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I am a software engineer and I am not crazy enough to build a minimal ICE vehicle. But after spending decent teenage and college years in battery and small moto

I am a software engineer and I am not crazy enough to build a minimal ICE vehicle. But after spending decent teenage and college years in battery and small motors, I am actually confident enough to build a 3 people mover, slow and all, but it will go. There really is an order of magnitude difference in the complexity. The typical ICE already has electric batteries and motors. But the EV does not have the ICE parts. No dealing with oils either.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Yet every yokel with a garage, builds an ICE car for fun. Not even college educated. Some disconnect here?
- K0balt 6y ago
  Plenty of people buid airplanes and helicopters too.. Established templates and parts compatibility make it possible for people without a great deal of engineering knowledge but a high level of technical skill (which apparently many yokels posess) to build things. Building an ice vs electric vehicle in the discussion context means design plus build, not a kit or retrofit. It's a bit different.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    In 1900 people designed built their ICE and their car at the same time. It isn't hard to design an ICE. What is hard is designing an ICE that will run for years and meets modern emissions standards. Note that in 1900 the electric car was also seen as viable and people were building it. For "reasons" the ICE took off, while the electric car remained as mostly a thing people did in their garage.
    - WorldMaker 6y ago
      The "reasons" had nothing to do with simplicity of building one yourself, however: neither of the two biggest trends were "simple", from the industrialization of a complex process into an assembly line (notably Ford, but then competitors) to the logistics of setting up a fuel supply chain versus battery chemistry efforts of the time. (Most diaries and reports at the time seemed to imply that the DIY car people of the early 1900s much preferred the simplicity of the electric car and had some miracle happened at the time in battery chemistry the world would have shifted a much different direction.)
- taneq 6y ago
  In practical terms the GP poster is wrong. If you consider an internal combustion engine to be a single unit, an ICE-powered vehicle is of equivalent complexity to a battery electric vehicle. They both need body, suspension, steering, seats, etc. etc. The “ice-ness” adds effectively nothing to the build complexity from the overall vehicle builder’s standpoint.
  - ajnin 6y ago
    You're forgetting the various fluids : oil, coolant and associated tubing, filtering and pumps, the radiator and fan, the starter/alternator, the gearbox, the transmission, the air filter, various belts ... Quite a bit more complex than the electrical alternative.
    - taneq 6y ago
      I'm not arguing that the internals of an ICE motor aren't more complex. From the vehicle builder's perspective, though: - The oil lubrication system, starter/alternator, various belts, and gearbox (if front wheel drive) are typically part of the engine package so don't really impact complexity. - Liquid cooling is required for EVs if they're going to perform equivalently to a modern ICE car. - EVs contain high voltage / high current wiring that needs to be considered carefully in terms of crash safety. I'm not against EVs here, I think they're great. But if you want more than the old "drop a forklift motor and some batteries into a donor car" DIY build, an EV isn't actually that much simpler to assemble.
- matwood 6y ago
  Yeah, I don't really get the ICE is super complex thing. Simple ICE engines are...simple. Parts are easy to get and they are easy to work on. And, if you don't care about the environment, a 2-cycle engine is even simpler.
- sgt 6y ago
  Very few yokels with a garage "builds" an ICE. Many yokels modify, maintain, make the vehicle tasteless, yes.
- WorldMaker 6y ago
  It's a bit of a sunk "skill" fallacy isn't it? The world is full of "yokels" that have (for reasons of convenience/necessity) already built the skill base to (re)build an ICE vehicle "for fun" by doing mechanic work on previous vehicles. That lots of people have learned such skills does nothing to diminish the complexity of them. If anything it probably further shows the imbalance (class divide) in society's value of the skills that rarely are degrees awarded for learning them and people think of highly skilled practitioners of such skills sometimes still as "yokels with a garage".
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    But you got the point, right? And the fact that non-yokels also build cars, does not diminish the point.
    - WorldMaker 6y ago
      No, I think you entirely missed my point: there is no such thing as an "unskilled" yokel out there building a car from "scratch" or rebuilding an engine, no matter how redneck their garage. You seem to have dismissed the complex, hard learned skills of a large group of people, presumably because those are blue collar skills you don't seem to respect.
      - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
        Sorry. I know some personally. I respect them deeply. I know they're yokels. They know it too. We're not all prideful hipsters here in the midwest. We can actually be proud of our heritage and condition. Its something to do with our independent streak.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

Yet every yokel with a garage, builds an ICE car for fun. Not even college educated. Some disconnect here?

