4 ms·
> Granted, we have been perfecting the metallurgy and construction of combustion engines for 100 years so they're amazingly reliable considering they work by in
by jjav 3y ago
> Granted, we have been perfecting the metallurgy and construction of combustion engines for 100 years so they're amazingly reliable considering they work by inducing thousands of explosions a minute while every part moves at insane speeds.
Agreed! If neither electric nor IC engines existed and we started developing both from scratch today, clearly the electric motors would be reliable within a year (I'm guessing, but probably) and the IC engines would take decades of development and manufacturing maturity to match the reliability.
But, that's not the world where we are. The ICE does have more than a century of development already so Honda/Mazda/Toyota/etc can manufacture an IC engine that'll go 200K+ miles with zero problems, so for a consumer buying a car today, the powerplant is not the source of trouble (whether EV or ICE). It's the rest of the car that needs repairs.
(An ICE engine should not have any explosions occurring, that's pinging and will damage the engine. It needs to be a controlled burn. But I'm nitpicking on the word.)
- theshrike79 3y agoIsn't the difference between a controlled burn and explosion just the outcome? If everything is fine, it was controlled, otherwise it was an explosion =) In my opinion the future will be an EV drivetrain. The only question is how do we store the energy to run the electric engines. Batteries are a decent solution, but I'd love to see more range extenders like the Chevy Volt / Opel Ampera. Put in a 10-20kW battery, a 20-40 litre gas/diesel tank and a highly optimised generator that only charges the batteries. Ta-dah, best of both worlds. You've got a reliable engine (steady RPM, steady output, no need to turbo it for power etc.) and a drivetrain that produces instant torque and is highly reliable.