Has the internal combustion engine peaked?

[hattaresguy]

Tesla received a Federal loan, not a grant.

Part of the loan was that Tesla had to set up manufacturing in the US to get the money.

So the feds loaned them money, created a significant number of American manufacturing jobs, and made $20m on the deal for the American taxpayer, when Tesla paid the loan back in full.

The big two, I won't include FCA since its HQ is in London and its Italian owned, have enjoyed significant support from the federal and other governments for decades. As has just about every other car manufacture in existence I can think of, short of maybe Ferrari.

Yep so off the top of my head if you don't like government money in the car business at all you should buy a Ferrari.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Elon Musk is an absolute nutjob. At first, I thought he was preying on the uninformed to make money. That is not the case.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/elon-musk-in-berlin_560484dee4b08820d91c5f5f

 

[Cujet]

The hate for the Tesla and Musk is absurd.

I honestly believe the Model S in all it's variants is a great car. Very competitive with other luxury cars. It's not a Chevy, and does not promise to be one. It promises good handling, a quiet ride, plenty of comfortable room, and great performance. The exact same things Mercedes provides with their, similarly sized and priced cars.

I see no reason why we should not be thrilled to see the technology mature. And to see which direction provides the best results.

I have 3 vehicles and a company vehicle. Like many Americans, I could honestly use a Tesla without any restriction on my lifestyle. And, I'd enjoy not wasting time filling up.

285 watt hours per mile is what they typically achieve here in Florida. That equates to 300 miles of real world range. That's roughly where most drivers "fill up". And it's got that range every morning! In real world use, it works out well.

 

[HTSS_TR]

If nothing else is positive for Tesla, at the very least they are American company and they create jobs here in America instead of oversea to utilize cheap labors. For this alone I'm a cheer leader for Tesla. But, Tesla is currently the leader of electric vehicle, all other manufacture are try to copy and follow Tesla footsteps. Aren't you proud of an American company that sets examples for others to follow ?

If any of you think that company A is good because they shift their manufacturing jobs oversea so you can buy their product(s) for few pennies less, so be it.

 

[Garak]

Ironically, if Musk ever wants the Tesla to become anything close to mainstream, he had better be prepared to diversify production.

 

[gregoron]

I have nothing against electric cars but I think the majority of people still lack the infrastructure to own one. Those who live in condos or apartments would need their own charging station to make owning a plug-in vehicle feasible.

As for hybrids, it think this is the next logical step after ICEs before transitioning to full electric. If we look at how ICEs of today operate, they basically have three modes since most ICEs today are direct injected (petrol or diesel). Of the 3 modes, the one that creates the most pollution (NOx) is the ultra-lean burn mode where fuel is injected just before compression. The other two modes (moderate load and full load) allow fuel to burn more efficiently since it is injected with oxygen during the intake stroke.

Get rid of the ultra-lean burn mode and you'll get a cleaner burning engine. You get rid of it by having an electric motor (hybrid) run the vehicle during this operation. Perhaps, even a diesel engine can be paired with an electric motor to have more fuel efficiency than a GDI engine.

 

[hattaresguy]

Originally Posted By: Miller88
Elon Musk is an absolute nutjob. At first, I thought he was preying on the uninformed to make money. That is not the case.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/elon-musk-in-berlin_560484dee4b08820d91c5f5f


I don't get it? He makes a point that a lot of people have made.

 

[hattaresguy]

Originally Posted By: Garak
Ironically, if Musk ever wants the Tesla to become anything close to mainstream, he had better be prepared to diversify production.


That's been the plan for a decade or so.

 

[hattaresguy]

Originally Posted By: Cujet
The hate for the Tesla and Musk is absurd.

I honestly believe the Model S in all it's variants is a great car. Very competitive with other luxury cars. It's not a Chevy, and does not promise to be one. It promises good handling, a quiet ride, plenty of comfortable room, and great performance. The exact same things Mercedes provides with their, similarly sized and priced cars.

I see no reason why we should not be thrilled to see the technology mature. And to see which direction provides the best results.

I have 3 vehicles and a company vehicle. Like many Americans, I could honestly use a Tesla without any restriction on my lifestyle. And, I'd enjoy not wasting time filling up.

285 watt hours per mile is what they typically achieve here in Florida. That equates to 300 miles of real world range. That's roughly where most drivers "fill up". And it's got that range every morning! In real world use, it works out well.


I don't get it at all, he makes no secret that the big competitor to the Model S is the Mercedes S class, and that its simply a stepping stone down the line to a car that every person can afford.

He also purposely set his factories in the US to provide American manufacturing jobs. You would think people would at least appreciate a few thousand good paying middle class jobs.

He could have pulled an Apple or Ford, or FCA, or GM and went to South Korea, or Mexico for his battery factory. But no he chose on purpose to keep it in the US.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

The whole company Tesla Motors is so he can make money taking advantage of as many government kickbacks as possible.