K0balt 6y ago
Plenty of people buid airplanes and helicopters too.. Established templates and parts compatibility make it possible for people without a great deal of engineering knowledge but a high level of technical skill (which apparently many yokels posess) to build things. Building an ice vs electric vehicle in the discussion context means design plus build, not a kit or retrofit. It's a bit different.
- bluGill 6y ago
  In 1900 people designed built their ICE and their car at the same time. It isn't hard to design an ICE. What is hard is designing an ICE that will run for years and meets modern emissions standards. Note that in 1900 the electric car was also seen as viable and people were building it. For "reasons" the ICE took off, while the electric car remained as mostly a thing people did in their garage.
  - WorldMaker 6y ago
    The "reasons" had nothing to do with simplicity of building one yourself, however: neither of the two biggest trends were "simple", from the industrialization of a complex process into an assembly line (notably Ford, but then competitors) to the logistics of setting up a fuel supply chain versus battery chemistry efforts of the time. (Most diaries and reports at the time seemed to imply that the DIY car people of the early 1900s much preferred the simplicity of the electric car and had some miracle happened at the time in battery chemistry the world would have shifted a much different direction.)
taneq 6y ago
In practical terms the GP poster is wrong. If you consider an internal combustion engine to be a single unit, an ICE-powered vehicle is of equivalent complexity to a battery electric vehicle. They both need body, suspension, steering, seats, etc. etc. The “ice-ness” adds effectively nothing to the build complexity from the overall vehicle builder’s standpoint.
- ajnin 6y ago
  You're forgetting the various fluids : oil, coolant and associated tubing, filtering and pumps, the radiator and fan, the starter/alternator, the gearbox, the transmission, the air filter, various belts ... Quite a bit more complex than the electrical alternative.
  - taneq 6y ago
    I'm not arguing that the internals of an ICE motor aren't more complex. From the vehicle builder's perspective, though: - The oil lubrication system, starter/alternator, various belts, and gearbox (if front wheel drive) are typically part of the engine package so don't really impact complexity. - Liquid cooling is required for EVs if they're going to perform equivalently to a modern ICE car. - EVs contain high voltage / high current wiring that needs to be considered carefully in terms of crash safety. I'm not against EVs here, I think they're great. But if you want more than the old "drop a forklift motor and some batteries into a donor car" DIY build, an EV isn't actually that much simpler to assemble.
matwood 6y ago
Yeah, I don't really get the ICE is super complex thing. Simple ICE engines are...simple. Parts are easy to get and they are easy to work on. And, if you don't care about the environment, a 2-cycle engine is even simpler.
sgt 6y ago
Very few yokels with a garage "builds" an ICE. Many yokels modify, maintain, make the vehicle tasteless, yes.
WorldMaker 6y ago
It's a bit of a sunk "skill" fallacy isn't it? The world is full of "yokels" that have (for reasons of convenience/necessity) already built the skill base to (re)build an ICE vehicle "for fun" by doing mechanic work on previous vehicles. That lots of people have learned such skills does nothing to diminish the complexity of them. If anything it probably further shows the imbalance (class divide) in society's value of the skills that rarely are degrees awarded for learning them and people think of highly skilled practitioners of such skills sometimes still as "yokels with a garage".
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  But you got the point, right? And the fact that non-yokels also build cars, does not diminish the point.
  - WorldMaker 6y ago
    No, I think you entirely missed my point: there is no such thing as an "unskilled" yokel out there building a car from "scratch" or rebuilding an engine, no matter how redneck their garage. You seem to have dismissed the complex, hard learned skills of a large group of people, presumably because those are blue collar skills you don't seem to respect.
    - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
      Sorry. I know some personally. I respect them deeply. I know they're yokels. They know it too. We're not all prideful hipsters here in the midwest. We can actually be proud of our heritage and condition. Its something to do with our independent streak.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]