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I wonder if the street racers and car mechanic hobbyists of the near future will become electrical engineers to effectively do the same thing. Instead of instal

I wonder if the street racers and car mechanic hobbyists of the near future will become electrical engineers to effectively do the same thing. Instead of installing better spark plugs or cylinder heads, enthusiasts start playing with capacitor improvements and voltage tuning?

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
Maybe just with the software but with the hardware no way. On modern EVs it's too complex, miniaturized and tightly integrated to be able to play around. Anyway, just like with Tesla, I expect that if you mess with the factory software to extract more features or performance you'd normally have to pay for, the manufacturer will void your warranty or lock you out of their charging networks. The EV future doesn't look good for custom tuning.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  You replace that with aftermarket upgrades. Nobody is going to care that a Leaf "R-type" isn't stock.
- roflchoppa 6y ago
  People already retrofitting tesla motors inside of vintage Porsches, I’m sure as more EVs end up in junkyards more will make their way into speed junkies hands. Personally if I could retrofit my 240z with an electric drivetrain I would, I just wanna smoke some Tesla’s off the line :)
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    Yes, but OP was talking about the future of tuning EVs, not old ICEs with EV parts.
- bestouff 6y ago
  ICE look way more complex than EV to me. More moving parts, more feedback loops. I wouldn't be surprised if enthusiasts were able to swap the controller for something else. But then I perfectly know you are right about the general tendency of integrated and locked-in parts in engineering nowadays.
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    How will you swap the controller when that's sealed in the motor casing and the other car's computers will be programed to lock-out non orginal parts in software. The Fast and furious style tuning is super easy on ICE cars but I expect it will be almost impossible in the EV future.
    - rootusrootus 6y ago
      Put in a different motor, I'd guess. They're cheap compared to engines, and people certainly swap those regularly. New ECU perhaps, as necesasry. Modders are going to mod, for sure. And there's no guarantee that Tesla-style anti-consumer behavior will be prevalent with all manufacturers or that it won't get shot down by the gov't. Some manufacturers actually embrace their modding enthusiasts.
      - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
        Except nobody makes aftermarket motors the same way nobody makes aftermarket engines. Engines are _THE_ most OEM thing in a car as it takes massive resources to engineer and test a new engine design.
        rootusrootus 6y ago
        There are definitely aftermarket engines, though admittedly most swaps by far are for different OE designs. Given the utter simplicity of electric motors, I imagine that aftermarket creations will be much more common.
        ChuckNorris89 6y ago
        I feel like, with most of the HN crowd, you underestimate the sheer complexity of current EV motors. It's not just a spinning rotor in a stator that when you plug it into a battery is starts to move. As a former EV automotive engineer, the complexity added to the newer designs to maximize efficiency has skyrocketed and so have the points of failure. One EV project I worked at had the brushes fail after 20k KM needing the motor disassemble and brushes replaced. At another one we had attempted cooling the rotor and from too much vibrations, the coolant could leak inside the sealed motor totalling it. People expecting EVs to outlast ICEs on reliability are in for a serious wake-up call.
jessriedel 6y ago
How much are electric cars limited by raw torque and power? My impression is that a stock Tesla (pricy, but far from "supercar" prices) already has enough torque that it can turn the wheels past the point where they lose traction even up to quite high speeds. (Anyone know what speed?) If so, then the car's performance in that regime is limited not by engine power but presumably by things like the aerodynamics, sophisticated anti-slip electronics, and chassis movement.
- Judgmentality 6y ago
  What really limits electric vehicles for racing is weight and batteries. Weight is always bad, and batteries are heavy. And batteries can overheat, which means going into limp mode. The overheating seems to be getting solved relatively quickly, but the weight of batteries isn't going to come down drastically any time soon. They're just different - electric is better in a lot of ways and gasoline is better in a lot of ways. I don't think you'll see electric cars doing endurance racing anytime soon.
  - cryptoz 6y ago
    I'm not a racing or really car enthusiast, but, don't races have pit stops where mechanics change out the tires and such? Tesla's old 90-second battery replacement tech could be used here. Just thinking out loud.
    - Judgmentality 6y ago
      90 seconds for a pit stop is an eternity.
      - kllrnohj 6y ago
        Just for those that don't know, pitstops these days are under a few seconds. See for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAd_t4wibM0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAd_t4wibM0
newsclues 6y ago
After the drivetrain is perfected, will they become chemists and work on tire compounds?
gexla 6y ago
