DeLorean considering all-electric reboot • Hacker News Board

Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#121

Post by ben-schaaf » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 11:33 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #96

jandrese wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Interestingly, Formula E cars have a 5 speed gearbox, but mostly because the rules says they have to. This is no longer required. A few teams stuck with the five speed, but most have dropped to three or four speeds. The Formula E cars still need gearboxes because there isn't a single gear ratio that can provide optimal acceleration between 0 and 175mph with an 18,000 RPM redline. The massive powerband of the motors…

> This is no longer required. A few teams stuck with the five speed, but most have dropped to three or four speeds.

Even in the 2nd season there were teams with 2 gears and since the gen 2 car most are on one now:

https://www.electronicspecifier.com/news/analysis/latest-gen...

Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#122

Post by Animats » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 11:34 PM UTC

samstave wrote: post #112

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…

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...

Somebody put that in an early electric performance car. You actually had to shift, and got audio effects, but it was just software emulating gears. It was laughed at in the automotive press.

Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#123

Post by mywittyname » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 11:34 PM UTC

core-questions wrote: post #12

mikestew wrote: post #6

Why would I want an electric version of a fat, slow, heavy car? Oh, right, because Back to the Future . And gull-wing doors, let's be honest.

I've driven one, and honestly, it wasn't that fat/slow/heavy. It could have used more power, but it was fairly fun to drive. Not everything needs "five hunnert horsepower" to be interesting.

There's a lot of room between 130 (SAE NET) hp and "five hunnert horsepower" The DMC-12 is roughly as fast as a Prius. I can appreciate the complaints in that department.

I wouldn't dare call 2900lbs fat though.

Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#124

Post by gambiting » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 11:41 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #113

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…

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)

There is a car exactly like this....in China. It's used for driver training, and I suspect it will start being popular elsewhere. In all of EU if you pass your licence on an automatic(which nearly all electric cars are) you can't drive a manual, you have to pass your licence in a manual car. And that's why that car was created, to allow people to pass their test in a manual vehicle and have a licence that allows driving them, even though the vehicle is electric.

https://jalopnik.com/this-chinese-electric-car-designed-for-...

"The various inputs of clutch and shifter work with software in the car that cause it to behave like a manual, ICE car, with shift points, simulated engine sounds, and it can even “stall” if you let off the clutch too quickly."

Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#125

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 11:41 PM UTC

dharmab wrote: post #80

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.

The DeLorean story is insane. Mr. DeLorean tried to finance the company with literal briefcases of cocaine in hotel rooms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_DeLorean#Arrest_and_trial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCwKEnu5xSk

[deleted]

Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#126

Post by vz8 » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 11:44 PM UTC

I misread another title. "DeLorean considering all-electric robot."

Either way, I'm in.

Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#127

Post by throwaway0a5e » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 11:48 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #120

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…

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…

Locomotives have a very different relationship with weight than road going vehicles do.

Of course an economy car will have a single speed transmission but vehicles that need to put out peak power at both low speeds and high speed (e.g. the Taycan, and an F250) are going to benefit greatly from a way to optimize for multiple speed ranges.

Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#128

Post by throwaway0a5e » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 11:52 PM UTC

bdamm wrote: post #115

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…

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…

And depending on how much performance "dealing with overheat" conditions necessitates leaving on the table a multi transmission might be their solution. Porsche is doing just that.

Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#129

Post by tyingq » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 12:01 AM UTC

EvanAnderson wrote: post #23

jrossi94 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. I have one and while its performance is awful its certainly the most comfortable car I've ever owned.

My father has one (restored) that I've driven a fair amount. I really like the car, but I just can't see it as a daily driver. (For a taste comparison, my '99 Nissan Maxima was probably my most comfortable car, both for passenger comfort, and for the driving experience.) The DMC-12 is a hotbox in the summer and the stock AC just can't keep up. That's my biggest memory. Rolling the window down would be fine, except th…

"The DMC-12 is a hotbox in the summer"

Some of that could be the R134A conversion. You would typically want things like a larger condenser to get equivalent cooling to the R12 it came with, but that's not always feasible.

Re: DeLorean considering all-electric reboot

#130

Post by mc32 » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 12:02 AM UTC

dogma1138 wrote: post #3

TBH I’m surprised Musk hasn’t bought them out yet and “released” a limited edition Model 3 with a DeLorian body kit for like $500,000... if Cyan can release a Volvo P1800 for 500K and you usually need to provide the 50 year old P1800 for them to convert and tune there clearly is a market for these things.

What makes the Deloreans so appealing?

From what I’m told, it wasn’t very well made and on top of that it was underpowered.

So I get the iconic aspect from movie lore. And I get the founder was very... idiosyncratic —and an underdog and ultimately spiraled into making very unfortunate choices.

But other than that, what’s the appeal?