DeLorean considering all-electric reboot
newdelorean.com
newdelorean.com
I assume this means they waive certain modern safety regulations in order to allow companies to make new cars (in low volume) that resemble old cars?
> That said, with EV’s becoming more mainstream, we’ve been considering switching to an all-electric as the future. It certainly makes for an easier path through emissions maze which still looms large over any internal combustion engine.
That makes sense. If ever there was a car that looks like it should be an EV, it's the Delorean. They could even do a stickshift EV if they wanted to, though most car companies seem to not think it's worth the complexity/maintenance, and I get the impression that electric motors are hard on transmissions.
Electric motors have a wider power band, so there’s less need for gear shifting. They could get more efficiency with multiple gears, but it’s be a smaller benefit than in an ICE vehicle.
One of the big early problems was that the amount of instant torque that an electric vehicle puts out just shreds a gearbox. You could limit the initial torque in software, but that’d kill the joy of the EV. I’m sure someone has managed to work this by now.
On the other hand, different axles don’t have to use the same gearing ratio. That’s how dual motor Teslas work - the front wheels are geared for higher speeds, and more power is shifted towards those as you go faster. No gear-shifting required.
I imagine the process is basically tuning for the inverter output that minimizes power consumed as well as drag on the axle when the motor is not supplying active torque, or at least supplying less active torque than the other axle.
Doesn’t this leave a lot on the table?
Wouldn’t you get more energy by having say gentle braking regen and harder braking regen?
It takes a week or two to unlearn the habit of "popping" your foot off the accelerator anytime you want to coast without necessarily slowing down, but after that it basically feels like your right foot is directly connected to the speedometer in both directions.
Perhaps weirdly the thing I think it makes the hardest is possibly videogames, which exaggerate controls in their own ways. I've gotten very frustrated with braking in most difficulty settings in the Forza series after driving an EV with "one pedal driving" capability for years now.
The Mito, you can let go of the throttle, have it snap back to zero, and you barely slow down at all no matter what gear it's in. There's practically no engine braking at all. If you want to slow down you have to grab the brakes.
The Monster, in lower gears, will skid the back wheel if you chop the throttle from 75+% of peak rpm. You can pretty much get that bike down to walking pace in a fairly short distance without touching the brakes at all. (Thats a game I sometimes play on it, see if I can get home from work without touching the brakes, just slowing down using the throttle and gears.)
It's not a big deal. In EV cars it is more complicated as they usually have an engine per wheel so you'd need a clutch at each wheel.
Yep. Alternatively, the Porsche Taycan has an 2-speed transmission gearbox (cf. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a28903274/porsche-taycan-t...). I don't think gearboxes are going to become mainstream in EVs, with the exception of performance vehicles like this one.
In the future the Roadster and the Cybertruck both have 3 motors. The rear wheels both have one each, so presumably they can avoid the differential there.
It also allows for the ever-entertaining tank turn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzwM8KE2L3I
Differentials are cheap and reliable, most going for the lifetime of a car without any issue or even real servicing. They are likely the cheaper option than running multiple motors.
Manual transmissions seem like a pretty mature technology at this point. For any car company that already makes a manual transmission car it would be easy to do. They might change the design a little (maybe 3 speeds instead of 5, and use sturdier gears and different ratios). Clearly you don't need a transmission in an EV, and leaving it out is simpler and less maintenance, but still... if it can be done and it makes for a (in some ways) better or more fun car, then it's a shame no one is doing it yet.
I'm currently working on converting a Mazda RX-8 to electric, keeping the transmission and clutch. It'll be interesting to see what it's like to drive. IIRC, the motor (Netgain Hyper-9 144 volt dual-ended version) has a max RPM of 8000, which is close to the 9000 rpm redline of the rotary it replaces. The motor is a lot less powerful than what you'd find in a typical Tesla (which I attribute mostly to it being designed to run at a lower voltage), but having a gearshift should make up for at least some of the difference.
Most of the work so far has been making battery boxes. I've got one under each rear seat where the gas tank used to be, one in the front down low where the radiator used to be, a smaller one above it, and another that goes over the motor (which raises the CG more than I'd like, but the other batteries that basically as low as they can be probably offset it). Weight balance should be about the same.
I'll have to do some welding on the back seats, because they're too low for the batteries to fit. Sacrificing about four inches of foam will make for an uncomfortable seat, but it should at least look normal.
What batteries are you using for the RX-8?
