Posted on 12/27/2021 10:32:18 PM PST by blueplum
The current crop of engines will apparently be Hyundai's final fuel burners.
The electric push is on as manufacturers race to position themselves for an EV future. Many companies have made verbal commitments to going all-electric, but Hyundai could be taking a bold step by ending the development of future internal combustion engines right now.
That's the word in a report from Business Korea. In an article that dropped just before Christmas, the report claims Hyundai Motor Group officially cut its engine development department at the company's Namyang Research Institute south of Seoul. The report also states the automaker's powertrain group was reorganized into an electrification development team, and that a battery development group....
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Floppy disks didn’t have enough capacity. What is an EV going to give you? Will it make you get from Point A to Point B, quicker? No. Will it allow you to go places that a ICE car won’t let you? No. So exactly what is it than an EV “does” here?
Oil will replace oil?
Planes go a hell of a lot faster than Ships. Do EVs go faster than ICE cars? It’s basically a lateral move.
Note: It doesn’t say Hyundai is going to stop making internal combustion engines. It also doesn’t say they won’t adopt any advances made by others. It just says they are going to spend their that money or EV research and development.
Research on internal combustion (IC) engines only yields slight improvements because they have been around for so long. Spending big bucks on IC technology has little chance of enhancing future profits. Battery technology research has potential for great improvement and great profit for those who improve it.
The move makes sense in both the short and long term for a for-profit company. Personally, I predict that the electric only vehicles will sell in urban areas once the power grid deficiencies are addressed. The timeline for that is probably 20 years. Nuke plants take a long time to plan and build and transmission lines are a slow process as well. In rural areas, plug-in hybrids will probably replace gasoline-only vehicles in the foreseeable future. (15 years?)
Of course, some of the nano-technology research could possibly produce a battery that lasts and recharges quickly. While that won’t address the power grid, it could make the EV cars affordable and more practical.
Like any early tech, the first ones are usually pretty bad then they get better. A 2013 Tesla is a dinosaur like a 2013 cell phone.
It was all sort of fun and games when the climate change charlatans were just in it for the money. But now the true believers are attempting to make policy, and they somehow believe that there is a pathway to supply the energy needs for 7-8 billion people with renewables.
A hard rain's a-gonna fall.
Still, will it ever be an improvement over an ICE?
Of course through gasoline taxes and other restrictions on ICE vehicles, the government will eventually tip the scales in favor of EVs, of that I have no doubt whatsoever.
Well if you don’t like the performance improvement I dunno what to tell you. If you didn’t notice, basically all the car companies are moving away from ICE.
Because the government has read them the riot act if they don't.
What performance improvement. I don’t drive 100 MPH nor do I accelerate quickly.
Again, you aren’t the market. The market is moving to EVs and it’s just a fact. Already 7% from virtually 0 a few years ago.
There’s gonna be a huge difference when it’s just 7% of the market as opposed to 100% of the market, but by then it will be too late.
Again for now, charging stations are plentiful and the supplies for batteries and electricity can meet the demand.
There will come a day, if they continue this radical adoption plan where it will not be the case.
They probably thought the same thing of the scale around 1900 for gas cars, no way it can happen. Then times kept up. I remember the ‘peak oil’ garbage from the 90s. Algore’s piehole pushed that, but the market is amazing on what it can do when there’s demand.
So, if oil supplies aren't an issue, why mess with it, with something unproven that doesn't really give much benefit over current cars? Cui Bono?
I’m not saying it’s time to buy now or even soon. But if they aren’t over 50% market share by 2030 I’ll be pretty shocked. Just a prediction, who knows.
If it’s 50% it will be because government policy will drive the demand by making gas-powered cars too costly to drive, not because of natural market forces.
Have YOU noticed that the charging stations such the ones at Wal Mart have put up fences to HIDE the Diesel GENERATORS that power the chargers????
That’s the thing about breakthroughs…they happen without warning.
We have become so accustomed to incrementalism, we forget that technological leaps happen, without a lot of precursors. American industry really hasn’t allowed itself to push very hard because of the focus on quarterly earnings.
If you think about the big post war technology changes…most of the would be recognizable to someone transported from the 1940’s. A phone is still a phone. A car is still fundamentally a car.
But, if you were a company commander in the invasion of Kuwait in 1991 and you were dropped into a command hum eve in 2007– the phrase I heard was, “It’s like Battlestar Galactica now.”
That tech is finding its way to the civilian markets now. But governments are pretty protective of that stuff.
For example, let’s “suppose” the ‘tic tac’ aircraft are real. Let’s suppose that the tech is released. Do you think frictionless movement wouldn’t have any impact on how we build things?
When my cousin was a surgical resident she worked on a team for the DOD. They were breaking ground on remote surgery. That was in the early 1990’s. It was just a few weeks ago that the theories she was developing were actually used. The tech had to catch up with the theories.
If electric cars are mandated (and they ARE) then battery and charging tech will have to improve. There is a significant financial impetus to do that. That will drive the process.
This bigger issue is that this stuff is being developed all over the world…not in in this country.
What sounds like sci fi today, will be fact in short order.
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