Eli5: since electric engines have a lot fewer moving parts, why does it take car manufacturers much longer to develop new electric cars?
In: 7
While the cars are simpler in the mechanical sense, it requires significantly more advanced technology to design and engineer. Hard Drives in computers are a nightmare of moving parts, but they came long before solid state storage for the same reason. I like the saying that the machine to build the machine is a lot more complex.
Shifting an industry to something new takes time, but once it’s fired up, you’ll see electric car models released with more frequency and with more margin, which means prices will come down even further.
Electric motors are super easy. They were invented years before gasoline motors were. The hard part is the battery. Being able to store electricity is incredibly hard to do. Batteries are heavy, expensive, wear out quickly, and just don’t store that much power.
Consider this: trains don’t use diesel engines. They all use electric motors, but those motors are powered by diesel generators, not batteries. Building a (gearbox for a) diesel engine that big is impractical, but so is carrying batteries big enough to provide power.
Because electric cars require building a totally new manufacturing process, while ICEs already have it in place. Prototypes are easy, manufacturing is hard.
Because the expertise and experience isn’t there for them. Their gearbox and engine development engineers don’t become high voltage electrical engineers overnight. Neither do they have the software development experience either, ECUs are extremely simple compared to drive inverters.
Volkswagen will soon go under if they cannot solve their ID cars software issues, as an example.
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Off the top of my head: current cars:
Have in general lower instant torque so the suspension doesn’t have to be as strong, for a similar shaped EV.
Has most of the weight up front so it’s built stronger there compared to EVs who are built with most of the weight in the middle.
Weights a lot less than EVs (until batteries get better)
All this means redoing everything under the car to get EV like performance, durability and characteristics. It also means having to build their own battery technology, motor technology that isn’t copying someone and trying to come with something different on the market.
A successful EV needs to have good range, which is hard to achieve. Batteries are very heavy compared to fuel. Even ignoring the technological challenges of the drivetrain and fast charging, the weight budget they are going to have for comfort and driver experience will be extremely tight.
And making a car that handles well given the weight and weight distribution is a big challenge as well. EV’s can win drag races against ICE cars, but often feel more like a pickup truck when cornering.
At the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn they tell a story that Ford pitches the gasoline car to Edison who agreed that it was easier to carry the power generation with you than store the power in a very leaky battery.
It was much cooler the way the guide told it
* Cars were invented 135 years ago.
* That’s a long time to get really good at internal combustion engines.
* Electric cars won’t take nearly as long to develop.
Explain what you mean by Develop.
An electric car is simple. You need a battery and a motor. Everything else is pretty much the same as a car with an engine.
The issue is getting a good battery that recharges quickly and has enough range. Battery technology is constantly improving so this is a challenge.
The other issue right now is a shortage of parts. The control systems require specific computer chips. There aren’t enough of these in production to keep up with demand. Chips take months to make and their production is one of the most complex thi.gs possible.
So from that standpoint the biggest issue is getting sufficient supplies of new components VS a combustion vehicle where the components are mostly the same as the previous model and the supply chains are well established.
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