• shalafi@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    46
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 month ago

    Had an ex-friend who was a motorhead arguing that electric motors will never beat ICE because they lack comparable torque. Look, I’m no mechanic, but I never got my head around that.

    “You mean they don’t have enough torque to run a US destroyer?! Someone should call the Navy.”

    Seriously, if you’ve played with even a tiny electric motor, provide DC, it goes, instantly. What could he have possibly been trying to say?

    • Boomer Humor Doomergod@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      ·
      1 month ago

      My parents had an original Prius and it was a weedy little car that made those two hippies really happy. If that was his only experience with electric cars I can see why he’d think that.

      But the new ones are fucking rockets. I just don’t understand why they need all that. Can they make a cheaper one that’s got 300 horsepower?

      • frongt@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 month ago

        I put my hybrid into sport mode when I actually need the acceleration, like quick highway merges or cramped city turns in traffic. If I kept it in eco mode like I normally do, or even just normal mode, the acceleration would be limited and I’d either be unable to merge or would cause an accident.

        Yeah drivers in my area are shitty, I know. Unfortunately I can’t flip a switch and change their behavior.

        Also sometimes it’s just plain fun to go zoom (when safe, obviously).

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      1 month ago

      What could he have possibly been trying to say?

      I mean, the general appeal of ICE engines is the fuel, not the engine. Gasoline is generally more energy dense than lithium.

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        1 month ago

        Nah, his complaint was lack of torque. Very strange, never got it. Figured he was repeating fossil fuel propaganda. But he was a motorhead!

        And yes, energy density is the thing no one talks about when raging against fossil fuels. A gallon of refined gasoline packs insane energy. I’ve run my 5-gallon, crappy Harbor Freight generator all night into the morning, powering the camp, heaters and all, never came close to emptying it. Contrast that with a monster LIPO4 battery that died in 48-hours only powering LED lights. (Gotta admit, something weird happened there.)

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 month ago

          Nah, his complaint was lack of torque.

          Maybe just had torque confused with horsepower? That’s been the historical trade-off between gas and electric. Sure, its very easy to get an electric motor to jump into action. But it is comparatively difficult to generate the same amount of power with equivalent fuel density.

          A gallon of refined gasoline packs insane energy.

          Much of which is lost to heat when combusted, which is the historical hang-up.

          Not that batteries don’t have their own heating problems. But the benefit of batteries is that they’re an engineering problem we can solve with miniaturization, which we’ve become incredibly good at. We’re at a soft ceiling in terms of engine chemistry. Petroleum is about as refined as we’re going to get it. Combustion’s math is what it is. Improvements to the efficiency of modern engines have stalled out as an automotive tool, even to the point that a gas engine powering an electric capacitor in a hybrid yields performance improvements over the gas engine just spinning the wheels directly.

        • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 month ago

          It is funny because electric motors have nearly unlimited* torque depending on the kind. If you have thick enough power cables and winding conductors, you can just keep pushing it harder to get more torque.

          It is like the thing they are very good at, besides sound levels, double or triple the efficiency, low/no maintenance, simpler with less parts, no emissions, etc…

          Literally the only good thing about combustion engines are their fuel source energy density.

          I think the problem is that motorheads see the enshittification of the auto industry as a whole and just say it’s because of electric motors because it happened right about the same time as EVs started coming out and try to push back on the wrong thing.

          • BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            30 days ago

            The vroom vroom noises are good too.

            Interestingly I’ve a relative who used to be a car salesman and still gets invited to dealer events occasionally - he was telling me about an electric he got to test a year or so back, it had a simulated gear shift/gear knob setup. He said people were loving it.

        • erusuoyera@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 month ago

          I would love to replace work van with an electric one, but so far it’s not possible for one main reason (other than cost)…I often tow quite heavy trailers and my diesel can tow 2500kg, but every electric van I’ve looked at can only tow 750kg. Maybe it’s something to do with that?

