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DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

newdelorean.com

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Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#111

Post by throwaway0a5e »

gwbas1c wrote: post #103
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anything that isn't a car you're gonna want gears for the same reason electric drills have gears. Think of it like low range. "muh instant 0rpm torque" is absolutely nothing compared to the inertia of a hired driver who doesn't care (or is just a novice) dumping the clutch. Building a transmission to handle electric motor loads isn't a particularly remarkable engineering challenge. (Though you can make any engine…

I've done both. Clutch dumps require that you rev the engine up to high RPMs first. Instant torque is, well, instant. I suggest you try it before you make fun of it.

Oh I know that a clutch dump is a far less elegant way to get moving than having torque available at 0rpm but the former is far, far harder on things.

The point I'm trying to make is that the people acting like electric motors are particularly hard on drive-line components are just wrong.

Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#112

Post by samstave »

Armisael16 wrote: post #17
elihu wrote: post #7

> National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has completed a regulation permitting low volume motor vehicle manufacturers to begin selling replica cars that resemble vehicles produced at least 25 years ago. Congress enacted a DeLorean Motor Company-backed bill backed by the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) DeLorean Motor Company, and others into law in 2015, which streamlined requirements for…

> They could even do a stickshift EV if they wanted to, though most car companies seem to not think it's worth the complexity/maintenance, and I get the impression that electric motors are hard on transmissions. Electric motors have a wider power band, so there’s less need for gear shifting. They could get more efficiency with multiple gears, but it’s be a smaller benefit than in an ICE vehicle. One of the big early…

It would be cool to have a stick-shift in the car that was fake, and would just make the car play different sounds as you "shifted" and allow you to control your playlist and volume levels with it...

Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#113

Post by detaro »

Armisael16 wrote: post #17
elihu wrote: post #7

> National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has completed a regulation permitting low volume motor vehicle manufacturers to begin selling replica cars that resemble vehicles produced at least 25 years ago. Congress enacted a DeLorean Motor Company-backed bill backed by the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) DeLorean Motor Company, and others into law in 2015, which streamlined requirements for…

> They could even do a stickshift EV if they wanted to, though most car companies seem to not think it's worth the complexity/maintenance, and I get the impression that electric motors are hard on transmissions. Electric motors have a wider power band, so there’s less need for gear shifting. They could get more efficiency with multiple gears, but it’s be a smaller benefit than in an ICE vehicle. One of the big early…

I wouldn't be surprised if at some point some manufacturer made a car with optional "stick shift" - with a stick that's just some switches and the effect on driving behavior/torque/... entirely done in software. (Right now electric is hot and new, so nobody is doing much to make an electric car pretend to be something it's not, but that could switch around when electric is the standard)

Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#114

Post by notahacker »

grenoire wrote: post #78

> The DeLorean was memorably featured in the Back to the Future movie trilogy (1985, 1989, and 1990) as the model of car made into a time machine by eccentric scientist Doc Brown, although the company had closed down before the first movie was made. Woah! Can you imagine what the cars today would look like if they hadn't and became a huge hit following the movie's status!? Truly iconic.

> Can you imagine what the cars today would look like if they hadn't and became a huge hit following the movie's status!?

They wouldn't need roads...

(Disappointed this one doesn't appear to have flight or time travel capabilities planned tbh. Battery tech obviously needs more work)

Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#115

Post by bdamm »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #97
Armisael16 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They could even do a stickshift EV if they wanted to, though most car companies seem to not think it's worth the complexity/maintenance, and I get the impression that electric motors are hard on transmissions. Electric motors have a wider power band, so there’s less need for gear shifting. They could get more efficiency with multiple gears, but it’s be a smaller benefit than in an ICE vehicle. One of the big early…

For anything that isn't a car you're gonna want gears for the same reason electric drills have gears. Think of it like low range. "muh instant 0rpm torque" is absolutely nothing compared to the inertia of a hired driver who doesn't care (or is just a novice) dumping the clutch. Building a transmission to handle electric motor loads isn't a particularly remarkable engineering challenge. (Though you can make any engine…

Avoiding overheat conditions is something the vehicle engineering needs to deal with. Teslas solve this problem with liquid cooling and the motor controllers use temperature sensors in the motor core to determine if the currents are too great for the cooling. So really, no issue. I expect the Tesla Semi will handle heavy loads at low speeds just fine. As for clutch dumping, I'll take electronic stability and traction control over the smell of burning clutch any day. Plus, the traction delivery is better in an EV; much less rotating mass means more rapid response and a better grip on the road.

Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#116

Post by trhway »

Daho0n wrote: post #107
trhway wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Freedom To Do Stupid Things something like this. Though those stupid things aren't niche cars or any other innovations. It is plain old stupidity - US has 10K/year DUI related deaths, Denmark - 75/year, 2x less per capita. Also bigger cars popular in US like trucks - while fully public road certified, they are conceptually and engineering wise are relatively behind the curve - resulting in more deadly accidents.

That is a bit surprising to me as Denmark in Scandinavia has a reputation for drinking a lot. I looked up the numbers on Wikipedia and "Pure alcohol consumption among persons (age 15+) in litres per capita per year" is 11.4 in Denmark and 9.2 in the US (same as Sweden). Of course DUI is something else entirely.. TIL.

In US you're officially drunk for driving purposes only upon reaching 0.08% BAC (i.e. "couple beers" is ok) while in many other countries you are drunk for driving purposes upon any alcohol drinking.

Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#117

Post by hcrisp »

No one is going to point out that for today, January 21, the Wikipedia main page [0] says the following?

"1981 – The DeLorean Motor Company completed the first production car of the DMC DeLorean (example pictured)."

40 years to the day, what a coincidence.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#119

Post by elihu »

jandrese wrote: post #37
elihu wrote: post #7

> National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has completed a regulation permitting low volume motor vehicle manufacturers to begin selling replica cars that resemble vehicles produced at least 25 years ago. Congress enacted a DeLorean Motor Company-backed bill backed by the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) DeLorean Motor Company, and others into law in 2015, which streamlined requirements for…

Electric motors don't need a transmission. Adding a stick shift is just adding complexity for no benefit. It's more stuff to maintain and more parts to break and is going to make the car slower due to parasitic losses and inefficiencies. If you're shooting for 200kph+ speeds there might be a time where a simple high/low transmission may be helpful, but that's supercar territory. Interestingly, Formula E cars have a 5…

> Electric motors don't need a transmission. Adding a stick shift is just adding complexity for no benefit.

That isn't true. Having low gears gives you more torque with less current at slow speeds. Most EVs take the philosophy of "it's easier to just use a more powerful motor than deal with a transmission". But that doesn't mean that a transmission wouldn't be helpful (especially if you want good performance out of a more modest motor, or with fewer batteries that can't produce as much current).

Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#120

Post by Animats »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #97
Armisael16 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They could even do a stickshift EV if they wanted to, though most car companies seem to not think it's worth the complexity/maintenance, and I get the impression that electric motors are hard on transmissions. Electric motors have a wider power band, so there’s less need for gear shifting. They could get more efficiency with multiple gears, but it’s be a smaller benefit than in an ICE vehicle. One of the big early…

For anything that isn't a car you're gonna want gears for the same reason electric drills have gears. Think of it like low range. "muh instant 0rpm torque" is absolutely nothing compared to the inertia of a hired driver who doesn't care (or is just a novice) dumping the clutch. Building a transmission to handle electric motor loads isn't a particularly remarkable engineering challenge. (Though you can make any engine…

For anything that isn't a car you're gonna want gears for the same reason electric drills have gears. Think of it like low range.

Not with modern motor controls. For the last 20 years or so, most new locomotives have used 3-phase AC servo drive motors. It's striking to see one exerting enormous torque to get a train started, yet the Diesel engine generating the power is barely above idle. Also, no wheel spin. All the wheels can be synchronized electrically. This almost doubles the useful traction.

Early Teslas had a two-speed transmission. It was a flop. The shock loads on gear shifting were too large and the transmissions wore out rapidly. Tesla had to replace all of them. The big advance was liquid-cooled motors. Finally a way to get rid of the excess heat fast enough that you could use full power at zero speed if desired.

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