AC motors and motor controllers are generally more expensive than, say, a Warp9 and a Zilla, but the price difference is gradually dropping. Probably the price difference between AC and DC for a major manufacturer is even smaller than what's available retail to hobbyists doing conversions. And I think more and more conversions are being done with repurposed Tesla and Leaf drive units.
A small, cheap AC motor attached to a 2 or 3 speed transmission would be a lot of fun to drive, I think. No need for a reverse gear even. Maybe not even a clutch or flywheel, if you can match the motor speed with the transmission electronically.
My batteries are about 450 pounds of lithium iron phosphate cells. That's generally what's recommended for conversions. Used Tesla packs have much better energy density, but they're more dangerous and need liquid cooling and are awkwardly shaped. I couldn't think of a good place to put them in the RX-8 where they'd be safe.
However, newer dual clutch style transmissions work pretty well with small engines - I have a car with a 1l engine and DCT and it is a delight to drive.
They're marginally cheaper but the real key is that they let the consumer side step engineering decisions that were made against the consumers interests.
I don't think transmissions will be the norm in performance vehicles either, since Tesla Roadster gen 2 will not have it, and Rimac seems to have moved away from it for Concept Two as well.
Teslas solution is to optimize the front and rear motors for different speeds.
There is also an experimental motor that can change "gears" by changing how it drives the windings in the motors. I don't remember the name right now.
Point is there are a few solutions that are simpler and lighter than adding a two-speed gearbox, with relatively little compromise.
Doesn't the Porsche Taycan have 2 gears? and it actually beats Tesla Model S in 0-60 times
Can anyone here lend me a quarter million please?
"muh instant 0rpm torque" is absolutely nothing compared to the inertia of a hired driver who doesn't care (or is just a novice) dumping the clutch. Building a transmission to handle electric motor loads isn't a particularly remarkable engineering challenge. (Though you can make any engineering exercise challenging if you add sufficient weight and budgetary constraints)
Imagine a medium or heavier truck that's expected to both get a load moving at low speed and to cruise at 80. Putting anything near peak power through an electric motor at low speeds lets the magic smoke out in short order. Sure you can gear it down but then you have insane rpm at high speed and the wonderful engineering problem of getting that insanely overbuilt motor to not fling itself apart at those speed. A simple two speed transmission is a far more elegant solution. Especially since a transmission for an electric motor can be far simpler than one for an ICE. Letting the magic smoke out was a big problem in early EV conversions because power was low and consequently the vehicles available for conversion didn't have lots of good options for deep gearing.
I suggest you try it before you make fun of it.
The point I'm trying to make is that the people acting like electric motors are particularly hard on drive-line components are just wrong.
Not with modern motor controls. For the last 20 years or so, most new locomotives have used 3-phase AC servo drive motors. It's striking to see one exerting enormous torque to get a train started, yet the Diesel engine generating the power is barely above idle. Also, no wheel spin. All the wheels can be synchronized electrically. This almost doubles the useful traction.
Early Teslas had a two-speed transmission. It was a flop. The shock loads on gear shifting were too large and the transmissions wore out rapidly. Tesla had to replace all of them. The big advance was liquid-cooled motors. Finally a way to get rid of the excess heat fast enough that you could use full power at zero speed if desired.
Of course an economy car will have a single speed transmission but vehicles that need to put out peak power at both low speeds and high speed (e.g. the Taycan, and an F250) are going to benefit greatly from a way to optimize for multiple speed ranges.
That's the thing: the incentive structure has changed. The better use of time and research dollars is going to be just upgrading that motor till it's adequate. There's a logical cap on the maximum road speed you need to accomodate, so the problem is eventually "solved" in practical terms.
It might or might not be worth it, but transmissions that last as long as the car with no maintenance are common (oil changes are recommended, but few people do).
(Bad is subjective, but the point remains)
https://jalopnik.com/this-chinese-electric-car-designed-for-...
"The various inputs of clutch and shifter work with software in the car that cause it to behave like a manual, ICE car, with shift points, simulated engine sounds, and it can even “stall” if you let off the clutch too quickly."
Thus completely negating training on a manual?
Learning how to effectively use the clutch pedal to me was like, 90% of learning to drive.
That said, as an American who prefers a manual, I'm not sure why Europe cares so much. It is a skill to learn, but it isn't that hard to learn: I've taught a few people. They have some rough starts (and avoid hills for a while), but the need to shift isn't something that affects how they drive once they get off my street.