    • Geobloke@aussie.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 month ago

      Dunno, I feel every rev head knew about that evs have no torque curve and plenty of it. The concern to me head always been weight and range when on track. EVs are great in straight line, but have a lot more momentum in corners. They generally have narrower tires as well, which is great for range, but poor for grip

  • shininghero@pawb.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 month ago

    I wonder if we’ll ever get enough standardization across EVs so people can start doing the electric equivalent of an LS swap.
    I could see this being done on a Slate truck, along with an auxiliary EV battery bolted in the back.

  • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    1 month ago

    Ah good thing the batteries are not the heavy part of the system otherwise this would be awkward.

  • solrize@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    1 month ago

    1000 hp = 0.75 MW. If 98% efficient that’s 15KW of heat dissipation Sounds like a subsystem bigger than the motor.

    • kalkulat@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      1 month ago

      Yep, I noticed that, you’re right. And that’s near-miraculous efficiency. The maker’s website sez: “YASA also estimates that its all-important continuous power will be in the region of 350kW-400kW (469bhp-536bhp).” It also sez: "To achieve a 750kW short-term peak rating and a density of 59kW/kg … " Devi’ls in the details … The image on the ‘superblondie’ page shows A LOT of cooling built into whatever metal that is: https://supercarblondie.com/wp-content/uploads/YASA-tiny-electric-motor.webp

          • keegomatic@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 month ago

            Out of curiosity, would you explain your reply and your immediate parent’s comment for me? “Sez” - a bit old but didn’t seem too weird, but then: “date of poisoning” - are you implying an LLM wrote that and “sez” has something to do with pinpointing some poisoning of the model?

            • Atropos@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              6
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              1 month ago

              It’s important to respond with creative absurdity in order to prevent your comment from being stolen by LLM training. Almost as important as eating at least six rocks every day.

            • Vupware@lemmy.zip
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 month ago

              Sure!

              I can’t speak for the original commenter, but many here on Lemmy will type in unconventional ways so that if the instance gets scooped up by bots and used to train AI the data is harmful instead of beneficial.

              I don’t know if it actually has an impact, but it can be fun to participate in data poisoning as an act of subtle resistance.

              I believe the OC might have typed sez not because he is a bot, but rather to sabotage bots down the line. Maybe he just did it to save a letter.

  • rainy@lemmynsfw.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    1 month ago

    If we put electrified tracks down we could all drive ridiculously overpowered tiny traincars.

    • Birch@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 month ago

      Maybe we can also have them drive themselves and link them up for more efficiency also have them as a service so not everyone has to own their own and we can reduce overhead on servicing and infrastructure and … trains.

      • rainy@lemmynsfw.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 month ago

        but then u cant splatter pedestrians and cyclists on the pavement like overmicrowaved hotpockets or ram the car in front of u for not going fast enough or brake check the one behind you for being to close or…

    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 month ago

      Make them stone tracks, because steel is too expensive, then make the wheels of gum, because steel wheels have too less friction. Then you have a street and a car.

  • BilSabab@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    1 month ago

    cant wait for corporations to crush the competition with some bullshit yet again and then complain that we’re at peak EV tech anyway

  • Honytawk@feddit.nl
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 month ago

    The size is less of an issue than the power usage.

    Does it also use 1000% more power to get that strength?

    The only real benefit in that case would be robot mech suits.

  • Psythik@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    1 month ago

    “YASA” sounds like a mashup between YMCA and NASA. Even their logo looks like the Y’s.

  • Sam_Bass@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    29 days ago

    How much torque though? HP is nice but power is in the torque as much if not more than the voltage(HP)

  • pahlimur@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    1 month ago

    I was going to shit all over this thing, but if it can do ~500hp continuously that’s awesome. Wonder what kind of efficiency it has and what the cooling requirements are. That low weight puts us back into unsprung wheel motor territory, especially if it scales down well.