for their variable camshaft timing system. You’re right that Porsche and their target customers don’t care much. I’d say German engineering culture in general is to make things work better (when new), and not worry about complexity.
I Do Cars did a tear down of the M96 engine from a 986 Boxster S. Seeing inside of them, it makes sense how these motors cost $20K to teardown, rebuild and remedy Porsche's cost cutting in their first water cooled engine. I would own another 986 or 996 in a heartbeat. Tear down video: https://youtu.be/qrkALiq5hTU?si=0OmBKYcim-cflJEy
Thanks! I’m not sure what people expect from these engines- they’re somehow basically the most reliable car engine from that era (they regularly came out at the top of reliability ratings), while still making ~1.5x the power per displacement that was standard at the time. Things like the D chunk failure and IMS failure can happen, but most people will get a reliable 200-300k miles before they do, and the IMS can easily be prevented with a new bearing kit that is fairly cheap and easy to do. The 2.7 Boxster engine had none of the cylinder issues- that’s the Porsche to get if you want low hassle fun transportation IMO.
It’s true they’re expensive to rebuild properly but you can get used engines with a lot of life left for just a few k.
Not a ME but many modern ICE’s have tons of mechanical complexity in the valvetrain to handle varying timing and lift. From multiple valves driven by different camshafts to various ways to switch between camshafts or rotate cams, this stuff gets crazy.
Presumably Porsche’s design still has all of that, too.
I'd love to see a decent effort with some funding behind it to make a rotary vane engine.. https://youtu.be/UPFFXBAe5mc?feature=shared
But isn't the chamber full of exhaust at the beginning of the second power stroke? What will burn?
It looks like the patent describes a weird hybrid of a conventional 4-stroke and a uniflow 2-stroke.
At the bottom of the first power stroke, the cylinder drops lower to expose scavenging ports. That both forces air in (at the bottom of the cylinder) and helps push exhaust out (through conventional exhaust valves).
Uniflow 2-strokes tend to have high thermal efficiency, but poor emissions, especially particulates. So the idea here might be to gain some efficiency without another emissions-gate.
It says the goal is efficiency, so I assume the point is that if the first does say 80% combustion, then another cycle eeks out another 80% of 80% or whatever. (Brb, have an 8 stroke engine to patent.)
When Porsche says efficiency they mean making more power, not using less fuel. Porsche has a long track record of adopting efficiency tech and using them to make fast cars that still use a ton of fuel.
I'm not sure if that's supposed to be a correction, but if so I don't understand. The description of the two new strokes is as an addition to the normal four, one of which is the fuel intake, I was not assuming that decreases in quantity or anything. It could do, it's just orthogonal to the point - if you don't entirely combust whatever amount you inject in the first ignition , then the idea here aiui is to compress & ignite again to, yes, get some more 'power' out of it.
A recent example of what (I think) the parent is saying, is the new 911 GTS which is now a T-Hybrid [0] engine. But the electric motor doesn't give it better gas mileage than its predecessor, it is just used to eliminate turbo lag which allows them to use a bigger turbo, giving it more horsepower, and using a leaner fuel mixture at full throttle to meet the latest emissions standards.
[0] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a60914997/2025-porsche-911...
It is not a correction, but additional context. Indeed Porsche cares about efficiency- but there are different ways to then leverage that efficiency- for either a more powerful car, or a more fuel efficient car. Porsche will choose the more powerful car, because they sell sports cars, not economy cars. Also see my other reply in this thread.
What’s the difference between getting more power out of a given quantity of fuel, versus using less fuel to achieve a given power output?
My assumption is there is a context difference.
Efficiency in fuel/mile. Efficiency in Power output/liter of displacement.
But that is just my assumption.
You can have a relatively small engine and force a ton of air/fuel into it under boost and get tons of HP but it tends to lose the ability to maintain fuel economy. Tune it for fuel economy and it tends to lose power. It is very difficult to have both in the same package for many reasons. Adding mods like discussed in the article start to allow for the overlap to be wider.
Extremely simplified, when you drive a sports car, you want to maximize power (work per unit of time), period, you don’t care about fuel.
If you want to go the farthest with a full tank, you want to maximize the total work (proportionate to traveled distance) for unit of fuel.
Reality for practically all cars are between these two extremes, you want to enjoy driving, go relatively fast, and still not wasting 25 liters for traveling 100 km.
Those are correct statements that don’t answer the question I asked. You’ve explained the difference between not caring about efficiency and caring about efficiency. The article said the 6-stroke design is for “efficiency” and did not say Porsche doesn’t care about fuel and only wants to maximize power, contrary to the comment I replied to above. If an engine gives you more power with a fixed quantify of fuel, then it must also give you less fuel for a given quantity of power, right? There’s no such thing as more efficient only for power.
BTW Porsche makes consumer vehicles, not just race cars. And they make engines for other types of vehicles, not just cars. It’s ridiculous to claim that Porsche doesn’t care about fuel just because they happen to make some race cars. Nothing in the article suggests this design is for a race car, nor would it; a patent is designed to be broadly applicable and if a 6-stroke design is shown to be more efficient than a 4-stroke design for fuel-efficient consumer cars, you can bet Porsche will be happy to sell you the engines or license the design.
Porsche cares a lot about efficiency, and their cars are generally designed to be very efficient- but they use the extra efficiency to sell a more powerful car, not a more fuel efficient car.
Beyond some historical agricultural tractors, Porsche has only ever made high performance cars, they don't make general purpose "commuter" or "family" cars. Even their large SUVs like the Cayenne are very high performance vehicles.
The base model Cayenne takes almost 6 seconds to get to 60mph when floored. That’s not particularly fast, even by family SUV standards, it’s comparable to a Honda Passport, and slower than SUVs from Audi, BMW, and Ford, and quite a few others. The Cayenne is an SUV in the first place. What exactly is a publicly available SUV if not a general purpose family commuter car? One of my friends bought a Cayenne to shuttle his kids to school and soccer practice. Porsche absolutely does make a general purpose commuter/family car, and you named it.
Porsche may well care often about high performance, I’m not disputing that at all. The problem with your repeated statement is claiming they don’t care about fuel efficiency. That’s not what “efficiency” means. They absolutely can get more power out of an engine and sacrifice fuel efficiency, and some of their models do, but if the intent of the 6-stroke design is “efficiency”, then by definition they care about fuel efficiency. Whether they use that to achieve higher power, or lower fuel consumption relative to some other car is irrelevant to what is meant by efficiency. Also you’re just assuming that their 6-stroke design is intended for high performance. You might be right, but there are other possibilities you’ve ignored or haven’t thought of.
The Cayenne (and also the VW Touareg which is it based on) is an offroad exotic supercar platform from the bottom up- the handling, engineering, etc. is really unique. It is also, by now, and outdated design that is over 20 years old and not changed very much. It is also a very heavy vehicle with a suspension and chassis that can survive hard offroad racing- jumping it large distances, and landing it hard, etc. The frame, suspension, etc. - it can also tow as much as a full sized pickup truck.
You can get a base model with a smaller engine, but it is still a high performance car design from the ground up. They are also pretty small inside- not much more room than a VW Golf. Yes, (wealthy) people take their kids to school and soccer practice in them. I also take my kid to school in my Boxster... which also on paper is slower than a lot of regular Japanese passenger cars, which in practice it could easily lap on a track because it handles so much better.
To really understand the Cayenne, look at a fully equipped model with air suspension, multiple differential locks, skid plates, sway bar disconnects, and a twin turbo V8 - and look at what people on YouTube do with them. Also look at the V10 and V12 Touareg models.
If you're into performance car driving, you will notice that a Cayenne drives nothing like those other SUVs even if the specs on paper are the same. On a track (off road or paved) with a skilled driver it will easily lap those other vehicles. Specs don't account for finely tuned weight distribution, handling, braking, steering etc. that make a Porsche a Porsche, or the fact that all of the systems (oil supply, etc.) can survive sustained high rpm high g-force track use which would destroy other cars quickly.
You are also misunderstanding my point about efficiency- obviously Porsche cares about efficiency, but they don't design or advertise their vehicles to get low fuel consumption. Efficiency factors into the overall vehicle- more powerful, more range, etc. Improved fuel efficiency is also a selling point, but not the main one.
> Improved fuel efficiency is also a selling point, but not the main one.
Great, this new claim isn’t wrong, so now we agree. ;)
The base model Cayenne can’t do any of the stuff you described, you’re talking about race-equipped cars, which isn’t what Porsche is selling at the base model. You could argue the exact same thing about almost any car manufacturer; most of them compete in track and off-road races. Subaru would be a great example- their consumer cars share design elements of their rally cars. That doesn’t mean an Outback is an exotic supercar, just like it doesn’t mean that a base Cayenne is either exotic or a supercar. In fact, it’s not. The lowest 2 Macan models are even slower than the base Cayenne. These are just “nice” cars, compared to cheaper brands of family SUV commuters, not high performance cars.
You are only seeing how it is used by people that can afford something exotic they don’t need or use and not understanding what it really is engineered for- sort of like concluding the Jeep Rubicon must be a cheap commuter car because they are popular as rentals in vacation destinations where nobody goes offroad. Or seeing urban people wearing arcteryx hardshells as raincoats, and not realizing they really are functional mountaineering gear.
You need to look deeper than the specs at the design and driving characteristics to understand what it is capable of. What makes a Porsche a Porsche is not a low 0-60 time. I have torn down and rebuilt every system on the vehicles, and used them in some of the most extreme conditions on the planet- deep water fording, hundreds of miles unsupported in unpopulated desert, etc. The triple door seal waterproofing and gearbox ventilation systems for deep water fording are alone really unique. You can drive a 20 year old Cayenne deep with water to the top of the grill all day long and not a drop will leak into anything.
A stock even base model Cayenne is one of the few “off road supercars” ever designed and built- and is capable of such things with just the right tires. Of course, some of the rarer factory options radically improve the vehicles capabilities.
I was talking about factory Cayenne options, not race modifications- but the basic design of the vehicle is also really unique to enable those capabilities. For example- other unibody SUVs are mostly on car based platforms, the Cayenne was engineered from the ground up to survive heavy off road use. It is one of the unusual creations of Ferdinand Piech- look up the other vehicles he was responsible for…
The Cayenne’s max wading depth is just shy of 20 inches, about the same as Subaru Forester.
I can find some evidence that people called the Cayenne Turbo GT a hypercar, but nobody calls the base model a supercar. Know why? It doesn’t have the engine. You completely dismissed the small family commuter engine. The engine is the primary thing that makes a high performance car high performance, and base Cayenne simply does not have a high performance engine. And so far you’ve ignored the Macan entirely. These base models don’t have the suspension or brakes or other components for good off-roading. People seem to prefer the Turbo with off-road suspension, better brakes, off road tires, and many other upgrades that together more than double the price compared to a base Cayenne.
It’s true that Porsche makes a supercar, like the 911 GT3, but the base Cayenne and Macan models are just widely considered luxury SUVs and nothing more. Maybe Porsche doesn’t make very many family commuter cars, but they do make a few (that happen to sell well because they’re cheaper than sports cars.)
The fording depth thing really makes my point so I am just going to focus on that. You can't really appreciate the Cayenne design unless you are a person that uses the vehicle in a way that pushes its limits- and have firsthand experience that other vehicles will fail in those same conditions.