Same in Switzerland.
At last here in Indiana, you have to provide your own car to take the driving test in.
I think I “studied” for the written test by skimming the handout brochure at school during lunch, and had no issues. The driving test was a joke; I’m very confident my 7-year-old could pass it today based only on her having driven utility vehicles (e.g., a Kubota RTV) around our family’s property and having watched us drive from the back seat.
Apparently Arkansas revised the licensing system in 2009, and now there is an “Intermediate” license for people under 18. That license is restricted from driving from 11pm to 4am (with exceptions), prohibited from using a cell phone while driving (with exceptions), and all passengers must be wearing a seat belt. If you’re married, in the military, have graduated high school (or equivalent) or have been legally emancipated you can get your full license at the age of 16 years and six months.
This discussion had me curious about how the very different licensing regimes might impact outcomes, so I looked up some statistics on motor vehicle fatalities.
US (2018):
* 12.4 per 100k residents
* 14.2 per 100k vehicles
Europe (2016)
* 9.3 per 100k residents
* 19 per 100k vehicles
Poland (2019)
* 7.7 per 100k residents
* 13.5 per 100k vehicles
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
Meanwhile the cars involved in the accidents are often unimaginably small and lightweight in EU. Rolling a typical Irish car off the road must have an outcome much like rolling a golf cart would, certainly fatal to the occupants, whereas rolling a typical USA SUV into the ditch will ruin the trim and probably the glass but the occupants should be unharmed if they're wearing seatbelts.
2) I've looked M4 and M7 in Ireland on Google Maps and they have two lanes each side with separation.
3) There is plenty highways in Europe with concrete barriers and few lanes each way.
The urban density matters more than the country's population
There are no standards for "how to engage the hazard blinkers" across manufacturers so the testing process verifies that at least one time in their driving experience all drivers turned the hazard blinkers on in their private car, and maybe they helped their kids or grandkids figure it out later in life.
I've driven several manual transmission cars and its always so awkward for the first couple minutes as there is no standard "feel". EU test inspectors must provide enormous amounts of leeway during testing. Every time I've driven a new manual car the very first time I let the clutch out is always at least somewhat unexpected. So the USA testers get to use smoothness as a proxy for experience. If you let the clutch out like a guy who's never done it before, you are probably lying about the many hours of required yet otherwise unverifiable pre-testing driving experience.
So in summary it enforces safety education and proves some level of experience.
That's true, but in my experience (France), the car being driven during the exam is one of your driving school's cars, which you are probably familiar with, since a number of driving lessons are mandated before the exam.
Plus, all these cars feature dual controls as a safety measure, not only for pedals, but for blinkers, honk, etc. If the inspector touches their break pedal, you automatically fail the exam.
In my experience, no. The difference is that pass rates are at 20-30%.
What would be the issue? It's the same car you practiced in.
Obviously the exact numbers varies a bit from engine to engine.
Dropping to lower RPM for efficiency is what happens when you're done accelerating and ease up on the pedal. That's not what people complain about with CVTs. The complaints are about behavior and sound during acceleration, not after acceleration when you are merely cruising on low power output.
This is actually one of the aspects of the Leaf that most impressed/surprised me - Nissan put a lot of thought in to making it behave like an ICE car with an automatic/CV transmission.
For example, when the car is in D mode, sitting on flat ground, if you take your foot off the brake, it'll roll forward at low power. Similarly, taking your foot off the accelerator while rolling faster will apply just a little bit of regeneration.
Our car which is the Ford Power shift dual clutch system which changes pretty much seamlessly and does creep on its own.
As I see it, a manual stick EV would be pretty good in combination with a modestly-powerful drive system like what's in the Nissan Leaf, as opposed to something like a high-end Tesla (where you have enough power that shifting gears doesn't matter as much).
There's no point. The tyres can't provide that much traction. My Leaf wheelspins if I put my foot down at 0 RPM (until the traction control kicks in to moderate the torque). I assume it has no gearbox.
The Leaf is front wheel drive I believe whereas the White Zombie is rear wheel drive. That probably accounts for some of it. Maybe the WZ also has a limited slip differential and some kind of high-traction tires? I don't know; drag racing is pretty far outside my area of expertise.
(Another random anecdote about the White Zombie: according to John, he always wanted to have a transmission, but they kept breaking whenever he tried to use one, so eventually he just settled on direct drive.)
(And yes, the LEAF is FWD-only.)