If he wasn't getting PAID to build the batteries here, you can darn well bet they would be made somewhere else .. and shipped here on a ship that burns bunker oil.

 

[ksp7498]

I can think of at least one major innovation still left for the ICE: camless valvetrains. Some progress has been made here (fiat's multair, nissan's vvel, etc) but it's still a long way from complete. I think there's a lot of both performance and emissions to be gained by having fully independent valve timing for each valve. Multair in particular is getting pretty close, and Fiat claims even the existing Multair technology can reduce NOx by like 50% or more while also making more power.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

I did a quick search on what Multiair was ... I thought it was just a fancy way of saying "turbocharged engine" like ecoboost.

I'll have to do more reading on that

 

[Clevy]

Originally Posted By: Nate1979
Both diesel and gas engines have had emission equipment for years. Blaming the VW scandal on engine design peaking is stupid. They could have installed the proper emission equipment but that would have made them more expensive and not as competitive with the competition and gas. Cheating to stay competitive.


Exactly. They cheated for profit. It's that black and white.

They could have followed the rules but it would have cost more and would either have to take a hit in profit or charged more. If it cost more to the consumer the consumer wouldn't buy it and they would lose market share.

Looking back I wonder if the lost market share and profit would cost them less than the present costs to reflash the vehicles already on the road and the coming fines.
Once all things are considered fiscally they may have been further ahead if they followed the rules.
From what I understand France has mandated that all affected vehicles be pulled off the road until fixed. I'm sure other regions will follow suit.
Profit above all else. Deal with the consequences later.
A familiar mantra in today's world.

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: Clevy
Exactly. They cheated for profit. It's that black and white.

They could have followed the rules but it would have cost more and would either have to take a hit in profit or charged more. If it cost more to the consumer the consumer wouldn't buy it and they would lose market share.

Looking back I wonder if the lost market share and profit would cost them less than the present costs to reflash the vehicles already on the road and the coming fines.
Once all things are considered fiscally they may have been further ahead if they followed the rules.
From what I understand France has mandated that all affected vehicles be pulled off the road until fixed. I'm sure other regions will follow suit.
Profit above all else. Deal with the consequences later.
A familiar mantra in today's world.

VW equity is already lost 1/3 from $37 on Sept 18 to $24 today. This translates to about $30 billions. Add potential fines and recall cost the total can be up to $50 billions or more, a lot more than profit from selling 11 millions cars with TDI engines.

The problem with this cheating is not only the cost of part(s) to comply with emission control, the MPG and performance suffer too.

 

[whip]

Originally Posted By: Miller88
The whole company Tesla Motors is so he can make money taking advantage of as many government kickbacks as possible.

If he wasn't getting PAID to build the batteries here, you can darn well bet they would be made somewhere else .. and shipped here on a ship that burns bunker oil.


Everyone takes advantage of government kickbacks. Why single out Tesla? The fact remains, Tesla is creating US jobs. Why does it matter why Tesla is creating them?

 

[badtlc]

Originally Posted By: whip
Originally Posted By: Miller88
The whole company Tesla Motors is so he can make money taking advantage of as many government kickbacks as possible.

If he wasn't getting PAID to build the batteries here, you can darn well bet they would be made somewhere else .. and shipped here on a ship that burns bunker oil.


Everyone takes advantage of government kickbacks. Why single out Tesla? The fact remains, Tesla is creating US jobs. Why does it matter why Tesla is creating them?


Creating jobs in the name of destroying the environment. Wait until you see how much Tesla makes off of environmental rehabilitation when he is done.

 

[moving2]

Originally Posted By: badtlc
Creating jobs in the name of destroying the environment.

Would you mind explaining this?

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: moving2
Originally Posted By: badtlc

Creating jobs in the name of destroying the environment.

Would you mind explaining this?

+1

Don't really understand what's the meaning of this statement !

 

[PandaBear]

It probably has peaked for the price we are paying right now. It can be made even more efficient / cleaner if you spend more money on it:

1) HCCI, to be developed.

2) Hybrid everything, yes it is technically not "IC engine" but how you use it, but still, you can't deny the massive efficiency gain.

3) Downsizing, well, you don't need 300hp, you don't need 200hp, you probably can get away with 50hp if you have a hybrid system to go with it.

 

[emg]

Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
EV is new therefore infrastructure are not as abundant as gas/diesel stations.


New? Electric cars have been around for about a hundred and fifty years. They predate the ICE, and our ancestors dumped them as soon as the ICE came along, because they sucked. They still have most of the same problems they had a century ago, and will do until they're nuclear powered. Even if the battery issues could be fixed, we'd still need massive rewiring to be able to charge them all at high speed.

The only way I see electric cars taking over any time soon is when you can 3D print a car in your garage that only needs to drive around town. Electric will be much easier to build than ICE.