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Comment by arrrg | Hacker News Reader

Cars like the Volt are most certainly not more complicated than ICE cars …

You can simplify those cars significantly due to them being an hybrid.

I'm only moderately familiar with this topic (mostly from following racing, where many major series have integrated hybrid powertrains), but this doesn't seem accurate to me. All the hybrid vehicles have to develop and integrate an ICE in addition to the hybrid system, not instead. I don't see where the simplicity gains you refer to would come from.

Again, I'm not very knowledgeable here, I just have intuition to go on and familiarity with the fact hybrids are definitely viewed as more complex to develop and race, in motorsports. I'd love to be more informed if I'm missing some major factors

The Volt has a 1.4L ICE engine, three clutches, two electric motors (of two different types--ferrite and neodymium), a large battery, a wall charger, an inverter, and a complicated mechanical transmission that accepts drive input from any motor. The Volt may be more efficient than an ICE car, but it is in no way simpler.

The Volt may not be simpler (Not saying it isn’t, but many of the parts you listed are in regular ICE cars, just in different proportions) — but that’s not inherently because it’s a hybrid.

Look at Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive. It is rather beautiful in its simplicity, and bypasses the need for a traditional automatic transmission — a part so complicated the big auto makers have mostly given up on designing in-house. Toyota’s HSD scales from the tiny Prius to Hylander, something a CVT can’t do reliably.

Hondas’s hybrids are also mechanically simpler by bypassing a transmission as well, and the ICE motor driving the wheels directly at highway speeds.

Failing transmissions are often the cause of a totaled older car, because it is an extremely complex and expensive part to replace.

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