It's likely that it is not worth it in most applications. Only cars that used gearboxes in EV space (two speed) are usually intended to be able to hit 200mph so they need extremely wide rpm range from their electric motors. I know Rimac used one and Taycan (not surprising since Rimac is partly owned by Porsche).
In Rimac case, they used the gearbox to improve 0-60 times but IIRC they are losing the gearbox for their new car.
0 to 10 it was a very fastest car although the acceleration curve flattened out fast and it was between hard and impossible to have enough traction to max it out.
I don't hear much about prius transmissions being destroyed.
Something interesting to think about, I wonder with demographic trends etc if 0 to 10 is a more useful measure of daily driver performance and experience than 0 to 60. My wife's car does 0 to 10 at every stop sign, and technically my car is faster at 0 to 60 but I only did that twice a day at most for the commute, for sportiness reasons I might prefer the worlds fastest 0 to 10 car over a theoretically faster 0 to 60 car.
Depends on how long the average on-ramp where you live is.
30-75 measured in distance instead of time would be a good measure where I live.
Being able to gracefully merge no matter how bad of a situation the idiot in front of me leaves behind would be far more beneficial for day to day use than off the line speed.
I'm no expert on Priuses but my quick Google showed that Prius has the electric motors "after" the gearbox. This means that electric motor can assist turning of the wheel and that it can regenerate energy but it is not using the gearbox.
One solution to this would be how diesel electric locomotives work. Internal combustion engine generates electricity that is then stored in the batteries and used to power the vehicle. These type of "hybrids" are not popular although I believe there is at least one available where it is used as a range extender.
I assume Prosche just had the expertise for and it made it easier for them to hit the top level speeds.
All electric cars are torque-limited. They simply have to be. A static electric motor, of the type needed for higher speeds, given full voltage would not only snap bits of the drivetrain but rip apart its own mounts. So they are all limited to various degrees.
The limiting factor on low-speed power for EVs isn't the motor. It's the strength of the drivetrain and ability of the battery system to provide the necessary current/voltage without cooking something.
Electric motors are far, far, more forgiving to drive-train components than sporty vehicles with manuals and medium duty trucks of equivalent power levels because there is no clutch to dump. Sure it's not quite as forgiving as an automatic transmission but it's close.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_controller
"A motor controller is a device or group of devices that can coordinate in a predetermined manner the performance of an electric motor. [...] regulating or limiting the torque, and protecting against overloads..."
The motor generally has current and voltage and RPM and temperature limits, and the motor controller keeps everything within those limits. But the motor controller isn't there just for that reason, it's there because the motor couldn't function without it.
DC motors are different; those you could just literally replace your gas pedal with an on/off button and wire it straight from the battery to the motor. Not that that's a good idea.
All electric cars are torque-limited certainly != electric cars do not have good low-speed torque.
It is precisely because electric motors are capable of such high torque that they have to be torque limited.
The amount of torque and electric vehicle can put out is huge.
On other hand, you can put way more beefier gears, as you need less of them.
Rather, electric motors don't need transmissions. Transmissions are a workaround for the failings of the internal combustion engine.
But If it’s bad maybe a torque converter would be useful?
There are different motor designs out there that alter power delivery for situations where very low-RPM torque is required. As with most design decisions, there are trade-offs involved.
And yeah, I'm sure a torque converter would be helpful in that situation. But I think that generally, passenger cars don't need to go very fast, so most EVs can get away with short enough gearing that cogging isn't an issue, at the expense of top seed.
* hold some low-power electric motor in your hands, turn it on then gradually clap the output with your fingers. You'll eventually feel the power output go to nothing and the motor will wind. That's cogging.
Also, the whole "peak torque at 0 RPMs" thing is really a side effect of the fact that electric motors produce consistent power across the rev band (except at really low, and really high RPMs). And the formula for power is power = torque * RPM. Since power is essentially fixed with an electric motor, you rearrange that equation to be torque = power / RPM, and peak torque is at the limit as RPM goes to 0.
In real world applications, torque output is limited by physics and current delivery, so peak torque is truncated at low RPMs.
Your commuter car can get away with a simple single gear reduction drive system. Electric work vehicles are going to need at least a couple gears for the same reason modern truck transmissions have stupid low 1st gears and 4x4s have low range.
If you're shooting for 200kph+ speeds there might be a time where a simple high/low transmission may be helpful, but that's supercar territory.
Interestingly, Formula E cars have a 5 speed gearbox, but mostly because the rules says they have to.