The specs vary a bit, but a 957 for example has a steel spring fording depth of 500mm (19.68") and air suspension depth of 555mm (21.85"). Those specs don't really tell the story though.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I pulled up the 2024 Forester owners manual- and it has no factory fording depth- and says to never drive through standing water of any depth, whereas the Cayenne manual has detailed specs on depth under different configurations, and even factory instructional videos on fording technique. Few vehicles explicitly have a factory fording rating depth, and if they do it will be well below the actual physical limits to give a margin of safety.
But looking at the specs ignores the massive engineering differences that make the Cayenne extremely good at fording:
-Triple door seals on all of the doors
-Air tight cabin with continuous positive pressure inside (although personally I keep windows down when fording)
-The differentials, gearbox, etc. are all vented way high up on the vehicle with hoses, through ventilation boxes that pass only air pressure and not water
-The engine intake is mounted at the top front of the engine bay behind the grille, with baffles that allow it to keep water out if moving at the right speed, even if you are much deeper than the intake depth with a bow wave over the hood
-Every electrical connector is completely waterproof and submersible
I was once stuck in deep wet mud half way up the doors in one of these vehicles, and it sat there for ~2 hours before I successfully recovered it, and there was no water in the transmission differential, through the door seals, etc. - something that essentially no other factory vehicle could do, even other expensive offroad vehicles.
Moreover, I have crossed some really deep river crossings- such as the Mojave river in the spring after heavy rains. This was much deeper than the factory rating but just below the air intake level, where lifted jeeps were getting flooded and stranded, and it made it through without drowning. There was a drowned Jeep right next to where I entered, that was waiting for an expensive offroad recovery. I was in a completely stock base model steel spring vehicle, with only all terrain tires added.
Look up "Otis"- a stock Cayenne owned by a friend of mine that has driven it 150,000 miles almost entirely offroad, through some of the most challenging overlanding routes in North America. It is not a high end model, and is unmodified other than tires and a slightly better skid plate.
Some fun videos of the Touareg (Cayenne's VW cousin) operating in deep water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GawFxOk2rjc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFO8viLQ5mA
In both of those the water is probably some 35" deep based on going well over the top of the tires.
Now consider that all of this is on a vehicle which also handles like a sports car, and can make good lap times on a race track totally stock- two totally competing engineering goals. It is not the powerful engine options alone that makes it a supercar, but attention to detail for specific engineering goals - to reliably do things other vehicles cannot - from the bottom up. A regular car with a powerful engine is still not a supercar. The Lamborghini Urus and Bentley Bentayga are also both essentially a Cayenne.
Well alright, I believe you that the design and build is superior, and you have more experience with Cayenne than I do. My main datapoint is my buddy who shuttled kids and complained his Cayenne was breaking down a lot and in the shop too often. But if the thing is generally as high end and robust as you say compared to other cars, then the base model sounds like a good deal even at $84k. Maybe I’ll get one someday. ;) I appreciate the links and stats and details.
Porsche cares a lot about efficiency, because with higher efficiency they can make more power. They are a sports car company, and ultimately are building high performance vehicles. That is in contrast to other less performance focused car companies, which would use efficiency gains to allow them to use a smaller engine- thereby making it both more fuel efficient and cheaper/lighter, but not faster.
The Porsche 918 Spyder for example is a plug in hybrid supercar, which uses the hybrid system together with a massive gasoline engine- to make it really really fast.
Porsche can get more power without higher efficiency. That they’re choosing efficiency means they’re looking for higher power with lower fuel consumption. How they choose to use that efficiency is their business, I’m just pointing out that they do, in fact, care about fuel consumption, and claiming otherwise just because they sell high performance cars, is incorrect.
Oops, another 80% of the remaining 20%, I mean. (But also I would guess it is probably less efficient than the initial one, not another 80%.)
Might also be possible to inject water into the compressed exhaust gasses. The water evaporates and creates the second power stroke, while lowering the temperature of the exhaust gasses. There's quite a lot of energy left in the exhaust gasses otherwise.
This is not a new idea but it creates mechanical complexity and higher requirements on the materials of the piston and cylinder.
6 stroke diesel prototype.
https://www.autoweek.com/news/a2063201/inside-bruce-crowers-...
edit: Description before link
You can overfill the cylinder for the first stroke, because the unspent fuel will burn on the next cycle instead of being exhausted.
High power engines exhaust a lot of unburned fuel, because you can't guarantee an exact 100% fill for the cylinder, and there's more power to be had at 120% fill than 80% fill. Oversimplified of course.
But you don't have an additional intake stroke, so there's limited oxygen in the second power stroke to burn.
It sounds more like they're running fuel-lean, then possibly adding more fuel before the second compression stroke.
Maybe the first cycle is super lean, leaving lots of O2 and CO still to burn.
Given there is enough oxygen left, they can inject more fuel.
that might be something similar to why diesels mix exhaust gas with fresh air, but that might be just to purify exhaust gases better - I'm no expert
Sounds like EGR
> To do this, Porsche's patent shows a crankshaft spinning on a ring with two concentric circles—an annulus. ... this engine has two top and bottom dead centers.
Instead of doing this complicated crankshaft, I wonder if you could do this with opposed pistons. The difference between the two top dead centers (and bottom dead centers) is small, so the secondary piston wouldn't have to move far to create the same change in volume.
I can see some advantages and disadvantages. The crankshaft gets simpler, but you need to move the secondary piston somehow, presumably off the camshaft? Which sounds pretty rough on the timing chain. Also, it would have to go where the valves currently are. And another piston ring to wear out.
On the other hand, the crankshaft gets simpler, and it's a critical component since it's transmitting all the engine power. Also, with the opposing piston, you could use a cam to get greater control of exactly when the volume changes happen.
2-strokes opposed pistons engine already has a phase shift between bottom and top crankshaft for spooling purpose. Controlling the position of the top crankshaft relative to the bottom crankshaft seems doable.
I'm sure one day we will look back and laugh about how we used to install actual mobile power plants in our cars. But as of today, they are still objectively better on many criteria.
What makes you so sure? We don't look back and laugh at people using horses for transportation. We understand that's what they had at the time.
It personally strikes me as a little humorous, particularly from the perspective of a human in (say) 2150. But, not in a mean spirited way. Of course, much respect for the pioneers of the ICE engine and on-going improvements today.
I thought the nuclear powered aircraft concepts were very cool. None every flew though (as far as we know). Russia claims to have a nuclear powered missile.
If I remember correctly the engine in the Mazda Millenia was a Miller cycle engine and did something unconventional like this. Props to Mazda for trying new stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_Millenia
Miller cycle (IIRC) was a bit different. It simply kept the intake valves open longer and used boost from it's supercharger to emulate a valve "closing". It used a boost level that was significantly higher than a supercharged Otto cycle would use. Volkswagen is doing something similar with the EA888.3B (B cycle) motor that is in the most recent Tiguans. https://www.motortrend.com/features/inside-volkswagen-ea888-...
This six stroke is doing something a bit more complex...more impressive, IMHO. Similar in complexity to what Nissan is doing with their variable compression engine they are currently using https://www.nissan-global.com/EN/INNOVATION/TECHNOLOGY/ARCHI...
There was also a 6 stroke diesel a while back that injected water into the empty cylinder after the exhaust stroke to gain an extra compression stroke from waste heat...Bruce Crower (Crower Cams fame) built one years ago but I never heard anything more about it. https://www.autoweek.com/news/a2063201/inside-bruce-crowers-...
Note that the motortrend link you give says that the Miller cycle "closes the intake valves much earlier." I'm just reading about this for the first time, but this is exactly the opposite of the description on Wikipedia [0], and from a quick glance at the patent Wikipedia is correct, and motortrend is exactly wrong here.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_cycle
Good note...especially since I misspoke. Apparently..it doesn't use standard Miller cycle.
They are calling it Budack cycle. https://alexsautohaus.com/whats-changed-with-volkswagens-new...
Mazda has marketed half a dozen weird engines, all of which were crap. It has been a remarkable streak of stubborn, unwanted innovation from such a small carmaker.
Reading these articles is like when you used to read articles in 2005 about people "innovating" on OS/2.
The market has moved to electric (see China) and Porsche would be well served on investing there versus on OS/2 (nee ICE engines).
There was quite an overlap between the use of bows and guns. Bows were reliable, accurate, quiet, would work in the rain and reloaded quickly. Guns took a long time to exceed them.
I think there is still quite a bit of time left for internal combustion engines.
Long distance is a big one, as is racing. Fuel is lightweight and can still be added quickly.
> The market has moved to electric
It has not.
> (see China)
Understand the impact of subsidies.
> versus on OS/2 (nee ICE engines).
There is no roadmap to an electric plane in your lifetime. ICE engines are going to be here longer than you are.
While you are onithe right track, the market may not be moving quite that fast and to a small amount of ice inventment may be needed.
It's all in a weird state. Tweaking ICE engines was a fun hobby with lots of 'consume' products to dream about. Electric just out of the box stomps ICE, but not in the same 'acquiring things and putting together a puzzle' type way that feeds our monkey brains.
That said Porsche is dead and the super wide Audi's pretending to be Porsches just because they have a Porsche skin are lame.
They do have one of the better EVs on the market.
That is brilliant!
As soon as they release one with a coal fired steam engine, I'm onboard!
Nothing like last millenniums technology today...
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I think many of people here live in US and assume that it everywhere things look similar. in my European country electric infrastructure is not ready for electric cars and with current energy prices this makes no financial sense.
I own plug in hybrid and I live in apartment meaning I have no possibility to charge at home. near me (about 10 min of walking there is public single phase allow charger with 2 plugs machine maxing 3.5kW total (for both)) and if I'm lucky I manage to find free slot one a week, but usually that's one every two weeks. This is only "free" charger in reasonable distance from me, and free means that I can use it when I have ticket for public transportation with I need to have anyways.
there are some normal chargers, but they cost 2x for slow charging or 3x for fast charging than energy prices here + you have to pay per minute of taking parking spot.
in summary when I calculated how much does it cost $/km it is very similar to gasoline but it's much trickier to recharge.
I would love to own fully electric but without also owning house with solar this makes no sense right now.
> in my European country electric infrastructure is not ready for electric cars and with current energy prices this makes no financial sense.
I’m always amazed by statements like this. People who have lived through the rollout of the internet to the masses can’t see how we’d modify existing structure to accommodate needs. We had phone lines initially, 20 years later now we have 5G, fibre, satellites.
They just dug up every street in my European town to put fibre internet in. We already had broadband in the town. They dug up every street to give us fibre that most people won’t even need over their existing connection. People look at this and say “how will we charge electric cars” when we are already surrounded by electricity.
Not even that: We have managed to extract some dense and flammable black oil hundreds of meters deep under the ocean soil, transport it thousands of km again to remote countries where it is processed and again transported and distributed daily to many storage locations where any layman can again transfer it to their own vehicles. That is a feat.
Electricity infrastructure already exists everywhere where we have civilization. And production is usually just hundreds or less km away. For lots of people it even happens at their own home.
The average amount of km every European drives is around 40km. For a standard EV that is around 7,2 kWh of energy per day, which can be charged in 2-3 hours from a normal 240V Schuko plug at home.
If there’s no option to charge at home, a weekly load on newer EVs with around 500km range would be more than enough, taking around 3-4 hours on standard 22kW chargers or less than 2 hours in a DC 50kW chargers.
EVs are a real option for lots of people. Main blocker for most of people according to most statistics is lack of knowledge on how to operate, and as a consequence fear of the unknown.
