General Motors investing $854 million to build V8 engines amid EV shift

Why would tire/road noise be louder? It should be the same as before, unless if you buy louder tires or remove sound deadner.

I would be quite happy is all I heard was tire noise. It means less total noise hitting my ears. More silence. More peaceful.

We're talking about fun driving. When I drove my first Tesla in 2014, a new S85, I was excited. My expectations were high. In 2014 it was 100k for that car. But tearing around was rather dull. Tesla got me as close to how deaf people feel in a quick car as possible.

I was missing what I wasn't hearing and not liking what I was hearing. The tire noise, wind noise, and every little pebble that got tossed into a wheel well. These were now the dominant sounds. I prefer other noises. I would still consider buying something like a Model 3 performance if it was a really good value because I consider the electric experience kind of a novelty.
 
We're talking about fun driving. When I drove my first Tesla in 2014, a new S85, I was excited. My expectations were high. In 2014 it was 100k for that car. But tearing around was rather dull. Tesla got me as close to how deaf people feel in a quick car as possible.

I was missing what I wasn't hearing and not liking what I was hearing. The tire noise, wind noise, and every little pebble that got tossed into a wheel well. These were now the dominant sounds. I prefer other noises. I would still consider buying something like a Model 3 performance if it was a really good value because I consider the electric experience kind of a novelty.
Fair enough.

In summer months I like to ride my bicycle, and am quite happy listening to not a lot at all. :) I also don't live in a city and so out in my yard it tends to be pretty quiet also. A quiet drive would be a nice addition--I can't wait for my old snow tires to come off, they have a nice roar of their own right now.
 
Today’s ICE is getting to be what, upwards of 40%? At best we’re only going to double what we can get from it, and I think those with thermodynamic backgrounds could explain where the actual limit is, with the Otto cycle.

A big lumbering big block, small turbo at low pressure (mostly to offset power loss at altitude)—I have to wonder if that couldn’t be a smooth low cost path for vehicles that spend most of their time under load. High pressure engines can better deal with low load situations, while doing ok under high load, but I wonder, for vehicles expected to last years and years, if a bigger engine at lower boost might not hold the edge. Just a swag.
The big lumbering engines have higher frictional losses .
 
With the electric craze, nobody is talking about alternative fuels like LPG and CNG which the new high compression ice engines are well suited.
We see the odd fleet of school buses and government vehicles running on these clean fuels, but not as before in personal transportation.
Most people can only think about what the media tells them to think about. It is like herding sheep.
 
If these are in trucks, then turbos are the wrong direction. We only need to look at Ford and see there are zero turbo options despite them having lots of experience and even one very capable 3.5 turbo on the shelf with similar output numbers; yet they stuff two big block gas options in their work trucks. That's pretty telling.
They are lower stress engines.
 
Sarcasm based upon your follow up post?



From what I've read EV's were basically sold out during this time period.
No. I’ll explain my point. In California with a population of almost 40 million people there were 573,070 Ev’s sold in 2021. That’s 1.4 % of the population buying an EV.

In the rest of the USA, which is 290 million there were 891,420 EV’s sold. That’s 0.3 % of the population buying an Ev. On a per capita basis Ev’s In California outsell the rest of America by almost 5 to 1.
 
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Most people can only think about what the media tells them to think about. It is like herding sheep.
Think about this...how come an engine, say a GM 3.6, could have 327 HP (roughly) in the Camaro or Caddy, and 288 HP in a SUV, yet only about the same 268 or 270 ft lbs across the board? Because marketing, can't overcome physics. It can sell more cars in each segment with HP. But in this day and age, really, it seems many "educated" individuals don't know what people learned in 1950's HS physics (I'm just making it up, it was my observation that people like my grandfather were generally more seemingly intelligent than someone 22 today with a prestigious education) :ROFLMAO:
 
Think about this...how come an engine, say a GM 3.6, could have 327 HP (roughly) in the Camaro or Caddy, and 288 HP in a SUV, yet only about the same 268 or 270 ft lbs across the board? Because marketing, can't overcome physics. It can sell more cars in each segment with HP. But in this day and age, really, it seems many "educated" individuals don't know what people learned in 1950's HS physics (I'm just making it up, it was my observation that people like my grandfather were generally more seemingly intelligent than someone 22 today with a prestigious education)

The power differences can be real. The Cadillac with dual VVT on the GM HFEV6 makes peak torque at higher RPM vs truck.

As an engine builder, I can build a 275HP SBC 350 or a 375HP unit - both make the same peak 380 lb-ft or torque.
 
Think about this...how come an engine, say a GM 3.6, could have 327 HP (roughly) in the Camaro or Caddy, and 288 HP in a SUV, yet only about the same 268 or 270 ft lbs across the board? Because marketing, can't overcome physics. It can sell more cars in each segment with HP. But in this day and age, really, it seems many "educated" individuals don't know what people learned in 1950's HS physics (I'm just making it up, it was my observation that people like my grandfather were generally more seemingly intelligent than someone 22 today with a prestigious education) :ROFLMAO:

I don't know about the GM's. But FCA derates their engines depending on a few factors, the most likely being cooling. The 3.6 pentastar and the 5.7 hemi are used in trucks and cars, the trucks always get the highest output numbers because they're not limited by cooling. The trucks have more space for rads, and engine coolers, and it's a bigger engine bay etc etc.
 
