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Porsche's idea for a six-stroke internal combustion engine

motor1.com

131–140 of 367 posts

Re: Porsche's idea for a six-stroke internal combustion engine

#131
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars still consume fossil fuels. It’s just earlier in the pipeline. People love to talk about combustion engines being pollutants but few people talk about just how damaging it is mining for rare metals to make those batteries. Nor how harmful for the environment it is disposing of old batters (we haven’t yet solved the problem of recycling them either). And that’s before you even touch on problems at the po…

Most of these claims are dramatically false. - Electric motors use low amounts of rare earth metals, or in some cases none. Batteries generally don't use them either. - Automotive batteries have been demonstrated as >90% recyclable, far better than most materials we consider "recyclable" today such as plastic - The electric grid has sufficient capacity to onboard millions of electric cars without issue, and will not…

> Electric motors use low amounts of rare earth metals, or in some cases none. Batteries generally don't use them either.

Maybe the term “rare” was poorly chosen. But mining those metals is the damaging part, not the abundance of the metals.

So my point is still correct.

> Automotive batteries have been demonstrated as >90% recyclable, far better than most materials we consider "recyclable" today such as plastic

Citation needed.

EV batteries are reused in some less demanding domains for a couple of years after their life in EVs. but everything that I’ve read thus far has said recycling the batteries themselves, after their life is done, is still very much in its infancy.

> The electric grid has sufficient capacity to onboard millions of electric cars without issue, and will not be impacted by the transition to EVs

Most country’s electric grids do. That’s the bloody point of a grid. It’s the last mile that’s the issue in some counties.

However I will concede that this point is a little unfair because it’s non-specific.

> Cost of ownership of EVs is significantly lower than ICE vehicles in their class, as is the lifetime carbon footprint

That depends. If you’re an occasional driver and charging your car at home, then the cost of electricity in some countries is going to be greater than the cost of petrol.

However if you travel lots and are heavily use charge stations at super markets et al, then EVs will be much cheaper to run than ICE.

It’s definitely not as clear cut as a lot of EV marketing claims.

(I’ve been adding up the costs just this month because was looking at buying an EV and it just wasn’t a cost saving for my particular requirements).

Re: Porsche's idea for a six-stroke internal combustion engine

#133
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably as Porsche is not about efficient transportation; it is about emotion, driving as an experience, making a statement, etc. Chances are there will be - or, at least, Porsche appears to bet there will be - a sufficient number of well-heeled enthusiasts who prefer the sound, smell and vibration of an ICE to the quiet performance of an electric motor. I am really curious to see how this pans out in a generation…

[flagged]

It’s amazing how much the luxury car industry has advertised what is essentially a shaking and noise complement to going fast.

The “smooth” revs. The “visceral” feel. The “connection” to the road. It’s just a few metal cylinders going up and down real fast, tuned to sound nice in a packaged product.

It’s like brainwashing. Impressive really. I like going to the track when I can, but that’s a bit different. The statement is the work you’ve put into your car, not how “exclusive” your statement is.

Re: Porsche's idea for a six-stroke internal combustion engine

#134
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many of people here live in US and assume that it everywhere things look similar. in my European country electric infrastructure is not ready for electric cars and with current energy prices this makes no financial sense. I own plug in hybrid and I live in apartment meaning I have no possibility to charge at home. near me (about 10 min of walking there is public single phase allow charger with 2 plugs machine…

> in my European country electric infrastructure is not ready for electric cars and with current energy prices this makes no financial sense. I’m always amazed by statements like this. People who have lived through the rollout of the internet to the masses can’t see how we’d modify existing structure to accommodate needs. We had phone lines initially, 20 years later now we have 5G, fibre, satellites. They just dug up…

Naturally, the infrastructure arises when the demand is there. But nobody was ever hesitant to buy a 4G-only phone for fear of insufficient 4G service because every 4G phone also worked on 3G.

