Hyundai Motor closes engine development division. All development will focus on EV

This Chevy Impala ICE commercial got 5.5 million views in 2 weeks on just this link alone.

The notion that people don't want ICE vehicles and the emotional connection to real cars, is nonsense.

There will NEVER be an EV that people connect to like ICE vehicles.


Yeah you really think there are 5.5 million people wants to buy a Chevy Impala. (it just means the ad producers did a great job)

Corolla and Camry, Accord and Civic, or whatever Ferrari and Lambo build, maybe. Impala with 5.5M view in 2 weeks means people want ICE vehicles. LOL.

There are people clicking on YouTube with 10M view on some stupid human stunts, but that doesn't mean they want to do those stupid human stunts themselves.
 
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The macro-concern here is that most or all new R&D will go toward EV technology and ICE technology will studder and devolve and be a "lost science" - and this is bad for human kind.

We probably have 50 more years of improvements to go on ICE vehicles to make them ultra powerful and ultra efficient. Look at the efficiency and power we have achieved in the last 30 years alone, from anemic gas hogs of the 1970s to incredibly efficient high performance engines of today.

It will be a tragic day when ICE vehicles stop being produced and humans are forced onto EVs because you know every aspect of an EV can and will be controlled by Big Brother.
The issue there is that we will always be goverened by some variant of carnot. Heat engines are what they are.

Power generation that has space uses thermally efficient gas turbines. I suspect focus on recuperation and bottoming cycles will become greater.

Ive said before, I think the future is smaller and smaller APUs that go with PHEVs. The smaller APUs can have the current tech applied to them, and end up doing more and getting more range from the fuel tank. The smaller APUs can be built by niche manufacturers perhaps.

So Im not so sure that we have 50 years more improvement. We have 50 years more need... but there are practical limits to practically producible and robust designs for automobiles.
 
Charles, the oil companies are enjoying insane profits; they don't need my tax dollars!
CA wannabe 91* premium is $5 per gallon, plus 10 cents if you use a credit card.
Subsidies and taxation at the pump both?
CA wannabe 91 isnt $5/gal beause an oil tycoon is making more profits off of you than they are off of the $3.25 93 I just bought in NJ.
 
What mpg is your 1920 engine getting? other than collector value how is the cost of ownership in fuel per mile? Seriously, you can bash EV all you want but please don't call 1920s tech "still reliable". I can get a "still reliable" horse in 2021 and it will cost way more than driving a Dodge Caravan with a slipping transmission from the 1990s. I can also get a new Chevy Volt every 10 years and still have lower cost to drive in the battery replacement cost than your 1920s wasteful low power gasoline car.
That's irrelevant.

Let's use another example then. My fleet of 40yo Mercedes Diesels. All extremely safe, capable, and comfortable. They have AC, stereos, wipers, lights, most all of which is on par with or could be made on par with modern vehicles. They will return 30 MPG without issue. They will do 65 MPH, maybe even 100MPH from the turbo ones, without an issue.

So.... What's the issue now?

How can you compare? Take 1922 technology out of the picture, and older ICE vehicles can still be run reliably across the country tomorrow.

I can also tell you exactly what has happened to the batteries in the GM EV-1 cars. I can tell you precisely the percentage of those batteries that would be in existance at this point from those cars, and why. And the older "high tech" batteries in, say, my iphone 3, 4, 4S, etc.... Well I have a bunch of expanded cells to show you what happens as these batteries age.

To try to make the case of sustained utility between an ICE and an EV is plain foolish. To even try to draw an analogy is a fool's errand. ICEs can provide utility more or less forever with rudimentary maintenance and care. Batteries have a calendar and cycle life challenge that you can't escape from... and the batteries with slower degradation and higher cyclic capability (e.g., LTO) have a much lower energy density and much higher cost, resulting in insufficient development.

There is no viable comparison.
 
Oil companies make real money off crude and marginal money from gasoline … as for insane profits ? They are all paying down large debt from the crash and depression … Oil & gas is a very capital intensive business - and it’s life cycle projects can not be turned on/off like a light switch
If you want to talk insane profits - folks here (including those in this thread) know there are many more sectors with higher profit margins … By far …
 
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https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison

"The United States spends more on national defense than China, India, Russia, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, Italy, and Australia — combined."

So it is not "dominating the entire world". Please tell us what is it called instead. I'm fortunate to enjoy this and call it what it is.
Ummm, how much of that is salaries? How much of that is a variant of "socialized healthcare" that soliders and sailors get when they enlist? Pension?