That would be fine for second car. I need form time to time visit family that is about 270km one way mosty on a highway
The 500km mark is calculated in ideal conditions, flat street at 60km/h or something like that in more realistic highway conditions it's about 300km
That's why plugins have so much sense even when they cost about the same that EV would. I can drive fully electric on everyday short distances (my car is rated for 33km of electric range, but I'm able to squeeze about 40 by careful eco driving) That usually covers my city driving and at the same time I have 700-1000km backup of ICE/hybrid range
In my observation hybrid approach have about 30% better fuel efficiency than pure petrol.
I agree that having 22kW charger nearby that is affordable could solve all of that. But for many people that is not the case and if so they are so expensive.
In my case petrol costs me about $0.12/km and electric from supercharger would be $0.14/km (assuming 19kW/100km). Why would I want to switch to more expensive car to pay more per driven distance?
Of course everything changes when you have solar installation and you have basically free electricity (of course I omit here installation cost that would make if free after about 10years or so) then driving basically everyday for free and paying for fast charging few times a year when doing very long distance trip makes is fine.
But again, not everyone can have solar installation.
I have high hopes for new sodium batteries, give them 2 more generations and we could afford ev cars with 1000km of range in cars less expensive than ice and that would be very compelling.
500km range cars are still stupidly expensive right now, and the fact that paid chargers are quite expensive compared to home charging remains. This may change in the future, but we live in the present.
People aren't that stupid as you think, you are just ignorant. EV preachers take the easy route and ignore issues which are inconvenient to them, or focus only on home charging.
The average price of a new car sold in Germany for private individuals is 42.000€. Around $47,000 in USA. Prices are even higher if you include company or fleet purchases.
A RWD Model 3 and Model Y with around 500km range is even less than that right now in their available stock.
How can that be stupidly expensive if it’s even below average price?
Street chargers are more expensive than home charging, that is right. However it is still cheaper than gas and diesel by 50-70% by average in mainland Europe.
You can look up facts instead of calling me ignorant.
We have two massive parallel energy transfer systems in the world. And they are massive. Consider the electrical grid for all it's behemoth costs and regulations, at least it exists and is a known monster. Doubling it is a technical challenge but not an unknown. Akin to laying fiber. On one side of the grid you could even just change how the energy is produced at a few thousand plants and have zero change on consumer side if you wanted (for a given territory the size of a USA avg state)
Now imagine we came along and said we were going to add to the electrical grid a parallel system of transporting explosive liquid to billions of distributed combustion engines. Not only that, the explosive liquid is only available in a few politically charged areas in the world. Add all the tankers refineries pipes truck lines holding tanks pumps etc so that most people live at most a few miles from a holding tank that will distribute hundreds of gallons to them for their own micro power plant that only exists for their commute.
It seems crazy. We built both systems incrementally over time so we're in a massive sunk cost analysis whenever we think about replacing gas cars.
In addition to electricity and gasoline, there's also natural gas, which is shipped around in giant tankers and via pipelines, and then piped into homes to be used for heating and cooling in many places. Also for systems we transfer energy around on Earth, consider the infrastructure used to ship coal all around the world, on trains and ships.
Naturally, the infrastructure arises when the demand is there. But nobody was ever hesitant to buy a 4G-only phone for fear of insufficient 4G service because every 4G phone also worked on 3G.
The same is not true of electric cars. People have real mileage anxiety because they can’t use petrol when a charger isn’t available
The big question is not whether the infrastructure will be built, but whether it will owned by rent-seekers who charge everyone without their own driveway a massive premium to charge their vehicles.
You need to acknowledge that in Europe, the high price of electricity mean consumers aren't getting any discounts in money/distance ($/mile being inappropriate in the EU), if not being charged more to charge an electric vehicle over an ICE vehicle.
Saving the environment is nobel, but affording it is another thing.
If price hikes in the US continue, there are places in the US where that may soon be the case, too. Then we're screwed. Thankfully hybrids aren't going anywhere. They may be more complicated, but they have the most critical feature, regenerative braking. instead of shedding the energy spent slowing down as pollution and heat, it gets saved and is used to move the vehicle later.
I can’t acknowledge anything without numbers to compare. In the UK some suppliers give cheaper rates at night (1/4 the rate). Is that not the case elsewhere? What is the cost per mile in Europe vs ICE?
Transferring so much electricity to everywhere in an efficient way is more expensive and harder though, not counting electricity generation, only partially clean, noy enough, very expensive.
Yes we already have power cables but they do not generate power. The issue is clean power generation capacity.
There is a reason that I pay 7p/kWh (3p/mile) to charge at night compared to 30p/kWh during the day. There is already spare capacity at night. In my country it’s mostly wind.
Is your country 100% EV now?
No, but even if it was demand would still be lower than 2002:
> The highest peak electricity demand in the UK in recent years was 62GW in 2002. Since then, the nation’s peak demand has fallen by roughly 16% due to improvements in energy efficiency.
> Even if we all switched to EVs overnight, we estimate demand would only increase by around 10%. So we’d still be using less power as a nation than we did in 2002, and this is well within the range the grid can capably handle.
https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/ele...
That’s better than I thought. But you still need to ensure that power source is clean, otherwise it defeats the purpose.
If I may disagree: I live in a flat with a fully electric vehicle. It's just a matter of planning around charging a bit. Once you think ahead (and it's not dramatic), you don't notice anymore.
I find plug in hybrids make no sense: electrification is the future.
I would really hate having to keep going out to move my car to a charger, then go out again to move it back to another parking spot when it's done (usually you pay a fine if you keep it at the charger). It's just so much work and it means I can't sit down and relax. And parking spaces in my area are extremely limited at night so every time I move I'd have to worry about finding one again (and a free charger too obviously which also seem to be extremely rare, I just know of one about 1km away)
For me a car is about convenience and having to worry about it and going out and doing things with it when I'm not even using it is the opposite of convenient. It should just be there and ready when I need it and forgotten when I don't. And it should be as cheap and low-maintenance as possible. If every parking space had a charger and I could just plug it in and forget about it when I park it, it'd be acceptable (in fact better than an ICE because at times I also had to remember to refuel it for an early trip). What adds to this also is that I don't really have a 'routine', my life is really ad-hoc.
So for me it would be a huge dealbreaker to have an EV until chargers are everywhere. But right now I have the perfect solution anyway which is not even having or needing a car at all :) My city has amazing public transport and 20 euros gets me an unlimited monthly travel pass. I don't even like spending money on cars, and when I did still own one it was usually a 1500-2000 euro old banger meaning that EVs are out of my price range anyway (even used ones will never be that cheap).
> I find plug in hybrids make no sense: electrification is the future.
Those of us living in the present prefer to be more flexible and have the best of both worlds (electric commute, ICE for long trips)
Really, just a bit of “planning around charging”? The less predictable your life is the less this is an option. The most extreme example of this is Hertz having to walk away from billions invested in 100,000 Teslas. Short term renters simply don’t tolerate the uncertainties that EVs bring.
Maybe this person neighbours a Tesla supercharger, who knows
> I find plug in hybrids make no sense: electrification is the future.
They make sense depending on how far away that future is, and I think that 'future' is way different for different parts of the world.
I assume you live in the US.
Because in almost every other country there is a real lack of decent charging infrastructure.
Especially outside of densely populated areas.
I think Europe and China aren't doing so bad on charging infrastructure.
It's not bad but it's nowhere near what the US has.
Not just availability of chargers but also the average kW rate.
The following link says 5x more chargers in EU than US (and twice as many EVs):
https://apricum-group.com/ev-charging-infrastructure-race-in...
Rapid charging is now widely available (certainly could be more)
So spend on that infrastructure instead, or mandate it. Honestly, spending resources on anything ICEs (outside of special industries) in this day and age is just wrong.
They're called sports cars for a reason. They're driven far less than everyday cars. They're fantastic fun.
I'm an enviromentalist and I'd still buy an ICE Porsche.
No EV has come close ... only the Hyundai ioniq 5 N seems to be looking interesting.
What are you looking for? Typically when people say sports car they mean high-torque (and thereby acceleration)... which ... you will not get an ICE motor that gives you similar performance to an electric drive
>I'm an enviromentalist and I'd still buy an ICE Porsche.
Environmentalists walk or ride bikes.
According to whom?
I am also an environmentalist and burn some fuel from time to time, I’m not a zealot.
For me to operate and support the environment the best I can I also need to be mentally fit and have life enjoinment. And riding my old classic carbureted Triumph helps me with that.
According to my dictionary an environmentalist is "a person who is interested in or studies the environment and who tries to protect it from being damaged by human activities".
I can't see how buying a Porsche (or any car really) is compatible with that.
That's a bit like saying, I'm pro athlete (or even just very health conscious), but going out for a night out with my friends to a fast food joint is not compatible with that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
Where do you draw the line then? If I spend the week jetting across the Atlantic but then take a reusable bag to the supermarket am I an environmentalist?
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum
Where do you draw the line then?
I'll note I've seen people struggling across the supermarket carpark to avoid buying a plastic bag only to get in a giant SUV. It's a form of moral licensing[1], there is a huge amount of dissonance around environmental issues.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-licensing
I'll agree on that example. But that's different to what's been discussed in this thread.
A sports car, used fairly sparingly for fun, and not a daily driver - is different to the horrible trend of daily driving done via ugly, honkingly big SUV's.
There's a line somewhere out there that enables humanity to have fun and not destroy the planet ... probably related to the 80/20 rule.
“I’m a vegetarian, but I’d still scarf down a steak.”
Fortunately the definition of wrong is very personal. We still have at least 40-50 years of ICE vehicles running on the Earth. Making them even more efficient and cheap is a valuable feat for many millions.
I like to compare this to SSD vs HDD. Why even invest in HDD development when SSDs are so much better?
Right now almost all consumers use SSDs because they are affordable for space most people need.
And I remember how we were transitioning where I bought 128gb drive for cost of 4TB HDD to have super snappy system and I had to manage system much more to not burn writes too quickly (ram drives for logs and temp etc)
That where I believe we are right now with EVs. But they are more affordable and have better range every year.
But to go further with this comparison we still develop new generations of HDDs even after all that time, even when everyone believe that at some point in the future we will abandon that technology completely
> I think many of people here live in US and assume that it everywhere things look similar.
Most of the US is in the same boat as you. Where I live, there is nowhere to charge and there are fairly great distances between things. You rarely ever see electric cars here, because they are only useful for people who have invested quite a bit in their house to build a charging station.
The people here on hn that have the attitude you mention, are people who live in large populated regions, especially congregated around the coasts.
I'm all for electrifying, and I think it is very necessary, but people do love to put the cart way in front of the horse.
For now electric cars make sense for those who have a way to charge at their home. Otherwise not so great.
My condo (sort of) put chargers for every parking spot and garage in the whole "complex". Wasn't that expensive and raises the value of the units more than the cost per charger.
Presumably as Porsche is not about efficient transportation; it is about emotion, driving as an experience, making a statement, etc.
Chances are there will be - or, at least, Porsche appears to bet there will be - a sufficient number of well-heeled enthusiasts who prefer the sound, smell and vibration of an ICE to the quiet performance of an electric motor.
I am really curious to see how this pans out in a generation or two - I suspect nostalgia plays a significant role in the 'performance cars should have ICEs' mindset, so what happens when the generation who grew up on EVs enter middle age and have the disposable income for a performance car?