The same is not true of electric cars. People have real mileage anxiety because they can’t use petrol when a charger isn’t available

Re: Porsche's idea for a six-stroke internal combustion engine

#135
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many of people here live in US and assume that it everywhere things look similar. in my European country electric infrastructure is not ready for electric cars and with current energy prices this makes no financial sense. I own plug in hybrid and I live in apartment meaning I have no possibility to charge at home. near me (about 10 min of walking there is public single phase allow charger with 2 plugs machine…

> in my European country electric infrastructure is not ready for electric cars and with current energy prices this makes no financial sense. I’m always amazed by statements like this. People who have lived through the rollout of the internet to the masses can’t see how we’d modify existing structure to accommodate needs. We had phone lines initially, 20 years later now we have 5G, fibre, satellites. They just dug up…

Yes we already have power cables but they do not generate power. The issue is clean power generation capacity.

Re: Porsche's idea for a six-stroke internal combustion engine

#136
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you might note that people still paint.

Well that also needs to be heavily vilified and taxed.

Since paintings are mostly made by someone they are under income tax which is at least in my country the highest percentage of all taxes. Plus VAT like everything else. A painter this easily pays 60% tax on what you have to pay

Re: Porsche's idea for a six-stroke internal combustion engine

#137
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars still consume fossil fuels. It’s just earlier in the pipeline. People love to talk about combustion engines being pollutants but few people talk about just how damaging it is mining for rare metals to make those batteries. Nor how harmful for the environment it is disposing of old batters (we haven’t yet solved the problem of recycling them either). And that’s before you even touch on problems at the po…

> few people talk about just how damaging it is mining for rare metals to make those batteries thank goodness oil production isn't damaging at all and has zero cost, then if you're going to talk about mining, every other environmental cost of the fossil fuel lifecycle is fair game. how confident are you that oil and gas come out ahead?

I’m not claiming oil mining comes out ahead either. I’m just saying the environmental cost of EV suffers from a lot of greenwashing. They’re not always as green as people like to think.

Unfortunately, this is a massively complicated subject and it’s hard to definitively make claims because there’s also a large element of locality (where you live) and user-specific circumstances (like how long you keep a car, how often you drive, etc)

My original comment was just that it’s easy to say “EV is the future” but really we need to be extremely mindful that EV still has a long way to go itself and thus we shouldn’t be dismissive of any research happening in the automotive industry.

Re: Porsche's idea for a six-stroke internal combustion engine

#138
post #15
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars still consume fossil fuels. It’s just earlier in the pipeline. People love to talk about combustion engines being pollutants but few people talk about just how damaging it is mining for rare metals to make those batteries. Nor how harmful for the environment it is disposing of old batters (we haven’t yet solved the problem of recycling them either). And that’s before you even touch on problems at the po…

>how damaging it is mining for rare metals to make those batteries. Even thought I'd agree mass EV would not be carried by the current grid, or that charging density and time is not satisfactory (in most of Europe)... LiFePO4 doesn't contain rare earth metals, unless you count Li for 'rare'.

Maybe “rare” was a poor choice, but it’s definitely harmful to mine for and the recycling story is far from solved so there’s a serious risk of having these harmful components ending up in landfills (I hope it doesn’t come to that)

Re: Porsche's idea for a six-stroke internal combustion engine

#139
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>how damaging it is mining for rare metals to make those batteries. Even thought I'd agree mass EV would not be carried by the current grid, or that charging density and time is not satisfactory (in most of Europe)... LiFePO4 doesn't contain rare earth metals, unless you count Li for 'rare'.

On top of that, the commenter is completely ignorant of the rise of saltwater batteries which don't even use lithium. Also probably unaware that with the rise of extremely low cost, solar and wind, Fossil fuel use on the grid is economically nonviable long term. Even so, the fossil fuels consumed on the grid are very likely to be combined cycle natural gas, which has less carbon emissions than have equivalent. Amount…

Name me one mass produced consumer car that uses saltwater batteries.

Re: Porsche's idea for a six-stroke internal combustion engine

#140
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in my European country electric infrastructure is not ready for electric cars and with current energy prices this makes no financial sense. I’m always amazed by statements like this. People who have lived through the rollout of the internet to the masses can’t see how we’d modify existing structure to accommodate needs. We had phone lines initially, 20 years later now we have 5G, fibre, satellites. They just dug up…

Yes we already have power cables but they do not generate power. The issue is clean power generation capacity.

There is a reason that I pay 7p/kWh (3p/mile) to charge at night compared to 30p/kWh during the day. There is already spare capacity at night. In my country it’s mostly wind.
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