It would be interesting to see them pop up on a quarter mile drag strip. Probably they already have, I just haven't been to drag races for decades. I remember them being quite the experience though. The eye burning fumes in the air. The sound so violent that you feel like the thing could turn the entire track into a crater. When the things took off you could feel your organs shaking. Not sure you can replicate that experience with an electric car. More likely tastes change and maybe drag racing dies out. Those races were the pinnacle of the ICE experience for me though.
- mikereedell 6y ago
  I had the experience of getting an all access pass to an NHRA event at Bandimere in Colorado a few years back. I stood behind the start line, about 15 yards for most of the event. Being that close to a top fuel drag car at launch was a sensory experience: extreme noise even with plugs inside of over-ear protection, sound waves pushing me back, bits of rubber hitting my legs, and a little bit of "rain" from the water in the exhaust falling.
- Animats 6y ago
  The 1950s and 1960s were the heyday of the dragstrip. Look at movies of that period. They look so slow. Many production cars today could easily outrun "hot rods" of that period. It's been a long time since power was the problem in racing. It's all about keeping the wheels on the ground now. If you're burning rubber, you're not getting max acceleration.
annoyingnoob 6y ago
Seems like they'll run into 'right to repair' issues, where they'll need to replace much of the electronics to get the proper access.
- Junk_Collector 6y ago
  There is already a large market of jailbroken and aftermarket ECUs as well as alternative firmware for tractors because of this. If it gets popular and stays legal, people will find a way around it.
  - annoyingnoob 6y ago
    Right, aftermarket, or make it yourself, is what I'm talking about. Your ability to tune is currently limited by access, you need to get the access before you can tune, one way or another.
bob1029 6y ago
My next hobby car is going to be something purely mechanical. New cars are virtually impossible to work on and have mountains of compromises to deal with. I am not enjoying having a computer constantly between me and the road. I also don't like the new lower bound for car weight due to all of the modern safety regulations. Even if you have a modern car with a ton of power, you can never truly compensate for the physics equation imposed by all of that weight. For example: A 1988 Honda Civic weighs somewhere in the realm of 2000-2200 lbs. A 2020 model year weighs somewhere between 2700-3000 lbs. This makes a huge difference in how a car feels to drive, especially at extremes that are more likely to be explored by enthusiasts. Something like a BMW M3 E30 would be a dream hobby car for me. There is a reason the 80s-90s model years are starting to go up in value. Car enthusiasts want that sweet spot of purely analog controls, but also with working factory A/C.
- organsnyder 6y ago
  It seems like that should be easier with an electric drivetrain. Much of the complexity of modern vehicles is the controls for the fuel injection, transmission, timing, and the like. An electric motor—perhaps even without a transmission—is a hell of a lot simpler.
  - lisper 6y ago
    Simpler yes, but potentially more dangerous. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that electricity can kill you awfully damn fast and without any warning. This is usually not a problem for hobbyists because the total amount of energy in a typical battery is low and the internal resistances are high. But when you're powering a vehicle, especially a high-performance vehicle, those usual safeguards are intentionally removed. So caveat hacker. Caveat mucho. Also, LiPo batteries can explode if you're not very careful with charge and discharge discipline. Even the small ones in cell phones can do significant damage that way.
  - ideals 6y ago
    Hopefully we will get to a point where we have an LSx of electrical drivetrain. Something that is cheap, powerful, ubiquitous, and easy to install. Right now though we have some disappointing (from a power perspective) electric drivetrains from Prius' that can be swapped or a powerful but DRM'd Tesla drivetrain that is more work than it's worth.
mywittyname 6y ago
Probably. Lots of dedicated automotive hobbyists end up being specialized mechanical engineers. They might not know the formal math behind systems, but they have a reason to learn. Today's hobbyists might look up tables for calculating fueling requirements for the expected airflow of their setups, as tuning an engine invariably means figuring out airflow volume for an intake setup, then calculating injector duty cycles to deliver a set volume of fuel over a specific timespan. I doubt there will be many people modifying new EVs due to their complexity. But people are definitely converting old cars to EVs and that requires a pretty deep knowledge of EE principals.
nabilhat 6y ago
Already done! NEDRA [0] is the north American drag racing scene that has been around over 20 years. Much of the best DC EV equipment was developed by the hobbyist market. Perhaps the most impressive example of hobbyists becoming electrical engineers is the self-taught inventor of the Zilla DC motor controller [1], which is still a force to be reckoned with in performance EV conversions. Electrathon [2] is a series that's highly accessible to high schools and individual hobbyists - the goal being to cover as much ground as possible in one hour on one kWh. EVs are comparatively easy to get started on as a hobby. The production EVs are only making it easier by populating the secondhand parts market, and electric drivetrains are much simpler and easier to fit than ICE conversions. [0] http://www.nedra.com/ http://www.nedra.com/ [1] http://cafeelectric.com/zilla.php http://cafeelectric.com/zilla.php [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrathon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrathon

ChuckNorris89 6y ago

Maybe just with the software but with the hardware no way. On modern EVs it's too complex, miniaturized and tightly integrated to be able to play around. Anyway, just like with Tesla, I expect that if you mess with the factory software to extract more features or performance you'd normally have to pay for, the manufacturer will void your warranty or lock you out of their charging networks. The EV future doesn't look good for custom tuning.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
You replace that with aftermarket upgrades. Nobody is going to care that a Leaf "R-type" isn't stock.
roflchoppa 6y ago
People already retrofitting tesla motors inside of vintage Porsches, I’m sure as more EVs end up in junkyards more will make their way into speed junkies hands. Personally if I could retrofit my 240z with an electric drivetrain I would, I just wanna smoke some Tesla’s off the line :)
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  Yes, but OP was talking about the future of tuning EVs, not old ICEs with EV parts.
bestouff 6y ago
ICE look way more complex than EV to me. More moving parts, more feedback loops. I wouldn't be surprised if enthusiasts were able to swap the controller for something else. But then I perfectly know you are right about the general tendency of integrated and locked-in parts in engineering nowadays.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  How will you swap the controller when that's sealed in the motor casing and the other car's computers will be programed to lock-out non orginal parts in software. The Fast and furious style tuning is super easy on ICE cars but I expect it will be almost impossible in the EV future.
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    Put in a different motor, I'd guess. They're cheap compared to engines, and people certainly swap those regularly. New ECU perhaps, as necesasry. Modders are going to mod, for sure. And there's no guarantee that Tesla-style anti-consumer behavior will be prevalent with all manufacturers or that it won't get shot down by the gov't. Some manufacturers actually embrace their modding enthusiasts.
    - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
      Except nobody makes aftermarket motors the same way nobody makes aftermarket engines. Engines are _THE_ most OEM thing in a car as it takes massive resources to engineer and test a new engine design.
      - rootusrootus 6y ago
        There are definitely aftermarket engines, though admittedly most swaps by far are for different OE designs. Given the utter simplicity of electric motors, I imagine that aftermarket creations will be much more common.
        ChuckNorris89 6y ago
        I feel like, with most of the HN crowd, you underestimate the sheer complexity of current EV motors. It's not just a spinning rotor in a stator that when you plug it into a battery is starts to move. As a former EV automotive engineer, the complexity added to the newer designs to maximize efficiency has skyrocketed and so have the points of failure. One EV project I worked at had the brushes fail after 20k KM needing the motor disassemble and brushes replaced. At another one we had attempted cooling the rotor and from too much vibrations, the coolant could leak inside the sealed motor totalling it. People expecting EVs to outlast ICEs on reliability are in for a serious wake-up call.

jessriedel 6y ago

How much are electric cars limited by raw torque and power? My impression is that a stock Tesla (pricy, but far from "supercar" prices) already has enough torque that it can turn the wheels past the point where they lose traction even up to quite high speeds. (Anyone know what speed?) If so, then the car's performance in that regime is limited not by engine power but presumably by things like the aerodynamics, sophisticated anti-slip electronics, and chassis movement.

Judgmentality 6y ago
What really limits electric vehicles for racing is weight and batteries. Weight is always bad, and batteries are heavy. And batteries can overheat, which means going into limp mode. The overheating seems to be getting solved relatively quickly, but the weight of batteries isn't going to come down drastically any time soon. They're just different - electric is better in a lot of ways and gasoline is better in a lot of ways. I don't think you'll see electric cars doing endurance racing anytime soon.
- cryptoz 6y ago
  I'm not a racing or really car enthusiast, but, don't races have pit stops where mechanics change out the tires and such? Tesla's old 90-second battery replacement tech could be used here. Just thinking out loud.
  - Judgmentality 6y ago
    90 seconds for a pit stop is an eternity.
    - kllrnohj 6y ago
      Just for those that don't know, pitstops these days are under a few seconds. See for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAd_t4wibM0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAd_t4wibM0

newsclues 6y ago

After the drivetrain is perfected, will they become chemists and work on tire compounds?

gexla 6y ago

It would be interesting to see them pop up on a quarter mile drag strip. Probably they already have, I just haven't been to drag races for decades. I remember them being quite the experience though. The eye burning fumes in the air. The sound so violent that you feel like the thing could turn the entire track into a crater. When the things took off you could feel your organs shaking. Not sure you can replicate that experience with an electric car. More likely tastes change and maybe drag racing dies out. Those races were the pinnacle of the ICE experience for me though.