As for the rest of us, if, say, 1 in 1000 cars in a couple of decades' time burns fossil fuels, it is hardly going to be a nuisance. I'd be more worried (If I owned an ICE-powered vehicle) about the infrastructure needed to get the fossil fuels I needed in the tank.
(Glancing anxiously over at my 1949 S1 Land Rover (1.6l I4 petrol) and 1981 Land Cruiser 42 (3.4l I4 diesel) - neither of which are performance cars by any stretch of the imagination! The 3B engine in the Land Cruiser will merrily chug along on just about anything vaguely combustible you pour in the tank, though.)
If you're into that exotic hobby long after ICE cars are obsolete, you'll need to purchase synthetic fuel for it or purchase the equivalent amount of CO2 direct air capture. Sounds okay to me.
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Oh, they will be, no worries - doubly so as the fuel they need goes from being a necessary evil of civilization to a niche product for enthusiasts.
There's going to be along tail of ICE vehicles out there, though - say, I have a tractor on my farm (which is not being worked commercially, it is basically an expensive and time-consuming hobby seeing as my wife's family has tilled this plot of land since the dark ages. Literally.)
Anyway, even if diesel prices soar to $25/l (That's $100/gal for the metrically challenged), with our current usage, it will still be cheaper to buy diesel at that cost than to invest in a new, EV tractor. Hence I can't see that tractor going anywhere anytime soon.
Why should something be heavily vilified and taxed simply because you personally dislike it?
Because it’s a dead-end tech that’s holding us back and destroying the place where we all live. If you insist on pursuing it for your own pleasure, knowing what we all know now, you may be a villain.
Most emissions come from grid energy. The greens cancelled nuclear and were the real villains in the end.
but the grandparent poster's problem isn't with ICE itself, but with "emotion, driving as an experience" etc.
In other words, the grandparent poster's argument is merely that people shouldn't be basing decisions on their (flawed) emotional attachment to driving as an experience, and would like such to be shamed and vilified.
This is a moralistic argument. It has nothing to do with environmentalism, but is using climate change as a platform to push a personal agenda or world view. In other words, it's a woke argument.
It’s not vilified. It’s the recovery of environmental costs associated with ICEs as well as subsidizing a lower barrier to entry for EVs.
There are plenty of place around the world where there isn't sufficient capacity in the grid even for powering the houses.. let alone EVs
It’s amazing how much the luxury car industry has advertised what is essentially a shaking and noise complement to going fast.
The “smooth” revs. The “visceral” feel. The “connection” to the road. It’s just a few metal cylinders going up and down real fast, tuned to sound nice in a packaged product.
It’s like brainwashing. Impressive really. I like going to the track when I can, but that’s a bit different. The statement is the work you’ve put into your car, not how “exclusive” your statement is.
people who drive expensive cars don't care about twitter opinions.
They’re already heavily taxed. But why vilified?
A tax can help common infrastructures (building road) or limit something (cigarettes price)
Some people think the ICE car tax(es) already in place are not sufficient compared to the damage they cause. To reduce usage, both tax and public opinion (shaming, vilifying) works great.
It’s regrettable the efforts only focus on a car motors, the most dangerous property of a car is it’s weight (and emissions depends on that weight).
Vilifying things doesn't accomplish anything because the negative opinion becomes a cultural split. People don't care about the hatred of their out-group and lots of people will seek it out to burnish their status with the in-group.
The cars in question are luxury cars that are dime a dozen. I understand heavily taxing ordinary ICE cars, but why luxury ones?
There's a huge overlap between people who seek out such experiences and those who drive recklessly and modify their exhausts.
Or maybe you're not particularly interested in cars or the people who are interested in cars and you can't tell the difference / assume all of "those" people are the same,
I actually am - mostly the engineering part of them though and to me, to paraphrase a prominent local motoring journalist, motoring is dead - EVs are a transition propulsion method and the end state is no motoring as we currently understand it and maintaining a car broadly considered lame.
The only people I've met who are car enthusiasts and don't go for the reckless/loud style of driving are people like my friend - a car mechanic who managed to form a single, road worthy Nissan Z31 from two defunct halves.
Your proposals are a bit contradictory. If you heavily tax something, it becomes a money source for the government; does it then make sense to try to extinguish said activity through artificial social aversion? Also, whatever is vilified by the government, but stays legal or at least feasible, will act as a magnet for the counterculture.
If you really hate something, just propose an outright ban. It would work for Porsches; no one can secretly grow a Porsche in his backyard.
you must be european
Muricah much, or just trolling ? I though that was not the style here
i’m not particularly supportive of people who think fun needs to be vilified and taxed out of existence. it just so happens that this mindset is common among europeans who will never be able to afford a nice vehicle
> performance cars should have ICEs
After driving a fast Tesla, stepping into an ICE performance car feels like going back to a steam engine. A very slow, unresponsive steam engine.
When avid petrolheads try a fast EV and feel the instant torque it will be an epiphany for them. Only the most stubborn will stick with fossil cars.
I was at a local track in my older bmw (non M), a Tesla 3 (on lowered springs) was next to me in the grid. It did not compete with the corvettes or Porsches but with the Miatas and Me, it just weighed too much in the turns to carry the speed.
The owner, who also tracks a Corvette, said he might upgrade the shocks next. I imagine sway bars could help too.
Instant torque is cool, but goddamn it is soulless.
If you want instant torque with soul, try a horse.
(the catch: this instant is often one which you weren't expecting, and if you are lucky it will mostly have been applied along the craniocaudal axis)
I'm sure they said the same when they saw the first photographs and compared them with paintings.
you might note that people still paint.
Well that also needs to be heavily vilified and taxed.
Since paintings are mostly made by someone they are under income tax which is at least in my country the highest percentage of all taxes. Plus VAT like everything else. A painter this easily pays 60% tax on what you have to pay
Ah yes we should all live in a gray bloc working in a gray factory until the end of time
Vilifying a d taxing any luxury not only is a ludicrous position, it will only make inequality worse. Its not like the 0.1% will renoujce to it, and taxes don't matter to them.
The parent comment you're replying to is a sarcasm.
Yet the manual transmission is dying out too.
Which ICE performance car? I went from an SRT8 back in 2012 to a Tesla Model 3 performance + mods and now most recently went back to ICE via an AMG GT63. I can confidently say that the GT63 is leagues more fun than the Tesla ever was. Sure the Tesla was quick off the line, but outside of that it felt sterile and the ride was quite uninspired.
Model 3's didn't exist in 2012. Did you mean something else? I've driven an M3P for 5 years, and I wouldn't call it sterile.
I haven't been cross shopping it with vehicles that cost 3x as much and get only 15% of the mileage, so maybe I'm missing something? But weighing 10% more and taking 20% longer to reach 60 doesn't seem particularly compelling.
If it's the only car you've driven for five years of course it doesn't feel sterile, it's a wonderful car, and nothing against it, but it is not a fun car / "enthusiast" car insofar as enthusiast refers to the thin slice of all automotive enthusiasts that are primarily interested in handling that is dynamic and communicative
> If it's the only car you've driven for five years of course it doesn't feel sterile...
I don't understand what you're trying to say here, but clearly we disagree. To each their own.
-True, but I believe (at least this holds true for me) - the tinkerability, if you like, of ICEs is much higher. You can work on them at home, install all sorts of modifications and upgrades - real or perceived - to a much larger extent than you (currently) can on your EV.
It all depends on what makes cars interesting to you, of course - but a lot of the car enthusiast clientele would merrily start tinkering with their pride and joy even if all is well, just because they can.
You can still modify an electric car's suspension with shocks, springs, anti roll bars, and performance tires.
You’re wasting your time if you have to explain passion and soul, of which these types have neither.
Thats a very common misconception. Being very fast doesnt necessarily make a car very fun.
The fastest EV is nothing compared to the fastest ICE.
Top fuel dragsters accelerate from 0 to 100 mph in 0.8 seconds.
I have tried fast EV and it's boring. I prefer my loud meth injected turbo diesel BMW (520 lb/ft at the wheels, pulls like a Tesla but is not boring to me)
Eh, no?
One car being objectively faster than another does not mean that it is more fun.
And even if one vehicle is more fun in some total measure, it will not be fun in all the same ways as all other fun vehicles.
There are plenty of people who alternate between something like a modern Mercedes V8 and a classic Mini. There is no question of which one is faster, but it might be the slow one that gives the most joy of sporty driving
911 Turbos are faster than Teslas. Regardless, EVs feel like driving a washing machine. Some people are just not into that, or expect more. I’ve never been excited by any EV I sat down in, no matter how quickly they go 0-60.
> 911 Turbos are faster than Teslas.
Nope. Tesla Model S Plaid beats the 911 Turbo S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fastest_production_car...
I suppose you don't know how to drive a manual either :)
I drove stick for a couple of decades. They were fun at the time (except in traffic jams), but I'm no Luddite. I can enjoy being thrown back into my seat with roller coaster acceleration without the accompaniment of vroom vroom noises, exhaust, and shifting.
I did test drive a Tesla and i agree any electric motor does the throwing back better than combustion.
But being thrown back is not the fun part. The fun part is controlling the car around those bends on a mountain road.
Anyone can floor it in a straight line.
The model 3 is a track car [0], literally with a tunable track mode. It weighs less than other track competitors like the M3 competition. It is fun in the bends.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXqxiSZAevY
> Why waste R&D on a dead end?
"There were an estimated 20 million horses in March 1915 in the United States" [1]. In 2023? Almost 7 million.
Internal combustion engines will be around for a long time, in part because they're beautiful.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_the_United_States#St...
[2] https://www.ppfas.com/pdf-docs/b-finance/cigar-butt.pdf
Pedantry: they aren't the same horses, though: in 1915 they were mostly draft horses, with a few sport/pleasure; in 2023 they're mostly sport/pleasure, with a few draft.
Porsche engines are clearly sport/pleasure engines, not draft engines.
True; looks like their last tractor was over 50 years ago.
Other marques are still extant:
https://www.ferraritractor.com
https://www.lamborghini-tractors.com/en-eu/
Were horses ever actively restricted by governments around the world or did we move away from them because better solutions were available?
They were causing environmental problems, cities were clogged up with horse shit. I don't know whether that influenced the transition though.
Something that surprised me: the German army in WW2 was mainly horse drawn.
According to the below link, 80% of its transport was via horse.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-wwii-german-army-was-80-ho...
I believe this has a lot to do with the failure of the Maginot line: it had been constructed to slow down an army with horse-drawn logistics (after all, germany had no oil) but the germans did their end run with mechanised units (having researched synfuels in the meantime).
From 1940 to 1943, one can readily explain Axis strategy as an insatiable quest for more oil: no barrels, no Blitz.
EDIT: Lagniappe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Medicine_Crow#World_War_II
Reflecting the interwar German society more broadly; agricultural mechanization was decades behind the US and UK.
The industrial and economic "miracle" of the pre war Nazi regime wasn't spent on tractors either, but on weapons.
In the meantime the human population quadrupled, so the actual demand for horses is not half, but closer to 1/8 of what it was.
They'll go the way of horses in the sense that you'll be hardly seeing any in cities.
You seem to be using “actual” in a way that suggests proportion to population is a key part of the definition. But although a company that served a market for 20 million might well have failed as the market shrank, it also had the opportunity to survive and continue serving an actual market with an actual demand for 7 million actual horses.
Hermès' original market for tack (harnesses and bridles for driving) shrank considerably, but they've found new markets since.
Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs-IKeRyRAg
I definitely think this is a valid question.