How many of the others on that list gain major advantage from the US investment and development? How many of the other countries on there have the square mileage and economic size of a single US state? Germany is what, the size of Wisconsin by area and California by economy?!? Apples to oranges much?

Comparing theft of IP and minimal wages, or mooching off of the US's presence is not a good comparison.

And since we have reduced presence in areas where production of oil and access to cheap oil is paramount, Im not seeing as much to claim there either. Keeping hostiles away from our shores? Protecting and facilitating the shipping lanes so that we can get our cheap junk from the third world? Which of those things do you think we should do away with?

Arguments along these lines dont help. The practical realities and understanding and embracing the practical realities is the critical thing to do. Not virtue signal over how "clean" an EV is... how enviro-savvy one is, etc...
 
That's irrelevant.

Let's use another example then. My fleet of 40yo Mercedes Diesels. All extremely safe, capable, and comfortable. They have AC, stereos, wipers, lights, most all of which is on par with or could be made on par with modern vehicles. They will return 30 MPG without issue. They will do 65 MPH, maybe even 100MPH from the turbo ones, without an issue.

So.... What's the issue now?

How can you compare? Take 1922 technology out of the picture, and older ICE vehicles can still be run reliably across the country tomorrow.

I can also tell you exactly what has happened to the batteries in the GM EV-1 cars. I can tell you precisely the percentage of those batteries that would be in existance at this point from those cars, and why. And the older "high tech" batteries in, say, my iphone 3, 4, 4S, etc.... Well I have a bunch of expanded cells to show you what happens as these batteries age.

To try to make the case of sustained utility between an ICE and an EV is plain foolish. To even try to draw an analogy is a fool's errand. ICEs can provide utility more or less forever with rudimentary maintenance and care. Batteries have a calendar and cycle life challenge that you can't escape from... and the batteries with slower degradation and higher cyclic capability (e.g., LTO) have a much lower energy density and much higher cost, resulting in insufficient development.

There is no viable comparison.
That's it.

We need a new battery paradigm like yesterday. Barring that, electrics are rolling liabilities, where you pay up front for miles travelled,
instead of as you go with carbon-based fuels. All the while kidding yourself about the 'breakthrough' bolted to the bottom of the chassis.
It's no breakthrough, the vendor just shifted the true cost(s) on the purchaser.
Shell game.
 
That's irrelevant.

Let's use another example then. My fleet of 40yo Mercedes Diesels. All extremely safe, capable, and comfortable. They have AC, stereos, wipers, lights, most all of which is on par with or could be made on par with modern vehicles. They will return 30 MPG without issue. They will do 65 MPH, maybe even 100MPH from the turbo ones, without an issue.

So.... What's the issue now?

How can you compare? Take 1922 technology out of the picture, and older ICE vehicles can still be run reliably across the country tomorrow.

I can also tell you exactly what has happened to the batteries in the GM EV-1 cars. I can tell you precisely the percentage of those batteries that would be in existance at this point from those cars, and why. And the older "high tech" batteries in, say, my iphone 3, 4, 4S, etc.... Well I have a bunch of expanded cells to show you what happens as these batteries age.

To try to make the case of sustained utility between an ICE and an EV is plain foolish. To even try to draw an analogy is a fool's errand. ICEs can provide utility more or less forever with rudimentary maintenance and care. Batteries have a calendar and cycle life challenge that you can't escape from... and the batteries with slower degradation and higher cyclic capability (e.g., LTO) have a much lower energy density and much higher cost, resulting in insufficient development.

There is no viable comparison.
In the long run, in a large scale, the only "relevant" thing is the cost and bang for the buck.

Yes, you still have a 40 year old MBZ diesel, yes it is still holding value well, but most people are driving what is available in the market and what is reasonable quality, without too much effort to own (no replacing tranny every 70k, no replacing EV battery every 70k, etc).

At the moment we can agree that EV battery is expensive, will last probably about 10 years if design right, I can also say most people are not expecting a car to last more than 25 years today, and probably only about 20 years. EV batteries are not expected to last less than 10 years unless they are junk like Nissan Leaf (air cooled).

So the only thing that is left is 1) how much is the replacement if they want to keep an EV for 20 years, and 2) how long would it take for EV to return on its investment better than gas, 3) Will there be any reliable forecast on future fuel and electricity cost, and 4) Will there be improvement in the future that EV will be cheaper than gas for the same cost to own, if so what are the trade off (charge time, where to charge, range if you can't charge, etc).

I think the above 4 points we can all agree upon, I think we are just believing different numbers to our own equations. Most US residents believe gas will continue to be cheap but IMO it is not a guarantee especially since shale boom is over and Russia is not happy to follow our own energy agenda to NATO nations, and China has every reason to believe they cannot rely on importing oil from Middle East and Russia as they learn the hard way on our trade wars recently. I also believe China and European nations in NATO will do everything to not rely on Russia on oil for transportation, so they will do everything to develop / help develop EV, regardless of what people in Texas or North Dakota think.
 
Ummm, how much of that is salaries? How much of that is a variant of "socialized healthcare" that soliders and sailors get when they enlist? Pension?

How many of the others on that list gain major advantage from the US investment and development? How many of the other countries on there have the square mileage and economic size of a single US state? Germany is what, the size of Wisconsin by area and California by economy?!? Apples to oranges much?

Comparing theft of IP and minimal wages, or mooching off of the US's presence is not a good comparison.

And since we have reduced presence in areas where production of oil and access to cheap oil is paramount, Im not seeing as much to claim there either. Keeping hostiles away from our shores? Protecting and facilitating the shipping lanes so that we can get our cheap junk from the third world? Which of those things do you think we should do away with?

Arguments along these lines dont help. The practical realities and understanding and embracing the practical realities is the critical thing to do. Not virtue signal over how "clean" an EV is... how enviro-savvy one is, etc...

I was originally trying to prove that petroleum is a resource we need to spend a ton to secure, even cheap oil is not cheap when you are going through an ocean. Look at Iran, they cannot legally sell oil now because we have blockaded them off the coast. Yes it does cost us to enforce it and it helps us get the rest of the oil producing nations under our "protection".

So yes, just like you said, this is a hidden cost to keep oil cheap and secure. Thank you for proving my point finally.
 
In the long run, in a large scale, the only "relevant" thing is the cost and bang for the buck.

Yes, you still have a 40 year old MBZ diesel, yes it is still holding value well, but most people are driving what is available in the market and what is reasonable quality, without too much effort to own (no replacing tranny every 70k, no replacing EV battery every 70k, etc).

At the moment we can agree that EV battery is expensive, will last probably about 10 years if design right, I can also say most people are not expecting a car to last more than 25 years today, and probably only about 20 years. EV batteries are not expected to last less than 10 years unless they are junk like Nissan Leaf (air cooled).

So the only thing that is left is 1) how much is the replacement if they want to keep an EV for 20 years, and 2) how long would it take for EV to return on its investment better than gas, 3) Will there be any reliable forecast on future fuel and electricity cost, and 4) Will there be improvement in the future that EV will be cheaper than gas for the same cost to own, if so what are the trade off (charge time, where to charge, range if you can't charge, etc).

I think the above 4 points we can all agree upon, I think we are just believing different numbers to our own equations. Most US residents believe gas will continue to be cheap but IMO it is not a guarantee especially since shale boom is over and Russia is not happy to follow our own energy agenda to NATO nations, and China has every reason to believe they cannot rely on importing oil from Middle East and Russia as they learn the hard way on our trade wars recently. I also believe China and European nations in NATO will do everything to not rely on Russia on oil for transportation, so they will do everything to develop / help develop EV, regardless of what people in Texas or North Dakota think.
It's dubious to me that EVs will be cheaper than gas to run in the long run.

The reasons for that are fairly obvious:
1) Infrastructure is crumbling. We arent going P, but pennies on the dollar went to infrastructure in the last "infrastructure" spending bill. We arent paying for the infrastructure we need, and thus will be paying for the debt service and the incremental requirements again and again and again. The need for domestic infrastructure is going to increase, because the road and bridge bill will remain the same or increase, while the electric grid bill will increase substantially, and the green push for renewables is not an intrinsically low cost source.
2) Related, not all states take gas taxes and apply them to recurring road needs. They often go into the general fund, so they will all be looking for new revenue streams.
3) We havent yet started to see the inclusion of taxes on electric use for charging.
4) The battery is a guaranteed replacement. The prices of EVs arent really coming down. We have folks on here griping about a 100k timing belt service. We see cars that have minimal damage totalled because the repaint bill is huge. I anticipate that the battery replacement cost will effectively total a car.
5) The amount of energy required to push any normally designed vehicle through the air at 60, 70, 80 MPH is irrelevant to the type of propulsion system. Tesla and some others have pushed very aerodynamic shapes, but we are starting to see less efficient designs. Their numbers wont be as good... And ultimately the energy and its cost has to be factored in.
6) Unless long term standards (think the AA, C, 9V, D type alkaline batteries) for interfaces, cells, controls, etc. are developed, the battery packs will naturally make the EVs obsolete.
 
I was originally trying to prove that petroleum is a resource we need to spend a ton to secure, even cheap oil is not cheap when you are going through an ocean. Look at Iran, they cannot legally sell oil now because we have blockaded them off the coast. Yes it does cost us to enforce it and it helps us get the rest of the oil producing nations under our "protection".

So yes, just like you said, this is a hidden cost to keep oil cheap and secure. Thank you for proving my point finally.
Hidden cost, maybe... My point was that how much of that budget goes to salaries and pensions and healthcare for military, versus acquisition and operations? I doubt that chinese conscripts have the same cost burden against China's investment that the long-term US labor costs do to ours....
 
It's dubious to me that EVs will be cheaper than gas to run in the long run.

The reasons for that are fairly obvious:
1) Infrastructure is crumbling. We arent going P, but pennies on the dollar went to infrastructure in the last "infrastructure" spending bill. We arent paying for the infrastructure we need, and thus will be paying for the debt service and the incremental requirements again and again and again. The need for domestic infrastructure is going to increase, because the road and bridge bill will remain the same or increase, while the electric grid bill will increase substantially, and the green push for renewables is not an intrinsically low cost source.
2) Related, not all states take gas taxes and apply them to recurring road needs. They often go into the general fund, so they will all be looking for new revenue streams.
3) We havent yet started to see the inclusion of taxes on electric use for charging.
4) The battery is a guaranteed replacement. The prices of EVs arent really coming down. We have folks on here griping about a 100k timing belt service. We see cars that have minimal damage totalled because the repaint bill is huge. I anticipate that the battery replacement cost will effectively total a car.
5) The amount of energy required to push any normally designed vehicle through the air at 60, 70, 80 MPH is irrelevant to the type of propulsion system. Tesla and some others have pushed very aerodynamic shapes, but we are starting to see less efficient designs. Their numbers wont be as good... And ultimately the energy and its cost has to be factored in.
6) Unless long term standards (think the AA, C, 9V, D type alkaline batteries) for interfaces, cells, controls, etc. are developed, the battery packs will naturally make the EVs obsolete.
Good points, here is my response:

1) Agree about not going P here, so I'll just use the capital cost and on going replacement / repair cost of the infrastructure as an apple to apple comparison. Refinery / power plant / oil pipeline / electrical grid / charging lot / gas station / battery swap if popular / peak grid improvement / all lump together. So whether we have reduced refinery need because of fuel economy improvement / population decline (as seen in Japan) / oil price per barrel etc, we can probably expect them to be similar to what we have today, yet we are not building new refinery just enhancing the current one as we have seen so far, as a reference. Now on the electrical grid, it depends on whether we are going to go with flat price because we are all used to the tier / flat cost per kwh regardless of time, or whether smart meter now enable everyone to charge the on demand price like toll road charging different price by the hour depends on traffic. If EV can be cheaper to buy then it has to be justified in the long run with cheap charging, assuming tax are applied equally between gas and EV (although it is impossible, eventually it will either tip toward EV or being identical between EV and gas vehicles). EV has an equivalent fuel economy in the worst case today of about 40mpg like its gas counterpart (say Chevy Volt), let's also use hybrid instead of gas only vehicle to give it a better advantage. In the end if we can charge during off peak hours (exclude morning commute, evening commute is peak due to duck curve), we will likely have better energy cost to EV (if all goes well). The bigger problem with the grid is IMO going with heat pump instead of natural gas heating. If you can tackle that then EV charging is in theory achievable with a big battery (you wait 3 days if the price is high, or suck it up and pay a premium, just like filling your gas tank).

2) 3) This is politics, eventually they will apply to both EV and gas vehicle when all the insiders corruptions are done making money, which is why I was using only energy cost per kwh / mpge to compare between them in 1)

4) EV has a bigger portion of its cost in the battery pack, the powertrain is cheaper (motor and power electronics is cheaper than engine, fuel pump, oil pump, emission control, etc, and likely cheaper transmission cost as well). Body is the same cost. So, assuming an older but not worn out EV gets into a crash, it will like have a similar chance of totaling and its battery swap into another EV with worn out battery, just like a gas car with a good enough engine will be swap into another gas car with a bad engine when it get into an accident. I can bet the swap cost of battery pack is going to be cheaper than engine for sure. If you want to reduce waste of cars due to bad battery, the way to do it is to mandate warranty, gas powertrain or EV battery, but then people will start complaining about "big government" and "increase cost". We will need some good ole fashion competition like what Japanese did in the old days to get us to a better standard (maybe Korean will finally be able to make good on a 100k powertrain warranty, and make it 150k EV battery warranty).