No. I’ll explain my point. In California with a population of almost 40 million people there were 573,070 Ev’s sold in 2021. That’s 1.4 % of the population buying an EV.

In the rest of the USA, which is 290 million there were 891,420 EV’s sold. That’s 0.3 % of the population buying an Ev. On a per capita basis Ev’s In California outsell the rest of America by almost 5 to 1.
I think you'd agree that the market as a whole has been supply constrained since 2020 so until supply meets demand I don't think we can draw any conclusions either way. On a somewhat related point a I read an article a few weeks ago which opined that GHG emissions from automobiles were getting worse because it was a banner year for SUV/Truck sales in the US. Of course the author was either unaware or chose to omit the fact that due to material constraints automakers prioritized higher margin SUV/Truck sales over cheaper sedans.

On an aside I don't even know if we can drawn any conclusion from 2023 sales due to uncertainty with regards to tax credits.
 
I think you'd agree that the market as a whole has been supply constrained since 2020 so until supply meets demand I don't think we can draw any conclusions either way. On a somewhat related point a I read an article a few weeks ago which opined that GHG emissions from automobiles were getting worse because it was a banner year for SUV/Truck sales in the US. Of course the author was either unaware or chose to omit the fact that due to material constraints automakers prioritized higher margin SUV/Truck sales over cheaper sedans.

On an aside I don't even know if we can drawn any conclusion from 2023 sales due to uncertainty with regards to tax credits.
Fair enough. Let’s wait for better data. :)
 
The big lumbering engines have higher frictional losses .
Well no, they don't. The extra parts count of DOHC V8's add a lot of friction. And besides, with the high gearing of today's cars, ALL engines spend most of their life at 2000 rpm.
 
Thermal efficiency usually favors bigger displacement engines.
That goes for turbine engines too! Bigger is better.

It is interesting that Toyota has been able to eeeeeek out 41% thermal efficiency from the Prius and Camry engines. That's darn close to the 43-44% TE of truly large engines. Then there are those 50% efficient cargo ship engines...
 
The big lumbering engines have higher frictional losses .
I agree that a big V8 doing very little work, does have more frictional losses than a smaller engine with fewer cylinders, in the same application. And I think that's what you meant.

But per HP produced, larger engines win out almost all the time.

The main frictional loss in an engine is piston ring swept area. The larger the cylinder displacement, the lower the piston ring swept area for a given displacement. This is simply a matter of geometry. It helps explain why 4 cyl aircraft engines with 360 cubic inches have BSFC numbers of (as good as) 0.38 and a V8 with the same displacement is about 0.55. As the 350 cubic inch V8 has far more frictional losses with regard to piston ring swept area.

The very same geometry also affects heat transfer. Remember, the more heat we transfer from a combustion chamber, the less work the combustion can do. So larger displacement engines, with less chamber and piston surface area per unit of displacement also win out here.
 
I agree that a big V8 doing very little work, does have more frictional losses than a smaller engine with fewer cylinders, in the same application. And I think that's what you meant.
Yes, usually a passenger vehicle is at low load. When employed, the company has Ford E350 vans loaded to close to max weight and the 350 ci engines got the same mpgs or a bit less than the 460 C.I. engines and the 460 C. I. were much nicer to drive. 100% agree with you.
 
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I agree that the ICE age is not over yet despite what the 🤢 say but I don’t understand the investing back into V8s. Build a turbo six with better fuel economy
They didn’t learn from the 70’s.
Actual performance and perceived performance are not one and the same. I am assuming market surveys have been conducted and there are a lot of buyers that want a vehicle with an 8 cylinder gas motor, no matter if there is something better with only 6 cylinders, or an electric motor.
 
I agree that the ICE age is not over yet despite what the 🤢 say but I don’t understand the investing back into V8s. Build a turbo six with better fuel economy.

They didn’t learn from the 70’s.
Nah, they should go back to building big block V8s...I miss all of the low end grunt without the added complexity of a turbo or a blower...
 
Think about this...how come an engine, say a GM 3.6, could have 327 HP (roughly) in the Camaro or Caddy, and 288 HP in a SUV, yet only about the same 268 or 270 ft lbs across the board? Because marketing, can't overcome physics. It can sell more cars in each segment with HP. But in this day and age, really, it seems many "educated" individuals don't know what people learned in 1950's HS physics (I'm just making it up, it was my observation that people like my grandfather were generally more seemingly intelligent than someone 22 today with a prestigious education) :ROFLMAO:

Tuning and accessories bolted on for sure. The Camaro owner is fine with a louder exhaust and premium being required while the SUV buyer wants a quiet exhaust and is probably too cheap to pay for premium fuel so they have to tune it for regular.
 
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