mikereedell 6y ago
I had the experience of getting an all access pass to an NHRA event at Bandimere in Colorado a few years back. I stood behind the start line, about 15 yards for most of the event. Being that close to a top fuel drag car at launch was a sensory experience: extreme noise even with plugs inside of over-ear protection, sound waves pushing me back, bits of rubber hitting my legs, and a little bit of "rain" from the water in the exhaust falling.
Animats 6y ago
The 1950s and 1960s were the heyday of the dragstrip. Look at movies of that period. They look so slow. Many production cars today could easily outrun "hot rods" of that period. It's been a long time since power was the problem in racing. It's all about keeping the wheels on the ground now. If you're burning rubber, you're not getting max acceleration.

annoyingnoob 6y ago

Seems like they'll run into 'right to repair' issues, where they'll need to replace much of the electronics to get the proper access.

Junk_Collector 6y ago
There is already a large market of jailbroken and aftermarket ECUs as well as alternative firmware for tractors because of this. If it gets popular and stays legal, people will find a way around it.
- annoyingnoob 6y ago
  Right, aftermarket, or make it yourself, is what I'm talking about. Your ability to tune is currently limited by access, you need to get the access before you can tune, one way or another.

bob1029 6y ago

My next hobby car is going to be something purely mechanical. New cars are virtually impossible to work on and have mountains of compromises to deal with. I am not enjoying having a computer constantly between me and the road. I also don't like the new lower bound for car weight due to all of the modern safety regulations. Even if you have a modern car with a ton of power, you can never truly compensate for the physics equation imposed by all of that weight. For example: A 1988 Honda Civic weighs somewhere in the realm of 2000-2200 lbs. A 2020 model year weighs somewhere between 2700-3000 lbs. This makes a huge difference in how a car feels to drive, especially at extremes that are more likely to be explored by enthusiasts. Something like a BMW M3 E30 would be a dream hobby car for me. There is a reason the 80s-90s model years are starting to go up in value. Car enthusiasts want that sweet spot of purely analog controls, but also with working factory A/C.

organsnyder 6y ago
It seems like that should be easier with an electric drivetrain. Much of the complexity of modern vehicles is the controls for the fuel injection, transmission, timing, and the like. An electric motor—perhaps even without a transmission—is a hell of a lot simpler.
- lisper 6y ago
  Simpler yes, but potentially more dangerous. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that electricity can kill you awfully damn fast and without any warning. This is usually not a problem for hobbyists because the total amount of energy in a typical battery is low and the internal resistances are high. But when you're powering a vehicle, especially a high-performance vehicle, those usual safeguards are intentionally removed. So caveat hacker. Caveat mucho. Also, LiPo batteries can explode if you're not very careful with charge and discharge discipline. Even the small ones in cell phones can do significant damage that way.
- ideals 6y ago
  Hopefully we will get to a point where we have an LSx of electrical drivetrain. Something that is cheap, powerful, ubiquitous, and easy to install. Right now though we have some disappointing (from a power perspective) electric drivetrains from Prius' that can be swapped or a powerful but DRM'd Tesla drivetrain that is more work than it's worth.

mywittyname 6y ago

Probably. Lots of dedicated automotive hobbyists end up being specialized mechanical engineers. They might not know the formal math behind systems, but they have a reason to learn. Today's hobbyists might look up tables for calculating fueling requirements for the expected airflow of their setups, as tuning an engine invariably means figuring out airflow volume for an intake setup, then calculating injector duty cycles to deliver a set volume of fuel over a specific timespan. I doubt there will be many people modifying new EVs due to their complexity. But people are definitely converting old cars to EVs and that requires a pretty deep knowledge of EE principals.

nabilhat 6y ago

Already done! NEDRA [0] is the north American drag racing scene that has been around over 20 years. Much of the best DC EV equipment was developed by the hobbyist market. Perhaps the most impressive example of hobbyists becoming electrical engineers is the self-taught inventor of the Zilla DC motor controller [1], which is still a force to be reckoned with in performance EV conversions. Electrathon [2] is a series that's highly accessible to high schools and individual hobbyists - the goal being to cover as much ground as possible in one hour on one kWh. EVs are comparatively easy to get started on as a hobby. The production EVs are only making it easier by populating the secondhand parts market, and electric drivetrains are much simpler and easier to fit than ICE conversions. [0] http://www.nedra.com/ http://www.nedra.com/ [1] http://cafeelectric.com/zilla.php http://cafeelectric.com/zilla.php [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrathon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrathon