It was to originally started to discuss the bogus battery "breakthroughs".
Gasoline engines are about as efficient today as the best ones were in the late 1930's, please don't go picking terrible examples such as Chevy flat head engines. It may be interesting to note that aircraft engines achieved 34% thermal efficiency in regular use, and peaked at 40% thermal efficiency in the late '30's, the very same as the best Toyota engines today.
Like today, this was done via intelligent engineering.
I gotcha and now read your OP in a different light. Good topic!
When I mentioned gasoline I was being literal. The fuel, gasoline, hasn’t changed at all, by and large, with the exception of TEL in passenger cars, of course. That’s a whole other discussion, though. What I meant to say, is that gasoline hasn’t changed much, but the ICE package (systems, sub-systems, control circuitry, EMISSIONS systems and sub-systems) have changed so much over such a long period of time so as to be very remarkable were today‘s and technology from 50 years ago to be put side-by-side and compared directly. Sure, the efficiency of ICE is based on its design/cycle, but it’s how we control those losses that would otherwise go to ambient, along with changes in things like aero, lubricants, weight savings in materials, etc. that have resulted in a pretty impressive MPG (I used this interchangeably with efficiency, sorry) despite (and because of) the complexity of the overall package.
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One thing that seems to get people up in arms, but I’m fully a proponent of, is subsidies and tax incentives, for now. Battery tech needs to improve sooner than later. I believe that as much as I believe we need to more rapidly re-adopt nuclear power as a green form of energy. Advances in both allow for more to be done with less, truly passive safety features, economies of scale and packages that can be easily manufactured.
I’m still learning about all of this and know there’s no right answer regarding fostering vs forcing new tech (speaking of new in decades, not months or years, btw). I do know that the empty threat of banning something makes some feel good and other angry, but what may or may not happen is the industry improving at a more rapid pace. I bet many companies COULD change their transition-to-PHEV timelines a bit, but they may also hedge their bets that, come time for the “ban” any consequences will be found to be minor, if anything, and worth the initial risk they MAY have taken to not dump all ICE development...