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Comment by wuming2 | Hacker News Reader

I do wonder sometimes if scraping the million plus of components, produced and assembled with great care into a ICE car and still relatively new, makes any sense. Re-powering seems no brainer to keep millions of new cars out of the scrapyard. And avoid the environmentally unsustainable production of slightly newer cars. Reusing them whole, engine included, is ideal. If battery re-powering, synthetic gasoline and hydrogen re-powering are not viable for multiple reasons I wonder what the best pool of options is.

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I believe that current car racing trends will paint a picture of the future of automobiles.

The hybrid area is among us, and the technology used is so well thought out and advanced.

Hybrid as in “go incredibly fast”, and not “save gas” like as with a Prius.

Currently in F1 and the new prototype classes, they are using electrification in conjunction with the internal combustion engine to create more instantly available horsepower.

They are using twin turbo 6 cylinder engines, and anything that has large rotational mass has been electrified with motors. The turbos, crankshaft, and camshafts all have hybrid electric assist motors built into them to combat inertia. They then have incredibly engineered heat recovery systems built into the brakes and turbos. They collect the heat and convert it into electric to recharge the battery. Additionally, when the electric assist motors aren’t providing power to their components, their function is reversed and they become generators that also feed to the battery.

I don’t believe the streets have ever really even seen electric assist turbos and crankshafts lol. Ford only recently realized that you could make more fuel efficient and reliable power with less displacement using forced induction.

that seems very unlikely to be honest. Commercial cars are sold first on reliability and operating costs, which is why Americans are shying away from buying cars that have a basic turbo and prefer larger gas engines instead.

This is completely false lol.. Which Americans are shying away from turbo cars exactly?

Pretty sure Ford and GM have an entire lineup of fuel efficient turbo cars out right now. Ford has the ecoboost engine line, so I’m confused on what data you are looking at?

Buyers are shying away from them. I was on the market for a truck, and I saw the discussions.

I think the age of Rube Goldberg dinosaur fumes fire machines is over and the age of Maxwells Equations is upon us. It’s sort of like college physics progression I just realized.

I’d like to submit into evidence the new Mercedes AMG One..

The most advanced hybrid hypercar to hit the streets. Complete with the same MGU-MGK electric hybrid assist and energy recovery systems used in F1.

https://youtu.be/Tm4rkRpoapw

As a dad driving my kids to gymnastics why would I buy a hyper car?

Do you believe that Saudi Aramco is just going throw their arms up and be like “well, the dinosaur fumes era is over everyone! Pack it up.”

The two technologies of electric and combustion are going to coexist with each other.

The rebirth of F1 into this new hybrid generation, as well as the new dPi hybrid prototype class will prove to you that Maxwells Equation is not close, and we breaking a new era of acceleration, braking, downforce, top speed, and fuel efficiency.

I don’t think F1 is going to save Saudi Aramco. People don’t generally need a super racing machine. Maxwells equations delivers a simpler machine that satisfies all needs of any user beyond the most exotic. The Rube Goldberg machine is the actual death of ICE - as a manufacturer, who have much more influence on cars, why do I want to build and design these incredibly complex machines when I could dramatically simplify the entire chain of design, production, distribution, and maintenance by hosting a sled with batteries and some inductive motors. Once the scale of production reaches ICE levels the efficiencies of market will just destroy the ICE market. Making a more complex ICE for some exotic benefit for race car drivers isn’t going to shift that economics. Oil producers are way too far down the chain to have much a voice.

F1 is like a test bed for new vehicle technology. It's not that you'll buy a race car, or a race car engine, but those discoveries will filter down into consumer products, like they have in the past: paddle shifters, KERS, hybrid engines, rear diffusers, traction control, drive by wire, the dual clutch, plus probably a ton of improvements in tires, fuel injection, safety, suspensions etc.

So if a hybrid engine that significantly increases ICE efficiency (already the case, F1 engines are 40% more efficient than normal cars) can become mainstream and be a better fit for particular use cases, it could extend the life of gasoline-powered vehicles for a while.

I can buy that. But I’ll bet you the marginal cost of all the added complexity will (as scales of economy in the EV manufacturing process) more than offset marginal engine efficiency gains, especially if electricity prices stay significantly cheaper than gasoline.

I think the reality is the ICE is a technology whose time has come. It’s overly complex and has to be close to optimal given the sheer time and energy spent perfecting it. The EV is far from optimality and it’s improvement rates will likely be staggering over the next 20 years. It’s ok. The ICE had its day, and it was cool. Now it’s time for flying drone cars.

F1 has gotten further and further away from production deployment vehicles in favor of more entertainment for the crowds. Tires all degrade to enable more strategy, and the ground effect cars are now designed for closer racing which production vehicles don't care about. Le Mans has more production relevance than F1 now.

The USA actually has more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia. Adding Canada, you have more than double. The production cost is higher, but technology adapts... SA can't really decide when this era is over.

Mass-producing IC engines, even complicated state-of-the-art ones, is exceedingly simple and cheap. Assembling an EV battery is actually pretty damned hard and energy-intensive. This is all reflected in the price. If it were easy to make an EV battery, they would cost less. If it was hard to make an IC engine, there would be no $4500 motorcycles.

The equivalent of your $4500 motorcycle is the $4000 - $6000 mini EVs sold in second-tier chinese cities[1], the best-known of which is probably the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV[2]. There are many reviews of them on Youtube, some in English by native english speakers. These EVs have the same number of airbags as motorcycles, but more seatbelts.

Edit: apparently they now have more airbags than motorcycles, as well as more roll cages and other safety features.

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1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_city_tier_system

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuling_Hongguang_Mini_EV

To what degree do you think this reflects learning over time? My impression is that high precision manufacturing is something that we've gotten very good at, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's easy.

I don't see what the difference is between being good at something and it being easy. I think the prices of these things are indicative. The fact that an ICE has a bazillion parts is superficial, aesthetic, and irrelevant. A bicycle chain has 400 moving parts, state-of-the-art metallurgy, and costs $10.

I guess it's a question of whether battery production will one day be easy as well. Certainly, 200 years ago modern ICE production wouldn't have been easy, so maybe we're just at a similar point in the history of battery production.

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