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
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.
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