ICE engines and every type of motor have a Power Curve. Many things go into the power curve including the construction, configuration, fuel and general type of motor. The power curve graphs engine power output as it relates to engine rotational speed. Every one of these different motors and transmissions out there including electric as well, have differing characteristic curves which effect the handling of the vehicle to great effect. This affects their possible applications.
Controlling the power and efficiency curves of motors is the entire story of the very well known "VTECH" Variable Valve Timing technologies, super and turbo chargers or other forced air intake, and even the way that Tesla electric motors arrange the magnets in their electric vehicle motors.
Inventing a new way to operate an ICE is good for many things. This patent looks cumbersome, and a bit complex. In my mind the long-term future of ICE for vehicles is in more specialized use cases as fossil fuels reach the long tail. Certain highly reliable, or certain types of safety prohibiting voltage or battery chemistry, types of standby vehicles, certain rugged vehicles, industrial equipment, small motors, these might be better off being petro-like. It might be better to make corn-gasoline than to stash a huge battery onto your lawnmower all year in this case.
But please do not discount: They are enjoyable.
Even during the end-of-days, we can process something like biofuels into "gasoline replacements". We can use waste vegetable oil to create biodiesel today. Small volumes are pretty easy and although we desperately must reduce fossil fuels to near zero (I dont need to have a blast gunning my Porche in bumper-to-bumper traffic, for example...) I don't see a reason why people can't still buy a motorcycle, even if we are living under sci-fi-like domed cities.
All else, people would simply make them themselves in their own garages. For Fun.
I think it’s likely we have passed the peak of R/D spend on ICE, but the momentum of research that has gone into it for decades is going to continue to produce innovations for a while longer.
The engineers are still there (where else would they go!) and with ICE development moving far out of strategic focus, there might actually be more room now for trying odd curveball approaches than back when ICE refinement was still a cornerstone of success.
ICE aren't going to go away any time soon. Battery tech has a long way to go before it can compete with the energy density of liquid dinosaurs, and if it did there are plenty of cases where ICE has major advantages over battery power. But even if say 90% of the vehicles on earth could be replaced with electric, should we really stop innovating on that last 10%?
https://www.thoughtco.com/does-oil-come-from-dinosaurs-10920...
>Tiny Bacteria, Not Huge Dinosaurs, Formed Oil
>try to grasp the concept of deep geologic time, a talent possessed by very few people. Try to wrap your mind around the enormity of the figures: bacteria and single-celled organisms were the dominant forms of life on earth for a whopping two and a half to three billion years, a virtually incomprehensible stretch of time when measured against human civilization, which is only about 10,000 years old, and even against the reign of the dinosaurs, which lasted "only" about 165 million years. That's a lot of bacteria, a lot of time, and a lot of oil.
Electric cars still consume fossil fuels. It’s just earlier in the pipeline.
People love to talk about combustion engines being pollutants but few people talk about just how damaging it is mining for rare metals to make those batteries. Nor how harmful for the environment it is disposing of old batters (we haven’t yet solved the problem of recycling them either).
And that’s before you even touch on problems at the power grid. Eg many addresses don’t have high quality enough power infrastructure to cope with everyone switching to electric, so that would need to be upgraded. And a lot of countries still rely on fossil fuels to generate electricity to begin with.
Electric cars are likely the future. But they’re not as green as people like to think. In fact for some use cases they can actually work out both more expensive to run and less environmentally friendly once you total up their carbon footprint in full. And I think it’s going to be a long time before they become the greener option of everyone.
Whereas in the meantime, research into combustion engines can provide benefits for more than just petrol-fuelled sports cars.
Many of the myths you are posting are busted here: https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-21-misleading-myths-ab...
The national grid in the UK was so fed up with people making claims about the grid capacity it also busted some too: https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/ele...
> The highest peak electricity demand in the UK in recent years was 62GW in 2002. Since then, the nation’s peak demand has fallen by roughly 16% due to improvements in energy efficiency.
> Even if we all switched to EVs overnight, we estimate demand would only increase by around 10%. So we’d still be using less power as a nation than we did in 2002, and this is well within the range the grid can capably handle.
> Nevertheless, at National Grid we’re working with the distribution networks, government, the regulator and industry to provide the green energy infrastructure around Britain – the wires, the connections to charge points – to support the needs of a decarbonised transport network into the future.
> In the US, the grid is equally capable of handling more EVs on the roads – by the time 80% of the US owns an EV, this will only translate into a 10-15% increase in electricity consumption.1
> Since then, the nation’s peak demand has fallen by roughly 16% due to improvements in energy efficiency.
Energy demand in UK declining because prices went up which accelerated deindustrialisation and forced people's to use less energy e. g. heat homes less .
British homes are almost exclusively heated by natural gas boilers; home heating is only a small part of the grid electrical load.
Yes, gas heating is common (thought in apartment buildings electric heating is more likely) but electricity and gas prices are correlated for now.
LED bulbs (90% less energy), LCD TVs (75% less energy). It adds up.
What that article doesn't address is the concurrent shift to electrify domestic heating. A worked analysis of the impacts can be found here: https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2022/2/11/how-much-ele...
It will take a long, long time to move to heat pumps for heating the majority of homes. Last time I looked into it I would have to change all the pipes and radiators in my home. Same with my mums house. The savings would have to be massive to offset the disruption and cost.
New houses are being built though. And at an alarming rate in some districts too
New houses also have solar, which can offset some of their new load.
Sure, but I don’t think it’s as common as you think.
For example, none of the new houses in any of the new estates around me were built with solar panels.
> Many of the myths you are posting are busted
That article addresses literally just one of my claims
> That article addresses literally just one of my claims
There are two articles in my post that address multiple points. Luckily I don’t even have to argue with you about this as ChatGPT can do it for me.
AI content below:
### Analysis of the Original Post and Response
The original post critiques the environmental benefits of electric vehicles (EVs), raising several concerns about their production, usage, and infrastructure. The response refutes many of these claims by providing evidence from reputable sources, notably *Carbon Brief* and *National Grid UK*, which seek to correct common misconceptions about EVs. Let’s analyze both the original post's claims and how the response addresses each point.
---
### Claim 1: *Electric cars still consume fossil fuels—just earlier in the pipeline*
- *Original Post's Argument*: The claim suggests that although electric vehicles do not burn fossil fuels directly, the electricity used to charge them is often generated from fossil fuels, thus shifting pollution earlier in the supply chain.
- *Response*: The *Carbon Brief article* acknowledges that while electricity generation still relies on fossil fuels in some countries, the grid is becoming increasingly decarbonized over time. As renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and hydroelectricity grow, the carbon footprint of charging EVs is steadily shrinking.
---### Claim 2: *Mining for rare metals in batteries is damaging to the environment*
- *Original Post's Argument*: The post highlights the environmental impact of mining rare metals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel, which are essential for EV batteries. It also points out the issue of disposal and recycling, suggesting that current methods for handling old batteries are inadequate.
- *Response*: The *Carbon Brief article* acknowledges the environmental costs of mining but contextualizes it within the broader benefits of EVs. It points out that while battery production has a higher upfront environmental cost, EVs offset this over their lifetime by producing lower emissions during use compared to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.
---### Claim 3: *Power grids are not equipped to handle widespread EV adoption*
- *Original Post's Argument*: This claim suggests that the infrastructure for delivering electricity to homes is insufficient to support a mass switch to EVs, particularly in areas with outdated grid systems. The post implies that upgrading the grid would be costly and challenging, and that many countries still rely on fossil fuels to generate electricity.
- *Response*: The *National Grid UK article* directly addresses the concern about grid capacity, arguing that the national grid is more than capable of handling an increased demand from EVs. In fact, the article notes that peak electricity demand in the UK has been falling due to improvements in energy efficiency, and that even with widespread EV adoption, the grid would still use less electricity than it did in 2002.
---### Claim 4: *Electric cars are more expensive to run and may not always be greener over their full lifecycle*
- *Original Post's Argument*: The post suggests that, in certain cases, EVs may be both more expensive to run and less environmentally friendly when considering the total carbon footprint, including production, use, and disposal.
- *Response*: The *Carbon Brief article* provides a nuanced answer, recognizing that while the upfront cost of EVs can be higher due to the price of batteries, the total cost of ownership is often lower in the long run. This is due to reduced fuel and maintenance costs, as well as government subsidies and incentives for EV owners.
---### Conclusion:
The original post raises several valid concerns about the environmental and infrastructural challenges of EV adoption, but the response effectively refutes most of these claims with data and evidence from *Carbon Brief* and *National Grid UK*. The articles emphasize the following:
- EVs are becoming greener as grids decarbonize. - The environmental costs of battery production are offset over the vehicle's lifetime. - Power grids in countries like the UK and the U.S. are equipped to handle increased EV demand. - EVs offer lower running costs and, overall, a smaller carbon footprint compared to internal combustion vehicles.
The original poster's assertion that the reply only addresses one of their claims is inaccurate. Both the *Carbon Brief* and *National Grid UK* articles provide detailed information that counters multiple points raised in the original argument.
Most of these claims are dramatically false.
- Electric motors use low amounts of rare earth metals, or in some cases none. Batteries generally don't use them either.
- Automotive batteries have been demonstrated as >90% recyclable, far better than most materials we consider "recyclable" today such as plastic
- The electric grid has sufficient capacity to onboard millions of electric cars without issue, and will not be impacted by the transition to EVs
- Cost of ownership of EVs is significantly lower than ICE vehicles in their class, as is the lifetime carbon footprint
I’m particularly interested in last three points. Do you mind to share some data?
For instance, where one recycle a Tesla battery, say in Poland?
I do not see to many chargers around and I believe the grid is not very modern here. Why do you think it can easily handle millions EVs? What about peak hours like nights? Do you think it will be env friendly, provided that majority of electricity in Poland is produced on coal plants.
EV initial cost is about 5-10 times more than a slightly used ICE in a perfect condition. Such a car car drive decades and will never reach in total spendings even initial cost of EV. I’m not counting charging that may not be very cheap. As electricity prices went up in recent years and may go up more.
When you stating something, think beyond your household. Your statements are not universal.
The battery can be recycled in Germany if Poland doesn't have the facility.
I think shifting them to static applications when they hit 70% capacity makes more sense, personally. For now, just recycle the ones that have actually failed. Or even just warehouse them until they can be recycled.
(Whether we actually do that or not, capitalism being what it is....)
> Electric motors use low amounts of rare earth metals, or in some cases none. Batteries generally don't use them either.
Maybe the term “rare” was poorly chosen. But mining those metals is the damaging part, not the abundance of the metals.
So my point is still correct.
> Automotive batteries have been demonstrated as >90% recyclable, far better than most materials we consider "recyclable" today such as plastic
Citation needed.
EV batteries are reused in some less demanding domains for a couple of years after their life in EVs. but everything that I’ve read thus far has said recycling the batteries themselves, after their life is done, is still very much in its infancy.
> The electric grid has sufficient capacity to onboard millions of electric cars without issue, and will not be impacted by the transition to EVs
Most country’s electric grids do. That’s the bloody point of a grid. It’s the last mile that’s the issue in some counties.
However I will concede that this point is a little unfair because it’s non-specific.
> Cost of ownership of EVs is significantly lower than ICE vehicles in their class, as is the lifetime carbon footprint
That depends. If you’re an occasional driver and charging your car at home, then the cost of electricity in some countries is going to be greater than the cost of petrol.
However if you travel lots and are heavily use charge stations at super markets et al, then EVs will be much cheaper to run than ICE.
