Comments by "eDoc2020" (@eDoc2020) on "Engineering Explained" channel.

I live in a seasonally snowy climate and there's no need to get a car wash. The only reasons I can think of are road salt and cosmetics. Even without car washes the undercoating seems to do its job for over 150 kmi (240 thousand km). Cosmetics, that will always work against convenience no matter what you drive.
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You mean N-gineering X-plained.
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@TruthFiction There could also be trailers which use fuel-based generators for range extension. When an engine can be designed to run at a single load and power level it can be made simpler and more efficient than a standard automotive engine. They could also use other technologies like fuel cells.
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What we need are simple EVs, but unfortunately it's hard to find any simple new car, let alone an electric car, at least in the US.
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@AvocadoAfficionado If the equipment was standardized and easy to use it would sell well. There are already trailer rentals, a trailer with a range-extending generator is just an extension of this existing market.
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@ericlotze7724 Are you thinking of Warped Perception? He added a custom generator to a Tesla but it was a bit underpowered.
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I thought they stopped doing flatheads over 15 years ago.
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@1Esteband ICE vehicles have the exact same problem. It's (mostly) been solved by consumer education about not running engines in closed garages.
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I think Jason was making the mistake of ignoring all vehicle emissions except for CO2. The amount of CO2 emissions is directly proportional to the amount of burnt fuel. I think people ignore other emissions like NOx and particulates because it's not as easy to estimate and because catalytic converters and exhaust filters help greatly.
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@shadeburst Assuming they designed it sensibly it will be designed so when the battery is too low to drive it still has enough reserve capacity to handle steering until you can safely reach the side of the road. The issue is what happens next. Without mechanical steering you're going to have a much harder time pushing the car or getting it onto a trailer.
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@extreme8808 US and Europe use different metrics for octane ratings. The US uses (R+M)/2 while Europe uses RON. Our standard 87 octane in the US is equivalent to 92 in Europe and our 'premium' 93 is 97 in Europe. It's really only a minor difference. E85 is around 95 octane in the US and around 103 in Europe, but this is really only 15% gasoline. And no, this isn't a case of us using 'wrong' units like feet instead of meters for no apparent reason when measuring the same physical quantity. RON and MON are different measurements in the same way that liters and kilograms are different measurements.
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For efficient operation you want anything in changing magnetic fields to be made of laminated metal which won't work for engine parts. And permanent magnets fail when exposed to heat. In some generators the alternator's rotor is used as the engine's rotor to save size and weight and I think this is a better middle ground.
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Solar generation is already cheaper than fossil fuel for new generation capacity and is steadily getting cheaper over time due to Swanson's law. If renewables aren't your thing, nuclear is cleaner than fossil fuel while costing about the same and being safer overall. Modern nuclear plants are nothing like Chernobyl's.
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Much less than 20 miles. Most of the power for the "conventional" steering would be coming from electric power assist motors. The power difference with the steer-by-wire is what the driver is putting in by hand. All the sensors are already there.
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Higher voltage power electronics are also more expensive. And for a car you usually don't go thinner than 18 gauge because then the wires would be too fragile. For anything under 500-1000 watts this would mean you wouldn't be saving any copper.
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He's not saying that. The argument for replacement assumes the new car is substantially more efficient than the old one; if you frequently replace your car there isn't enough time for improvements to develop.
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@howebrad4601 The socket in your shop is only useful when you're in your shop. Being able to run a welder from the vehicle means you can weld on site without needing a generator. When you are back in your shop you can use your shop outlet, it doesn't need to go through the truck.
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The calculation will be identical, just use "miles on new EV" instead of "miles driven"
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@il-conte It wouldn't be a typical portable generator, that would be a bad idea for many reasons. It would be a more purpose-built range extender with a constant DC output of maybe 20-30 kW. Charging time doesn't matter because you drive with it running.
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@il-conte The downside with it being integrated is that it's heavy (wastes energy dragging it along when you're not using it) and it's large, taking up cargo space.
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Any car can do 0-60 mph in about 2.74 seconds if in a vacuum. The secret is a gravity assist. The annoying bit is that the steeper the slope you're rolling down the less traction you can achieve. This could be an interesting topic to explore. If I'm not mistaken, there's a linear tradeoff between the two, so maximum acceleration would be achieved at either level ground or in freefall (depending on the tires), not at some downhill slope. This is again ignoring some physical factors including wind resistance and shifting weights. I don't know how it would play out in real life.
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@yoice2k 3 phase permanent magnet motor is a type of synchronous motor. There's no slip involved. Sensors and the motor control circuitry adjust the current so there's always the optimal angle between rotor poles and stator magnetic poles.
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DIY folks have a better handle on used EV batteries than Tesla. Usually a battery which fails early will only have a couple of bad cells; replacing the just bad cell or even the entire submodule is a much greener approach than replacing the entire battery. For reference a Tesla battery pack seems to be made of 16 modules, each with around 450 individual cells. There's also a thriving market for secondhand EV batteries for use in home energy storage, DIY vehicle conversions, and other projects. Here even substantially degraded cells can live a second life where the demands are not as great. Oh, one more thing. Not every electric car is an expensive Tesla with a gigantic battery. Hopefully as EV adoption continues manufacturers will offer different models with different battery sizes and prices. Why pay for and drag around a heavy 250 mile battery if you only need 100 miles of range?
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Changing the intake air pressure is what the throttle valve does.
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@kimbleproductions3584 Phone batteries use different battery chemistry from EVs and are also pushed very hard. EV batteries usually have temperature control systems to stay at optimal temperatures and their cells aren't pushed to the absolute limit. If you use a slow phone charger and stop charging at 80 percent it will last much longer.
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@Chris-ie9os Correction: most production EVs are single gear. It's not mentioned much but EVs benefit from multiple gears, just not as much as ICE cars. Adding a gearbox enables more efficient use of smaller and lighter electric motors. It wouldn't make sense to have a 6-speed EV but a 2-speed gearbox would provide a noticeable difference. I suggest watching Rich Rebuild's rat rod project where an electric motorcycle motor is mated to a 3-speed manual.
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