An EV is supposed to be much, much simpler than even a decades old ICE car. Aside from the tech inside the batteries, it should be pretty easy to tinker with.
For hammer-grade fixing, EVs are way simpler than an ICE, which consists of tens of thousands of precision machines parts to control thousands of expositions every second. An EV is a battery pack, some power electronics, and two wires going to a motor. And a couple other parts if you wanna get fancy, but seriously, EVs are dramatically simpler than an ICE to the point that it’s not even funny. Don’t let BigAuto and BigEV confuse you. If you’re able to keep a thirty year old ICE car running, you can build your own EV. And if you build your own, you can be sure it’s not phoning home.
If you’re looking at the cheapest end of the spectrum, try looking at golf carts or importing something from China. $4,000 gets you quite the cart, well within the price range of a used, old ICE vehicle. And likely competitive too - my sister’s last car was an old (ICE) beater and couldn’t go fast enough for the freeway.
Electric vehicles are easy, electric motors are easy and old technology, the only differentiating factor is the battery.
Once the supply side of batteries is resolved then any car manufacturer can easily make electric vehicles. Most already have. They're incredibly simpler than ICE vehicles.
Modern ICE have been refined for over 100 years and have improved enormously. But there is just a lot more involved in making them move than electric engines.
That's not to say EVs aren't complex or hard to build. There are a lot of parts inside the battery pack. But they aren't moving parts and they don't need the same kind of regular maintenance. Electric cars don't have oil to change and they almost never need brakes replaced because of regen. They don't have O2 sensors that fail, they don't have spark plugs to change, they don't have timing belts to replace, etc. If you look at a list of the top 10 most frequent car repairs, maybe 9 of them can't happen on an electric car. It is just a simpler system of moving parts. The complexity is in a different place.
The problem with PHEV is you have the different types of complexity of both systems combined just in an effort to boost range.
Most of the complexity of EVs is just generic modern car complexity, though. EVs don't have to be any more complicated than ICE vehicles, and EV conversions especially are usually really simple (though to be fair a lot of the vehicles being converted are old classic cars that didn't have any computers in them to begin with).
The EV drivetrain might have more or less computers than an ICE drivetrain, but really managing batteries and a motor isn't inherently all that complicated. On the ICE side of things you have a lot more moving parts and the necessity of keeping everything properly tuned so it can pass emissions checks.
Braking and traction control I could see being fairly complicated, but it's a similar problem whether it's an ICE engine or an electric motor.
Self-driving is hugely complicated, but that's not complexity that's inherent to EVs specifically, it's just a feature that's usually only implemented on EVs for some reason.
All the other stuff: infotainment, tire pressure sensors, back up cameras, and so on are just modern car complexity.
A EV is a much simpler device than a ICE - it's a battery and an electric motor, it's much simpler than mechanical power. Gone are oil pumps, transmissions, etc.
On top of all this, you can now route power through electrical wires, rather than needing an accessory belt to distribute mechanical power to the A/C, oil pump, power steering etc.
The electric car's tech advances are mostly in the battery technology (and vapourware "Level 5 automation in 2019"). Tesla will have a unique differentiator in battery tech and production, but it's not crazy to retool an existing ICE manufacturer to EVs.
I think it's worth remembering that many of the first cars were electric. I'd argue an EV is easier to build than ICE. Neither kind built with primitive tools is going to perform like the modern-day ones.
EVs have less moving parts, than any ICE vehicle. And brushless motor control isn't a complex issue at all(if your EV has brushless motors, that is). If your EV had traditional brushed motor(s) - then it's even easier.
The opposition to EV is beyond stupid at this point.
Agreed. EV is relatively simple tech and current restriction is battery's capacity for price/weight/volume. I don't think EV components can get much improvements from racing like ICE engines.
The basic premise of an electric "engine" is simpler than that of an ICE, but when you actually make the car, it's nowhere near as simple on paper. Just look at the issue people have had with getting Tesla's repaired... the "mechanics" don't even know that you have to keep the battery charged.
Also, don't ignore the fact that we have 100+ years of experience with ICE.
It will be interesting whether any of the electrical components (battery/charger/controller especially) will be able to be adaptable from budget-priced used EVs to power a kit like this.
Plenty of people still want a unique vehicle, and electrical drivetrains are a lot simpler than everything required for an ICE.
I'm not arguing that the internals of an ICE motor aren't more complex. From the vehicle builder's perspective, though:
- The oil lubrication system, starter/alternator, various belts, and gearbox (if front wheel drive) are typically part of the engine package so don't really impact complexity.
- Liquid cooling is required for EVs if they're going to perform equivalently to a modern ICE car.
- EVs contain high voltage / high current wiring that needs to be considered carefully in terms of crash safety.
I'm not against EVs here, I think they're great. But if you want more than the old "drop a forklift motor and some batteries into a donor car" DIY build, an EV isn't actually that much simpler to assemble.
- you need an entirely new software stack (the S-word makes car manufacturers break into sweat)
- you need an entirely new supply chain, or even worse for OEM-integration-addicted carmakers, build your own supply chain
- you need to secure a competitive priced volume battery source
- you can't just slap motors and batteries into an ICE frame. You NEED that last 50-100 miles that total system integration and design gets you in EV range
EV's are mechanically much simpler that ICE and need less repair. The problem is all the computers which is really an all modern cars problem people blame on EV's.
The hard part is precisely that they want to reuse that platform, and just replace the engine with a battery and motors. Designing an electric vehicle from scratch today is infinitely easier than an ICE, both in complexity, skills required, number of parts and manufacturing.
reply