It’s definitely not as clear cut as a lot of EV marketing claims.
(I’ve been adding up the costs just this month because was looking at buying an EV and it just wasn’t a cost saving for my particular requirements).
>> Automotive batteries have been demonstrated as >90% recyclable, far better than most materials we consider "recyclable" today such as plastic
> Citation needed
It shouldn't be hard to believe. The components of a battery aren't consumed during operation. An old battery weighs the same as a new battery, and the chemical reactions taking place inside are reversible (because that's how a chemical battery works).
I believe, though, the the previous commenter erred. 90% of _batteries_ are recycled.
According to Wikipedia, lithium battery recycling can see up to 96% recovery rate of material. Lead acid is over 98% of the lead.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_recycling
> However if you travel lots and are heavily use charge stations at super markets et al, then EVs will be much cheaper to run than ICE.
This statement is confusing to me.
In my experience in the US, charging away from home is far more expensive.
Charging at home has added an average of $10/month to our electric bill. Charging at a commercial charger can easily cost $5-$10 _per charge_.
At home I have a 3kw charger, one of the lowest options you can buy. I prefer to take time and keep the battery cool. Heat kills batteries faster.
Your statement about your cost comparison doesn't mention maintenance, which is a significant savings. No oil changes, no rusted exhaust pipes, no spark plugs, etc. Over the life of the car, that's tens of thousands of dollars unspent.
> in my experience in the US, charging away from home is far more expensive
We have lots of free charging points in the UK. Or at least they do around me.
> Your statement about your cost comparison doesn't mention maintenance, which is a significant savings. No oil changes, no rusted exhaust pipes, no spark plugs, etc. Over the life of the car, that's tens of thousands of dollars unspent.
In my experience the maintenance costs is usually more tyres, suspension, breaks, and other similar things that would equally need to be maintained on EVs.
Oil changes and spark plugs are cheap. Never had an issue with my exhaust pipe but I’m sure that’s a thing. Have had clutches burn out but that’s always been more specific to manual shifts rather than ICEs. Cam belts is definitely one big ICE consumable that EVs wouldn’t require though.
I’m sure EVs will have their own specific areas of maintenance as well, but I’ll admit I haven’t done much research in that specific area.
> In my experience the maintenance costs is usually more tyres, suspension, breaks, and other similar things that would equally need to be maintained on EVs.
You'll go through tires _slightly_ faster because the cars are heavier. With the exception of some standouts like Tesla's Cybertruck, which reportedly is only getting 6k miles on a set of tires, the wear rate is slightly higher. Low rolling resistance tires are slightly more expensive. Plan on whatever you're paying now plus 20% to cover the difference.
I've never had to change the suspension on any of my cars. I wouldn't even consider it in a maintenance list unless you live somewhere with truly shit roads, but the mileage and repair cost would be the same in EV or ICE.
Brakes last forever in an EV. 100k miles easily.
Oil changes in the US cost $50+, and are done every 3-4k miles (or $75+, 7-10k miles if you choose synthetic oil).
Spark plugs are cheap, but paying someone to replace them is not.
Some EVs have liquid cooling, but it lasts longer than coolant in an ICE.
I'm so used to people around me driving automatics, I forget to consider a clutch - but I get >100k per clutch so it's not a frequent or predictable cost for me.
Most recent cars, even the small ones, seem to have swung back to using timing chains rather than belts, and don't need regular changes. You can consider it if you like, but you have to take it on a case-by-case basis.
Unless you don't keep your cars long enough to notice, your exhaust system will rust. Water is a byproduct of combustion, after all, and steam corrodes faster than liquid water. It's worse if you make lots of short trips - which is where an EV shines.
Also consider non-regularly-replaced things in your maintenance list: oxygen sensors, water pumps, thermostats, heater cores, etc. You can't predict when these things will fail, but over 10 years you'll almost certainly have to replace some of them.
Consider, also, downtime while your car is in the shop getting the work done.
Contrast to an EV: none of that. A new battery in 150k-200k miles for $5k, unless you're still satisfied with the reduced range.
You’re drastically overstating the differences between ICE and EV there. But that might be a side effect of American cars vs European cars.
I don't think I'm overstating anything.
My wife and I have owned an EV since 2019. We also still have a couple of ICEs for me and my daughter. I'm not going to throw a car away just because.
I see the cost savings of an EV up close and personal. The only downside has been range for long trips, but 364 days of the year that's not a problem and for the remaining days my ICE does the job. When that car dies, I'll rent one when it's needed.
So you’re comparing EVs that are > 5 years old with ICE vehicles that are < 5 years old. Or there’s a massive disparity between American and European ICE cars under 5 years. But I definitely have never spent the kind of money on maintenance you’ve described on cars younger than 5 years old.
I think your last sentence is it: those track for American vehicles. Longer driving distances, worse road conditions, and people buy unnecessarily large SUVs/trucks so most parts are 30-50% more expensive.
> We have lots of free charging points in the UK
Wait, we do? There are people out there just giving away energy?
(I think I must have misunderstood you here).
Considering how early we get rid of cars that are still usable. I wonder how well the cost of ownership actually holds over when a battery change can overshadow many years of maintenance of an ICE.
I really think as soon as batteries get even cheaper and denser there will be no chance for ICEs to be dominant but right now the balance is still against the change.
The grid is quite country specific. For example in the Netherlands there are significant grid capacity issues, so much that people with solar panels are paid on some areas to turn them off.
EV adoption here is high compared to the European average (similar to Norway). Public charging stations in affected areas are reducing capacity or even shutting down at certain times.
So grid capacity is an actual problem here.
You've gone from false to unfalsifiable! (or at least unnecessarily vague).
- Plenty of electric drivetrains still use neodymium for example[0]. Whether it's too much or likely to change soon I don't know, but I feel like that's crucial to making a judgement on the overall harmfulness.
- Battery recycling is happening[1], but so is plastic recycling. Are batteries likely to be recycled, and are the environmental benefits and available profit sufficient to make it significant in the near future? Seems like yes, but it's not clear to me.
- Which grid? Is capacity sufficient just on average, or also at peak demand? Would that still be the case if EV adoption increases in the next five years? (or some timescale to short to build more plants). Looks like the US will do ok[2] but again it's not obvious.
- Does this also apply to buying new? Are you including resale value? What about carbon generated at power stations to provide the electrical power? This is a complex claim and it's hard to do anything with unless it's sharpened and given some numbers or at least references. Seems like price to consumer is roughly the same[3] and CO2 emissions even over about five years of normal use and will improve if the grid moves towards cleaner fuel[4].
Overall I think it's annoying for a commenter who knows the truth to go to the trouble of being convincing, but it's critical for having an interesting discussion that might change someone's mind.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/automa...
[1] https://www.npr.org/2024/06/27/nx-s1-5019454/ev-battery-recy...
[2] https://news.mit.edu/2023/minimizing-electric-vehicles-impac...
[3] https://www.nada.org/nada/nada-headlines/beyond-sticker-pric...
[4] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/electric-vehicles...
> few people talk about just how damaging it is mining for rare metals to make those batteries
thank goodness oil production isn't damaging at all and has zero cost, then
if you're going to talk about mining, every other environmental cost of the fossil fuel lifecycle is fair game. how confident are you that oil and gas come out ahead?
I’m not claiming oil mining comes out ahead either. I’m just saying the environmental cost of EV suffers from a lot of greenwashing. They’re not always as green as people like to think.
Unfortunately, this is a massively complicated subject and it’s hard to definitively make claims because there’s also a large element of locality (where you live) and user-specific circumstances (like how long you keep a car, how often you drive, etc)
My original comment was just that it’s easy to say “EV is the future” but really we need to be extremely mindful that EV still has a long way to go itself and thus we shouldn’t be dismissive of any research happening in the automotive industry.
>how damaging it is mining for rare metals to make those batteries.
Even thought I'd agree mass EV would not be carried by the current grid, or that charging density and time is not satisfactory (in most of Europe)... LiFePO4 doesn't contain rare earth metals, unless you count Li for 'rare'.
On top of that, the commenter is completely ignorant of the rise of saltwater batteries which don't even use lithium.
Also probably unaware that with the rise of extremely low cost, solar and wind, Fossil fuel use on the grid is economically nonviable long term.
Even so, the fossil fuels consumed on the grid are very likely to be combined cycle natural gas, which has less carbon emissions than have equivalent. Amounts of energy were burned in ice engines.
Also, The energy efficiency of electric vehicles is much higher than an ice car, so if solar and wind do not generate the electricity, it still will emit less carbon than an ice.
The only useful new engine technology I am interested in is an extremely compact recharging engine for use in plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. There was something about the inside out rotary engine a couple years ago but nothing has come off of it.
>On top of that, the commenter is completely ignorant of the rise of saltwater batteries which don't even use lithium.
I'd not call the rise, yet. The Na ones' energy density (and specific energy) is even lower than Li based (LiFePO4 is lower than cobalt ones). They might be okay for grid storage, of course.
Saltwater batteries and lfp batteries don't require nearly as much active heating and safety measures as nmc chemistries.
So the pack level they become a lot more competitive. Rise of high density, salt, water and lfp. We should be able to produce 300 and 400 mile range sedans with sodium ion and LFP chemistries.
Just go look at the catl density numbers all the stuff they have going into production. Obviously has not scaled to the level it needs to. That's a big ramp up.
I believe the current numbers are 160 Watt hours per kilogram for sodium ion and a little over 200 for lfp. With cell to pack projections of 90%, while pack density of nmc is like 60-70% to the cooling and safety system requirements, sodium ion is a revolutionary development for the cheap EV.
The five year road maps for sodium ion gets it close to 200 watt hours per kilogram. Lfp should be reaching 250 Watt hours per kilogram in the next five years.
Name me one mass produced consumer car that uses saltwater batteries.
Here seems to be one what the grandparent suggested, an EV with a SIB battery.
https://www.electrive.com/2024/01/02/first-sodium-ion-batter...
China specific. So not really mass market. Though I am glad to see that there are cars entering the market with sodium ion batteries. That does give me hope for the long term future of EV.
Wait until 2030'ies. Then you're going to see cheap mass market SIB EVs.
Tuning SIB chemistry and getting enough factory capacity up takes a while.
> Even thought I'd agree mass EV would not be carried by the current grid
In many places putting solar panels on roofs and on parking spaces would solve such issue.
Talk about North Europe winters - all the forever gray (and snow)
https://globalwindatlas.info/en and https://globalsolaratlas.info/map
Have you ever been to North Europe in the winter?
>ever been to North Europe
No need for personal snark comments. Not everybody lives in the US. The worst part moving there was surviving the lack of sun light during the winter but that was many years back.
...and windy ?
Maybe “rare” was a poor choice, but it’s definitely harmful to mine for and the recycling story is far from solved so there’s a serious risk of having these harmful components ending up in landfills (I hope it doesn’t come to that)
> less environmentally friendly once you total up their carbon footprint in full
I'm trying to think of an example, and I'm honestly coming up blank.
On top of all the other replies debunking this, one thing left is that they're not the greener option for everyone. Auke Hoekstra has been pretty active (on Twitter etc) debunking this - electric cars' additional footprint gets paid off under 20k miles even at the emission levels of electricity grids of yesterday. As the grid decarbonizes further it will become even less. The number of cars driven less than 20k miles is irrelevantly tiny.
https://x.com/AukeHoekstra/status/1332464525602410498
Did you actually read my comment and the replies? Because most of the replies didn’t even address the points I was making, let alone debunk it.