This is no longer required. A few teams stuck with the five speed, but most have dropped to three or four speeds.
The Formula E cars still need gearboxes because there isn't a single gear ratio that can provide optimal acceleration between 0 and 175mph with an 18,000 RPM redline. The massive powerband of the motors means that they don't benefit from as many gears as piston engines do, but there is still a benefit to having more than one gear.
The next generation cars will go dual-motor, presumably each with different final drive ratios: a shorter gear on the front motor for low-speed power, and a taller rear end gear for top speed, but this is speculation on my part.
Even in the 2nd season there were teams with 2 gears and since the gen 2 car most are on one now:
https://www.electronicspecifier.com/news/analysis/latest-gen...
That isn't true. Having low gears gives you more torque with less current at slow speeds. Most EVs take the philosophy of "it's easier to just use a more powerful motor than deal with a transmission". But that doesn't mean that a transmission wouldn't be helpful (especially if you want good performance out of a more modest motor, or with fewer batteries that can't produce as much current).
Pretty sure its isn't and that's why 99% of EV don't use them.
That's not how replica cars work. It's not like anyone in Nascar actually races a stock Toyota Camry -- those are just silhouettes and that's how replicas turn out as well. Visually similar, but completely gutted as soon as you open it up.
Some classic "silhouettes" will just be incompatible with modern safety regulations: perhaps there's no room for a side airbag, or the shape of the grille is more lethal to pedestrians than modern cars are allowed.
[0] https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2675...
for people who might be interested in owning a weird or unique vehicle with quite a lot less cost than a $50,000+ electric vehicle...
The 25 year comment reminded me that you can legally import just about anything to the US, including japanese domestic market right hand drives vehicles, as long as its date of manufacture was at least 25 years ago. There's lots of amazingly weird japanese vehicles you can buy for less than $8000 via reputable brokers.
you will want to learn to read the inspection report forms for each vehicle, and the grading system used in japanese used car sales and auctions.
Shipment to a west coast port should be under $1800 USD.
The US federal import paperwork for a 25 year old vehicle is not very onerous or difficult, if you google a bit about it you can find examples of what it looks like.
Your shipment cost makes direct import seem down right sensible.
The DeLorean was never about the relatively anemic, not particularly inspiring-sounding motor, whereas the combustion engine in the former two vehicles is a big part of the appeal.
The magic of the Cobra is the snorting, belching, bucking, roar of a V8 that's barely under control. As an EV, no thanks.
Now, brand-wise, yeah, a muscle car as an EV is just weird.
https://uk.motor1.com/news/405763/morgan-discontinues-electr...
I knew the patent on industrial designs expires after 25 years, but didn't know the NHTSA needed to approve such things
:sob:
A car is ether safe or not. I'm somewhat ok with looser safety requirements as long as customers have to sign a waiver ( and I guess remove the backseats,stop people from putting car seats in the back )
A few years ago I read _Life with an Electric Car_ by Noel Perrin, which is a fascinating look into the re-emergence of EVs and the limitations of early 90s battery technology. His car was a ~1990 Ford Escort which had been converted to battery power by a company in California, and his goal was to pick it up at the factory and drive it home to Vermont.
I'm still not completely ready for an all-electric future, but the book did make me appreciate how far energy storage has progressed in the last 30 years.
Problem is that the usual techniques for making nice curved shapes don't work on such a material, so they used folded metal sheet instead, resulting in that "low poly" look.
Considering that the DeLorean is also made of stainless steel and also has a rather angular shape, you are bound to make the comparison. The necessarily noticed it at Tesla and I am not sure what they intend to do with that. The DeLorean is iconic and (back to the) futuristic, it also had the reputation of a terrible car and was a commercial failure.
That said, the resemblance is unmistakable. The designers could not have been unaware of the dmc-1200.
As for the reputation of the delorean’s quality and commercial failure, I don’t think this would give Elon pause in the slightest. That guy does whatever he wants.
They could also maintain their brand image and sell their mid range luxury models achieving less volume at a higher profitability margin.
Show me where Toyota has casting machines anywhere near the scale of what Tesla is using in Model Y, or board design, or AI chips, or even things like buying experience.
Fundamentally “best” can be reduced to margins because everything else shakes out in a competitive market. Tesla has the best margins, and they will bring that margin advantage down to the $25k price point and Toyota won’t stop them.
