Electric vehicles catch-all thread

[Navin Johnson]

Yes, mid engine 6.2L drives rear wheels, electric motor in the front. Battery takes up the space where a transmission would normally sit in a front engine RWD car. (Emphasize “normally”, since C6, C7s have the transmission in the rear.

ETA: Hybrid for the sake of performance, not efficiency.

Thread title?

[Bucky]

Thread title?

Thread drift? I know that’s never happened in the history of PF, but it was bound to happen eventually.

Then again, isn’t a hybrid technically an electric vehicle, even if not an electric only vehicle?

[idahojess]

Hybrids make a lot of sense, so long as the battery holds up. I've never owned one, but I've driven a Prius at work occasionally on trips. The range and gas mileage on them are great.

Electric vehicles, at least where I live in Eastern Washington, really don't make sense.

A fellow that I know spent two hours at the Yakima Walmart charging up an EV on his way to Tacoma, which is about a 5-6 hour drive normally. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[mmc45414]

There's no mechanical link between the V-8 engine driving the huge rear wheels and the electric motor that turns the front wheels (and regens the quick-discharge/recharge battery). Integration of the two power plants is controlled entirely by software, and it's quite amazing what the engineers have accomplished in that regard. The ERay actually pulls you out of a high-speed turn by adding power to the front wheels, and you get torque vectoring by software control of the carbon ceramic brakes. Apparently, it feels seamless to the driver, but I'll let you know!

Cool that it regens on the front, where most of the braking takes place anyway, capturing energy for acceleration, rather than just casting it off as heat.
Will it do things like back out of the garage without firing up if you want? Dunno why, but that seems to be an appealing stunt to me.

[uechibear]

@mmc45414 It actually recharges the battery a few different ways, and your statement is correct. It also has a Charge+ mode that can be activated when you want to sacrifice a few horsepower to quickly replenish the battery, such as doing extended lapping on a racetrack or topping up before parking at night, so you have a full charge when you start out in the morning. You'd shut Charge+ off to do a "hero lap," of course, so you have maximum power.

It has two different modes that allow driving without starting the engine, and I think at the very least, it's a cool party trick. At best, it helps keep peace with neighbors (or a wife) who're bothered by a loud cold start early in the morning. It can be driven about 4 miles on battery alone, depending on temperature, etc. The battery chemistry is totally unique to the ERay (not used in any other cars) and is meant strictly for performance, rather than fuel economy.

[RevolverRob]

If you're like me and you've stopped generally paying attention to the rhetoric that EVs are the future or that the Government is going to take away your ICE. You might see a few things around the corner.

Last year's Goodwood Festival of Speed - provided fuel to competitors (ultra rich competitors) for their classic cars. It was all synthetic fuel. This was a move to begin to garner support for what's actually going on...https://www.goodwood.com/grr/event-c...-revival-2023/

Over the past 2 years Porsche has invested $100+ million in synthetic fuel development: https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a4...etic-gasoline/

Formula 1 aims to be 100% synthetic fuel starting in 2026 and net-zero carbon by 2030: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/a...HJeelwPam.html - This spurred Porsche and Ford both attempting to get into Formula 1 for the sole purpose of sustainable fuel engine development...

The simple reality is - no one in their right mind with a physics, chemistry, or engineering degree ever thought fully electric vehicles were going to supplant highly efficient internal combustion engines. At this point we have pushed efficiency about as far as possible with ICE and reduced carbon emissions significantly. We have to switch to the other side of the equation to get them down to net-zero or very near net-zero. That is reduce the carbon emissions used to make the vehicles, the fuel, and infrastructure to deliver it to the consumers.

The reality is that EVs are not a net-zero sum and never will be. The decision by lawmakers to continually block the development of new nuclear power plants, the inability to safely and reasonably mine materials for batteries, and the ability to make and deliver the vehicles. The EV part of the equation does not offset the high carbon amount needed to make the vehicle and importantly, cannot if it requires a mid-life battery replacement. It can never be a zero-sum equation that way. Put another way - if Tesla was really serious about net-zero vehicles their vehicles would be driven by a person to their dealers, using Tesla fast chargers fed only off of renewable energy. Instead, they are loaded onto trains and semis and bussed to dealers...

[farscott]

Not sure I would call any ICE engine "highly efficient" as the most efficient ever is not 55% efficient and the most efficient F1 engine is about 50% efficient. Sometimes we enjoy the inefficiency, especially during cold weather as the waste heat is useful. Many other times it is just heat that needs to be dissipated.

EVs are not perfect by any means, still being relatively early in life as commercial products, but they have demonstrated much more efficiency than any ICE vehicle. Numbers have been reported above 75%. The issue is, as always, the batteries. Battery tech is still not good enough in terms of charging times and safety (see thermal runaway). There are some batteries in development that seem to be making progress, such as Nanotech Energy's cells, but we are a long way from commercializing the tech. https://nanotechenergy.com/new-batte...electric-cars/

I expect we will see more progress in the next twenty years with battery tech. Until we do, the reports of the demise of the ICE are surely exaggerated.

[GJM]

Not quite, but EV seems to be this year's version of crypto. The difference is the players, like Porsche are sophisticated and should know better about judging the 3-5 year future.

[NETim]

I'm sorry but every time I see this thread in the list, my brain sees "EV Catch Fire Thread." I'm biased I admit.

[GJM]

https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/d...brids-5387d2bf

Dealers want hybrids.