5) EV does not require as much cooling, it also does not need the high center of gravity I4 and V6 engines need. These high center of gravity makes the front box of the car less aerodynamic, and a lot more air goes into the engine compartment to cool the radiator and the engine bay, this is a HUGE waste of energy in aerodynamics. The other thing about EV is the amount of flatness the bottom of the battery pack can be, this will be a good amount of improvement over the same design of gas car with a pipe going to the middle of the vehicle to the end, with enough clearance to not heat up the passenger compartment. Let's say you use the same design to save money, EV will be at least a few percent better (single digit percentage) than gas car due to smaller radiator opening and flatter bottom (insert to cover the exhaust from front to back, make it flatter).

6) Yes, but so will new vehicles make older engine obsolete. In theory hybrid battery will obsolete and you cannot find replacement when new design arrives, but we are seeing new replacement. Will we have the same problem with EV batteries? Depends on who you buy it from. I don't trust Nissan, I don't trust Tesla (they can't even make enough parts to repair their body damage in collision), but I will trust Toyota, GM, Ford, Honda, to make replacement parts that are compatible with old ones (i.e. an inverter and DC/DC converter firmware flash). It may not be perfect and it may not be as good as a completely redesigned powertrain, but IMO it will be possible. Again, this will only happen if you buy from a reputable company or if there's a law mandating it somewhere on earth (Europe hopefully, they mandate 2 year warranty on many items US only have 90 days warranty on).
 
Here is a link to a site that is all about the technological developments with regard to "green" transportation. Search on the right for the various categories. Always remember to read between the lines. They tend to post any article regardless of the feasibility. Even so, it's a pretty good place to go for "at a glance" information on what's happening.

https://www.greencarcongress.com/
 
We need a new battery paradigm like yesterday.
It has been my opinion that won't happen anytime soon, if ever. The first clue is that money always follows innovation, but the reverse is rarely true. We must know how to do something before we develop it into reality. What's happening today is really weird. We are pouring huge sums of money,, now well into the 10's of billions, (maybe into the hundreds of billions) into battery development, with literally nothing to show for it.

The reason is simple, lithium contains the highest number of ions, and we are already using lithium. Electrochemical energy storage has very finite limits. This is particularly true when we must both recharge and carry high currents.

I would like to offer this analogy: Gasoline has 116,000 BTU per gallon or more correctly about 20,000 BTU per pound. Despite attempts to make more energy dense fuel for the war efforts, nobody has been able to produce a viable liquid fuel that does better than "about" 20,000 BTU per pound. It is what it is, and nothing we do can change that. Gasoline, diesel, natural gas, etc all hover in this range of BTU per pound.

The below link is really cool. Put '1' gallon in the AMOUNT box and select your fuel to see it's energy content per pound. Hydrogen is the only fuel with higher BTU per pound. But good luck with that...

https://h2tools.org/hyarc/calculator-tools/lower-and-higher-heating-values-fuels
 
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I can say the 90s Corolla and Integra I had are designed to last about 25 years. People calling Crown Vic "reliable" but eating transmissions every 70k like candy...... Yeah I really think they should change their definition of "reliable" when replacing tranny every 70k, but not battery every 15 years.
Where is this coming from? Crown Vic's don't require trans replacement every 70K, that's just not factually correct. We've owned two panther cars, the trans (an AOD) on my townie went 200,000 miles, the one on my dad's 03 currently has about 100,000 miles on it, problem-free. I've seen Limo's with half a million miles on their original trans still, heck, one had 1.2 million km, still original engine/trans.

Remember, the 4R75W (what replaced the AOD) was used in the F-150, E-series vans and other ford vehicles. It is not a trans that is prone to crapping the bed at 70,000 miles in typical service.
 
Most people literally have 30 years* until they “have” to buy an EV. Settled down, you guys will be fine 😂

*A few states are mandating NEW cars be EV by 2035, but most will be 2040 or later for NEW cars. My recommendation, save up for a quality new ICE car in 2039, drive it for 12 years (the average age of a car in the US), and now you’re at 2051. 30 years away.
And I will be dead by then.
 
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