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Audi abandons combustion engine development

electrive.com

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Re: Audi abandons combustion engine development

#61

Post by hef19898 »

donavanm wrote: post #30
pmorici wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are something like 1.4 billion vehicles in operation world wide and 80 million new vehicles are sold every year. That is at most 17 years once new vehicle sales are effectively 100% electric which will probably happen around 2030. The value of used gas cars will deteriorate rapidly as the spare parts and repair networks disappear and electric vehicle costs become much cheaper pulling forward demand for the tran…

You making a lot of assumptions that arent born out by current experience. Its not uncommon for 100 year old cars to be registered and driven on public roads today. I personally have registered “daily drivers” from the 1970s and 80s. I actually rebuilt my 1972 motorcycle using factory parts from the dealership. As cars get rare they tend to increase in value, which also increases the return on effort/money put in to…

I have one, too. Not really as a daily driver, gas mileage just sucks. When the daily driver is about to be replaced one day, it will certainly be by an EV.

I think that the main issue will be maintenance of ICEs in the future. Like try to find a garage that is able to tube carburators these days. It will be a while until we reach that point so.

Re: Audi abandons combustion engine development

#62

Post by lfowles »

flukus wrote: post #56
burlesona wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas stations are an interesting case, because most of them make most of their money selling snacks and beer. The gas money largely goes to the oil company.

I believe this is right, but gas is still the main reason people stop there. If people aren't stopping to buy gas then they will not be making their impulse/convenience purchases and the gas station still loses their profits. It's somewhat more complicated because many also function as convenience stores, but most convenience stores near me have already died so I doubt that would save them.

On the other hand if you're stopping there for a charge, you'll be spending longer and have more time to consider just popping in for a snack.

Re: Audi abandons combustion engine development

#63

Post by jjav »

mhh__ wrote: post #44
tra3 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t even have to go back that far. US govt is calling for contractors to reverse engineer b2 bombers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26333649

A B2 bomber and a completely unclassified car engine is a slightly different order of magnitude in terms of complexity. If you want to run a current F1 car in 40 years time then you will need to RE it however because the Powertrain is complicated and totally custom

> If you want to run a current F1 car in 40 years

Never mind 40 years, F1 cars of even a couple years ago become impossible to run because just getting the engine started requires custom equipment and knowledge that often doesn't seem to be preserved year to year.

Re: Audi abandons combustion engine development

#64

Post by 0xfaded »

kashprime wrote: post #5

ICE’s have over a century of development behind them now. I’m not going to miss them, but I wonder if there’s a way to ‘archive’ this kind of specialist mechanical engineering knowledge. It may come in handy one day. It’s depressing to read about engineers having to go to the Smithsonian to study the lunar lander to relearn some of the innovations and improvisations made at the time.

At the front of my mind are aircraft piston engines, which haven't progressed much beyond the 60s. One notable exception are the Diamond Astro engines, which are based on mercedes blocks.

Seeing as mass scale ICE development is probably a deadend, hopefully the current state of engines will hold over until battery energy densities become viable for light aircraft (an extremely selfish desire, i admit).

Re: Audi abandons combustion engine development

#65

Post by onion2k »

pmorici wrote: post #23
sjwright wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if we get to 99% EV within fifty years, it’s going to be a long while after that before EV takes over 100.000% of ICE.

There are something like 1.4 billion vehicles in operation world wide and 80 million new vehicles are sold every year. That is at most 17 years once new vehicle sales are effectively 100% electric which will probably happen around 2030. The value of used gas cars will deteriorate rapidly as the spare parts and repair networks disappear and electric vehicle costs become much cheaper pulling forward demand for the tran…

That would be true if the oldest cars are being removed from the pool, but that isn't how it works. Cars crash, some models wear out, some just have too little resale value to keep going, etc so they're removed from the pool earlier. Other cars are very desirable so they're get around much longer. It's not a perfect circular system.

Re: Audi abandons combustion engine development

#66

Post by ColFrancis »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #14
kashprime wrote: post #5

ICE’s have over a century of development behind them now. I’m not going to miss them, but I wonder if there’s a way to ‘archive’ this kind of specialist mechanical engineering knowledge. It may come in handy one day. It’s depressing to read about engineers having to go to the Smithsonian to study the lunar lander to relearn some of the innovations and improvisations made at the time.

I don’t remember the lunar lander, but I do recall reading how each rocket engine on the Saturn V was one of a kind, because the engineers had to assemble each one by hand, and each acted slightly differently. So there’s no way to reproduce a specific Saturn V engine now, but there also never was back when the Saturn V was still flying.

Genuine question: How is this different from a F1 engine where each piston head is crafted for each cylinder in the block? When you go high performance things that look like they're a commodity become one-of-a-kinds as you push them right to the limits.

Re: Audi abandons combustion engine development

#67

Post by Bancakes »

rasz wrote: post #60
jvanderbot wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just paid a blacksmith to teach me to forge weld. Someday maybe bored middle-class folks will pay to learn to change oil on a v8 between marathons.

Brazing? like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz9H850dtqY ?

That's amazing. Do you have any more such channels, on rebuilding after an apocalypse?

What about books on skillsets necessary?

Re: Audi abandons combustion engine development

#68

Post by Bancakes »

lixtra wrote: post #40
dukeofdoom wrote: post #36

Yeah, I was actually thinking of buying a corvette or other sports car. Because I figure it will be a collectible and worth more money than I pay for it down the line. As they stop making gas cars.

How will you refuel it once there is no gas station network anymore? (Assuming electric Utopia is going to come).

I fail to see how the oil industry will throw their hands up.

Re: Audi abandons combustion engine development

#69

Post by wombatmobile »

A hundred years after EV's become commonplace, our descendants will learn about ICE in history class.

They will be told that their great great grandparents' generation dug holes thousands of feet deep in the desert and under the sea to extract the liquid fossilised remains of plants that lived on Earth hundreds of megaannums prior. They took these liquid fossils, refined them in factories, transported them all over the surface of the earth, and poured them one gallon at a time into machines that squirted precise amounts of the precious liquid into metal cylinders where the liquid was set alight to explode thousands of times per minute, in precise amounts calculated to release power to a series of mechanical levers, pulleys, and spinning rods which did for 4 wheels what horses had done in the even more distant past.

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