Just like with your post. I never actually made any claims about mileages. However as it happens, I do specifically fall into that uneconomical bracket. That’s why I ended up buying petrol despite wanting an EV. I work from home and thus rarely drive. EV isn’t yet ready for my specific use case. It will get there, but it’s not there today.
And thus we are back to the crux of point is was making: that this topic is far more complicated than the OP suggested.
I read it carefully. Your claim was it's not greener for everyone. It is because the additional costs in terms of emissions are paid off in less than 20k miles. This is a little bit more than the average per year. It's possible a car travels less than that during its life span, but it's so small it's irrelevant. That's like saying it makes financial sense playing the lottery just because someone occasionally wins.
> Your claim was it's not greener for everyone.
No, my point was “EVs aren’t all that green either”.
Things are going to improve. But people so often forgot about all the other environmental costs involved with EV.
In an ideal world we’d be using push bikes, but clearly that’s not practical either. However it’s fair to say that this whole transportation debate is a lot more complicated than people like to summarise.
> It is because the additional costs in terms of emissions are paid off in less than 20k miles.
Again, that was never my claim. That’s a strawman argument you’ve constructed.
Direct quote:
In fact for some use cases they can actually work out both more expensive to run and less environmentally friendly once you total up their carbon footprint in full.
End quote.
No, once you total up their carbon footprint they make up their additional costs in carbon in less than 20k miles.
As far as bikes are concerned, I've never owned a car in my life and I'm 40. Locally I go on foot, bike and rarely public transport and long distance by train and I rarely fly. So if you want to join me, fell free to, it's am awesome way to live. If not, EVs are a much better option.
Exactly. That quote doesn’t mention mileage. You mentioned it.
> No, once you total up their carbon footprint they make up their additional costs in carbon in less than 20k miles.
You’re being overly generalised. There are different ICE cars that have different carbon footprints. Hybrids too. Different driving styles that can affect fuel consumption too.
Just as there are different EVs that have different running costs, different mileage per charge, and different carbon footprints to manufacture.
Then you have questions about how that electricity was generated. Most countries are improving with their use of renewables but there are some counties out there that are just going to burn fossil fuels anyway.
However even if you ignore external factors like driving style, and where the electricity comes from, you still have literally thousands of different variables just on the vehicles alone.
These are all important variables that shape the results. Saying “20k miles” is completely bullshit headline made by people trying to greenwash people into buying EV. There isnt this magic line you claim there is. Instead we have a massive fuzzy grey area.
I also think you massively underestimate just how different European cars are to American cars.
Plus the fact that even your grossly generalised statement acknowledges that there is a cross over point, means I’m still factually correct; even ignoring how overly simplistic (to the point of being factually incorrect) you are.
> As far as bikes are concerned, I've never owned a car in my life and I'm 40.
Right. So your points are from a theoretical perspective rather than actual experience. Understood.
> So if you want to join me, fell free to, it's am awesome way to live.
I’m getting really sick of your assumptions about me. I’ve already said I work from home and rarely need to drive. That was literally in the comment you claimed to have “read carefully” - thus proving my point that you hadn’t.
I live in the countryside. So I do walk and cycle lots. That’s the entire reason I chose to live where I live.
———
You have this impression that cars are literally one thing and it’s a Boolean decision. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. People like yourself need to understand that life is fully of nuance. Which was the point of my original comment: that the issue around EVs environmental footprint is still being understood but even by conservative estimates, there’s still a lot of room to improve.
Yet you missed all of that when you “carefully read” my comment and instead focused on some meaningless generalisation you saw on twitter coupled with a bunch of incorrect assumptions about myself.
I didn't read much because actually the point about the way electricity is generated was already mentioned. It's right there in the first post - with the electricity grid of yesterday. If you'd followed the link you'd see how it was based etc.
Things aren't really that unclear or case to case either. A person buying a tiny IC car will not suddenly decide to buy a 7 ton Hummer EV where suddenly their carbon footprint is much higher. They will buy a Volt or whatever it's called. So there really is nothing really that important other than mileage. EVs are clearly better in every use case, as long as we're talking about the environment.
And lastly first hand experience in driving and owning a car is not helpful in determining carbon footprint. The research I linked to is helpful. Under 20k miles per car (on average - if it makes you feel better, but please note I am not insinuating it will make you feel better) with the electricity grid of yesterday. As the grid decarbonizes, this will be even less.
More EVs please.
> Things aren't really that unclear or case to case either.
Of course its case by case. A 3.2lt Maserati Quattroporte is obviously going to have a lower MPG than a 1lt Vauxhall Corsa. And that’s without taking any into account the types of road you drive on and the exact year of build of the car.
> A person buying a tiny IC car will not suddenly decide to buy a 7 ton Hummer EV where suddenly their carbon footprint is much higher.
I never suggested they would. But also not every model of ICE vehicle will have an exactly equivalent model of EV. In fact I ran into the exact problem myself. And I did look.
> So there really is nothing really that important other than mileage.
And this is where your lack of experience with cars is apparent. I don’t mean to be snarky but I’ve given numerous examples and you’re still sticking firm to this fallacy that there isn’t much variation in cars.
> EVs are clearly better in every use case, as long as we're talking about the environment.
It wasn’t just about the environment. I did also talk about cost too. In that post you “read carefully” in fact.
This is why I’ve been getting a little snarky. You claim to read my comments but then completely ignore everything I’ve said and draw your own strawman arguments instead. Presumably a knee jerk reaction because you’ve incorrectly labeled me as a petrolhead.
> And lastly first hand experience in driving and owning a car is not helpful in determining carbon footprint.
It is very helpful because you start to understand that even the same car can have different fuel consumption characteristics depending on who’s driving it, on what type of roads, and the length of those journeys. Let alone the wildly different characteristics of different cars even in the same class of vehicle.
You don’t seem to understand that different engine sizes matter. The weight of the car matters. The gear ratios (automatic) or how you shift gears (manual). The roads (do you need to shift gears a lot or cruise at a constant speed?). Even how heavily you break can have a massive impact on fuel consumption. Wheel sizes, tyres, road surfaces. Is your local area flat or hilly? Do you drive longer or shorter distances? Does your car have a stop-start engine? Or hybrid? How many cylinders? Turbo injection? Etc.
There simply isn’t a standard. So if you then take averages you’re going to find that all those sporty ICE cars will massively skew the results against those small European cars. And the people who buy EV for environmental reasons are more likely to be buying a small ICE vehicle if EVs weren’t an option.
You seem to think all cars are roughly equivalent and that demonstrates just how little you actually know on this subject.
> As the grid decarbonizes, this will be even less.
I agree. Which is why I also said that in my original comment. The one you “read carefully”.
> More EVs please
I agree. I was never arguing against EVs. I was just saying that EVs seem to suffer a lot from greenwashing when actually there’s still a long way for them to go before they live up to the claims people make about them.
It’s still a young industry though so that will change. But people like yourself need to understand that doesn’t mean EVs are the silver bullet. What we really need is better types of fuel. EVs are a step in the right direction but it still largely just pushes the problem upstream. We still need to clean up electricity production even with EVs.
Maybe now they do but once you get everything on the electric standard it’s a matter of gradually switching over to a fully renewable grid.
Oh absolutely. I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t be investing in EV nor renewables. I’m just saying the case with EVs isn’t as simple as some like to generalise.
I’m getting a lot of hate for my comment but actually you’re all missing the point.
I’m not suggesting people shouldn’t buy EV nor that EV isn’t greener than ICE.
What I actually said is that EV still does a lot of harm to the environment and it’s a long way from being the saviour to our private transportation woes that a lot of people like to greenwash it as.
Does this mean that we shouldn’t buy EVs? Of course not. But it also means:
- we shouldn’t put all of our eggs into one basket. Research into other engines still brings us gains
- for some specific individuals, EVs are yet the best choice for their needs
The problem we have in this thread is everybody is jumping to one extreme or the other rather than acknowledging that this is actually a massively complex topic and thus theres going to be a lot of contextual factors and shades of grey.
So please don’t assume I’m trying to spread FUD about EVs just because I’m promoting awareness that we still have a lot more work to do before mass produced cars of any design becomes green.
Because large manufacturers are seeing EVs are struggling to take off.
Might as well spread your bets. They are also working heavily on efuel, that works with ICE engines, does not pollute much, but currently would cost 2x at the pump. If they could shave that cost in half we could keep most ICEs (plus an add on catalyst). Distribution networks could be kept. Batteries and their chemicals would not be needed.
So if either pays off, it’s a fortune.
Just to clarify: I had to do an analysis on car markets across 10 countries in EU, Mexico and Latin America recently.
If 100% of new vehicles were electric today, it would take 15 to 20 years to renew the whole fleet in those countries. But today the share of new EVs were between 0 to 5%.
While there is a subyacent network effect (when 30% of gas stations close, it will be so hard to refuel that adoption will spike, which in turn will kill more gas stations), it still seems way off. The people I interviewed at car makers seemed to see EV as a new segment more than a new paradigm.
Your mileage might vary.
Because it will continue to sell - it's a porsche.
Something i wouldn't do, but i understand.
> Seems pretty dumb considering it still consumes fossil fuels.
Internal combustion engines are not limited to fossil fuels. For instance, here in Brazil it's common to use sugarcane ethanol as an alternative fuel, and many cars come from factory ready to use either gasoline or ethanol (the keyword to look for is "flex fuel").
ICEs have a lot of advantages that make them much better suited than EVs to certain tasks (extreme climates and remote locations, for example). They will likely stick around for niche use cases (at least) for quite a long time.
As for why Porsche is spending money on ICE engines...well, no one really buys a Porsche because it's a "practical car", do they?
Here in Oslo, Norway, they got BEV busses for a lot of lines, and last year was a really cold winter. Somehow, the ones in power were shocked to discover the range dropped to half due to the electric heaters needing a lot of power, causing a public transportation chaos as busses queued up for charging instead of transporting passengers.
Now the busses are getting retrofitted with fuel-based heaters, which will be running on bio-diesel... better than nothing I guess.
> As for why Porsche is spending money on ICE engines...well, no one really buys a Porsche because it's a "practical car", do they?
I don't know. I find my daily very practical: a Porsche Panamera MY2013, now nearing 125 000 miles and 12 y/o. Still under extended manufacturer warranty. I have it since more than five years now (bought it used). Next car is another used Panamera (probably a 2020 or something). Very sweet, comfy, luxurious ride and yet if you push the pedal to the metal, way funnier to drive than, say, a Mercedes Class S.
Well, in a big city I wouldn't call a 5m long car that drinks 12 or more liters "practical". Also it's an expensive and high maintenance car even when functioning properly (I'd be scared of the bill for changing those tires or doing Porsche's maintenance...)
But, you said it: sweet, comfy, luxurious, funnier. Valid reasons, of course, but different :-)
Could be any of several reasons. As a backup plan, for niche uses, or just uses that you are not considering such as small aircraft. Could be a stop gap as well, it seems like there was a quick uptake in EVs but they aren’t replacing petrol engines just yet, even in cars.
For sports cars, internal combustion engines still provide a weight advantage over battery packs.
I'm really looking forward to when someone manages to bring to market an EV that is light and efficient with small battery pack and lowish range that is purely about driving pleasure and fun, but E/V early adopters still want massive ten thousand pound luxury tanks, for now!
Unsurprisingly, Lotus (aka the maker of the car that Tesla converted into their Roadster) did not completely abandon their lightweight sports car identity in the BEV age. The Evija advertised with a range of 315 km.
Seems brilliant to me, as this is true marvel of engineering, contrary to electrocars which... well are not. They could've been should the engine be powered by fuelcells, but in their present form the electrocar movement took off only because of green deal, climate change, etc, which forced governments to allow business create the needed infrastructure of batteries and powerstations.
Besides, you'd be surprised at the amount of work geard towards hydrogen-based economy which is still about burning stuff to turn wheels (even when electricity is produced) as they did in 1890s...
Yeah. It looks pretty cool. There is something satisfying about a complex mechanical mechanism. However, in its current form it is not the future. Combustion engines in general are not going to be the future. Hydrogen is a joke. Not energy dense enough. And expensive to make (energy wise). It also needs a vast network of gas stations.
Who says so? Batteries been available for hundred years yet we keep talking about fusion being the future, and we have fission. Which both drive turbines, which are a thing from the past? No? What is joke and when?
To me is a joke that we keep heating water to move magnets to get energy in 2024 with all the quantum entanglement, Johnson teleportation, lasers, etc. engineering magic happening around. And we do what? heat water to move magnets to squeez energy? So why is then hydrogen bad, just because it goes boom? Plenty of things we use daily go boom now and then, not meaning recent news, but in general.
I also invite you to take a look at the Tokamak and then try to argue again that metal tubes wired around to pump liquids and do some combustion is not the future.
Compressed hydrogen has low enough density that even at dangerously high pressures it would take up most of the luggage & passenger areas of a car, just to get mediocre range. Liquid hydrogen has better density (roughly 2x), but it's still not great, & you're dealing with a cryogenic propellant that's constantly venting explosive gas (so it runs out of gas when parked for ~3 days, can't be parked in an enclosed space, & still doesn't deliver impressive range). I'm all for using hydrogen for things in general, but as I understand it there are hard physical limits that make it a poor choice for personal motor vehicles as we understand them today (size, safety & range in particular).
Methanol or renewable synthetic gasoline seem like they'll always outperform hydrogen for ICE cars.
Hydrogen airships would be cool though & we could make them safe with modern technology (both preventing fires & making the passenger compartment an under-slung survival cell with parachutes & giant airbags so a catastrophic loss is survivable)
All of this is very interesting, and I'm aware of the many challenges hydrogen is still facing./ But I think material knowledge is also improving rapidly, so perhaps we'll see some very nice new lattices to safely contain it in some compartmentalized manner. But what I meant about hydrogen was not really about cars, but heavy industry. Heavy industry is hungry and will produce its own solar, then dump it in hydrogen and burn it overnight. Then it can feed the electric cars perhaps.
Why is it a dead end? I agree that it should be, but it seems the entire world is walking back the commitment to a full transition to EVs.
https://www.edie.net/one-in-seven-new-cars-worldwide-is-now-...
> One in seven new car sales worldwide is now electric
> Year-to-date figures show that nearly 10.6 million EVs have been sold globally as of July 2024, marking a 16.3% increase compared to the same period last year.
What constitutes “walking back”?
> What constitutes “walking back”?
Legally+Economically. After seeing how badly their cars were doing against Chinese EVs, it seems the EV-only mandates in the EU and US are on shaky ground; only heavy tariffs on imported cars seem to be giving local producers a chance. I do not think they will figure it out by the 2030-ish targets, and bet that European and American companies will be allowed to sell combustion engine cars after that.
> marking a 16.3% increase compared to the same period last year
This is buoyed a lot by growth in China (which is not nothing, I guess), but growth in Europe and the Americas is slowing.
The EU and California targets are 2035; not aware of any large market going for a full ban earlier than that?
Even 2035 is not happening. Politically, parties that are not enthusiastic about climate change mitigation are gaining ground in Europe. A lot of western car companies are scaling back their ev targets, and announcing more ICE car research (like this article we are discussing). Those bans will keep getting postponed/cancelled the closer they come.
I need to check that source but I guess is heavily per country. In Southern Europe is under 5%, south from the US border between 0 to 1 % (source: per country Car Makers Association report)
Globally, if I recall, you need 20 years to replace the whole global fleet (so around 5% replacement rate). Let’s assume this global number is fixed (installed base is growing, as more vehicles are being created that destroyed, actually)
1/7 is 15%. 15% of 5% is 0,75%. So this means that every year 0,75% of global installed base is replaced by EVs. So 130y for full replacement?
Yes, the 1/7 weight will increase. But so will expand base. Even if suddenly today every car made now on the planet is EV only, iCE will still be around for 20-30 years.
Not to pile on, but the linked article you presented backs their data on New AutoMotive’s Global Electric Vehicle Tracker, a UK based group fostering EV adoption.
NAGEVT site only shows data for UK, is unclear which data sources they used, and whether they added PHEV (still ICEs) into the mix.
Don’t mean to come obnoxious, I just spent a few weeks researching the topic for 10 countries and my data differs a lot from theirs.
Not the op but in NZ there has been a significant drop in demand due to removal of subsidies and introduction of a distance-based tax (road user charge) for EVs.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/09/15/car-importers-stuck-with-...
“In 2023 January through August, one in four new light passenger vehicles sold were EVs. Fast forward to 2024 and EVs make up just one in 11 new light passenger vehicles sold”
The original claim was for the “entire world” which is why I specifically used global stats.
Maybe not every single country, sure.
In the EU sales are sluggish.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilwinton/2024/05/19/europes-w...
“Current sales of EVs in Europe have stalled at just over 2 million a year, as early adopters and corporate purchasing peaked out. Schmidt Automotive Research said during the opening third of 2024 Western Europe EV market share stalled at 14.4% compared with the same period last year, according to its provisional data.”
It’s fascinating the language used around EV sales. You have used “sluggish” where others might have used “stable”. In the past we had articles saying sales were “slowing” when in fact they were growing, just not growing as fast.
There are other regions that are growing, but I see little relevance to the original point unless people expected continued growth in every region with no blips?
Not all ICEs must consume fossil fuels. The tech could bring alternative fuels closer to viability.
I think you should rescale your ideological compass. If you just brush such inventions off the table, something is wrong.
Electric motors will prevail long term, simply for the fact that ICEs can't reach their efficiency. So no need to have this attitude.
Honestly, i can’t get my head around how many folks actually think that it is an either or situation.
There’s zero chance we will be able to electrify all personal mobility let alone the elephants in the room being construction equipment, planes of all sorts and above all marine vessels that ship our goods globally.
EVs are well suited for a couple use cases but far from a monolithic solution.
It is beyond me how a group this large actually thinks that ICEs are facing “death”.
Once line is done going up in that field, i sincerely hope the discussion around this will mature and become less histerical.
I wonder what three degrees of warming will be like.
Even the most ambitious petrol car bans are normally targeting 2035 or so, new cars only. That’s probably time for one more engine generation iteration.
> Why waste R&D on a dead end?
Because they’ll still make money from it.
Because they are selling a sports car. They’re not targeting the same audience as your typical car manufacturer.
Until somebody comes up with a replacement technology that so the same or more there will be a place for it. Military contracts can make anything make economic sense.
The same reason people still do R&D for vinyl records: There's enough customers who want to buy the old thing, for ideological, emotional or other reasons
You can have carbon neutral synthetic fuels.
Not at scale.
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So if you built your fortune on IT running in datacenters which consume magnitutes more energy to feed your customers; or else - if your business is about delivering stuff with 1000s of vehicles regularly being wasted... Tell me, at what point you start giving a damn about environment, and what pollution are we talking about at all?
Sorry, but HN is full of people who made fortunes not giving major fucks about lots of rules. Not being one of them, I still find it perfectly appropriate to see this article and appreciate it here precisely, and not on... CNN or DW.
You may go ask "Founder mode" whether he can dever be blamed into "not giving a damn", considering his caring character towards all humanity.
One thing I agree - nobody cares if a Porsche is putting a 0.00001 KG of CO2 out now and then, as its aesthetic value is much much higher.
That's a flawed analogy. Datacenter draw X power to do X work, and people using them don't care about the brand or aesthetics. Give techies and companies less power hungry alternatives and look how quick they will migrate. That is quite different for cars, unless their perceived value has nothing to do with their #1 function, which brings us back to my post: most people buying luxury cars give more importance to appearance rather than any environmental issue. I completely understand, but cannot agree.
It’s a ridiculous argument. You are typing this comment just because this damn not environmental friendly data center exists. But you pay nothing for HN. Hence someone’s do. That maybe this damn dude who made a fortune. But more than that, this dude has had to work hard long ago so that the data Center could be built and some nerds have got their jobs.
Telling people why they do things is 1) bad wording; 2) puts them in defense mode; 3) projection; 4) etc.. you name it not OK.
I pay nothing to HN, but HN exists thanks to lotta money moved around by people running HN. What are you telling me now, that HN would not emerge in some other form, had it not been for Founder Mode to showcase Algolia's search? Sorry, I doubt that it is how society evolves. HN can emerge from anybody persistent enough to go forward with it.
Slashdot, Craigslist, Reddit and 4chan if you want are very apparent examples of how smart people fill in when they have the chance. HN may well disappear very soon, I would miss all the smart voices, but I won't miss HN itself and the fair amount of very obnoxious people who tell others 'how they should feel, or felt'.
I’m not sure what your point is. The comment you’re replying to never argued that this data center is unnecessary. Both prestigious cars and data centers are necessarily evil. Just for different audiences.
Lol, I really want to see a 150-year old EURO6 200kw diesel engine coupled with a 150-year old 9-speed automatic dual-clutch allowing me to drive on the 150-year old roads for 4 liters per 100 km at German highway speeds.
BTW, electric cars are older technology than ICE cars.
The main innovation in modern electric cars isn't just about swapping fuel with electricity, but eliminating all junk in between that wasted power only to overcome ICE inherent flaws. More simple electronics aside, clutch, gearbox, then driveshaft are all gone, and they contributed to a huge waste of power, which burned a lot of fuel for nothing. This is so bad that where possible and economically feasible (trains and ships) they use mixed diesel-electric pairs with the diesel engine working as generator so that it would always run at maximum torque not being forced to start from zero rpm and not having its speed related with train and ship speed. The electric engine is indeed older than internal combustion one, however what makes it a better option also for cars required modern development, especially in batteries and rare earth magnets which would have been unthinkable only a few decades ago.
> clutch, gearbox, then driveshaft are all gone, and they contributed to a huge waste of power which burned a lot of fuel for nothing.
Practically, they are replaced by even more "junk" in the form of literal tons of batteries weighing more than the part they replaced, the electric motor having to expend more energy to carry this extra weight around..
> what makes it a better option also for cars required modern development, especially in batteries and rare earth magnets which would have been unthinkable only a few decades ago.
Is it, though? I'd like hard facts on that. From what I can find, battery chemistry hasn't seen any breakthrough, only their cost has steadily decreased, in large parts thanks to economies of scale and an oversight for externalities mostly in the extraction and refining supply chain. Similarly, high efficiency electric motors have been a solved problem for a century. I think the whole charger infrastructure and finally getting to the end of the chicken and egg conundrum has more to do with EVs becoming a thing than some new tech having enabled it.
That's not entirely true, most electric cars sold today have a driveshaft, clutch and gearbox.
Because it's the only thing these companies know how to do.
Know nothing about automobile engineering but somehow this feels like Wordpress releasing a version for DOS when windows already captured most of the PC market.