The other big number you can look at is depreciation and operating costs. Tesla has the lowest depreciation and operating costs per mile at its price point, making it substantially cheaper to own a $45k Tesla than a $45k ICE.
A $25k Tesla with the same fundamentals could be had for perhaps $200/month with $0 down and would essentially obliterate any passenger car competition in any consumer environment where it’s possible to charge it.
I would not expect Tesla to have any compunction of selling a $25k vehicle under the Tesla brand. I don’t think their S/3/X/Y cachet would be hurt by a smaller sibling.
Toyota has 10s of millions of happy customers, and has car after car after car on top 10 lists, every year. From everything I've read, the Tesla service experience is horrible.
>Tesla has the lowest depreciation
Source for this? Or do you believe they are appreciating, too?
>Tesla has the best margins
You know this stuff is dead simple to look up, right? Toyota has profit and operating margins higher than Tesla. So, no, they aren't "the best".
A Tesla Model 3 after 3/5 years has a residual value of 77.47%/58.96%/45.35%(est), versus for example a BMW 3 Series after 3/5/7 years with a residual of 61.56%/41.71%/34.15%. [2, 3]
And the apt comparison for margins is gross margins not operating margins. Operating Margins will be higher for a stagnant company conversing cash versus a rapidly growing company. Gross margins show you how much they are earning per unit sale, regardless of how much of their profit they are re-investing in future growth.
Tesla automotive gross margins in Q3 were 27.7% versus Toyota gross margins of 18.1%. [4, 5]
[1] - https://www.thestreet.com/tesla/news/tesla-tops-consumer-rep...
[2, 3] - https://caredge.com/tesla/model-3/depreciation https://caredge.com/bmw/3-series/depreciation
[4, 5] - https://tesla-cdn.thron.com/static/4E7BR9_TSLA_Q3_2020_Updat... https://finbox.com/NYSE:TM/explorer/gp_margin
Companies that make high volume low price models...well they shower in money.
"Expand the electric vehicle product line to address all major segments"
https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux
“It was always our goal to try to make an affordable electric car,” said Musk, referring back to his 2006 Tesla Motors Master Plan.
https://www.tesla.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-j...
Rumor is, they are already working on the $25K sedan that's one tier below the Model 3.
https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/tesla-model-2...
That would seem at odds with a one off limited edition.
750,000 preorders means that these low-volume production advantages are mostly moot, but perhaps Tesla will still take advantage of this to create some low volume variants.
Which is the only way you're going to see variants -- the unibody design of the Cybertruck means that coach-builders can't use a cutaway base.
I do wonder how accessible they'll be as even today with mass production getting the color, price, options you want has always been a bit of a hassle / compromise outside of ... cars I don't want ;)
From what I’m told, it wasn’t very well made and on top of that it was underpowered.
So I get the iconic aspect from movie lore. And I get the founder was very... idiosyncratic —and an underdog and ultimately spiraled into making very unfortunate choices.
But other than that, what’s the appeal?
I honestly don’t like back to the future much, not more than any other movie, and it’s popularity from that has dissuaded me from buying one (not to mention the soaring prices due to the film.) Nor do I particularly care about the founder or his choices.
For some, the design simply has a great appeal. An EV refresh would be a dream and I would absolutely buy a somewhat overpriced Tesla produced Delorean.
I’d buy an electric delorian just for the unique style. I love the cybertruck’s look too, and although I wouldn’t buy one because I have no use for a pickup truck right now, I’d like to see more of them on the road and fewer white, gray, and black soap bars.
They do drive well, crash well, and have sweet fuel economy though. So for ICE it’s probably best. I’m happy to see EVs having design flexibility again.
But there is clearly a market for them and if people are willing to pay north of $500,000 for this https://www.cyanracing.com/volvo-p1800-cyan which in all honesty I like much more than the DeLorian there is clearly quite a bit of money to be made here.
I don’t think a DeLorian body kit for a Model 3 would be a particularly complicated engineering venture, and unlike the new Roadster you don’t have to design essentially an electric super car to make it appealing.
The Model 3 performance and range is quite attractive charge $450,000 extra for the nostalgia factor and if you make it a limited edition say 1000 units I can guarantee that they’ll be gone in a minute, heck at that price they might be able to even sell more than that.
And a reboot EV means chance it is well made and overpowered.
Because the doors go like this:
--\__/--[1] https://news.stanford.edu/2019/12/20/autonomous-delorean-dri...
"1981 – The DeLorean Motor Company completed the first production car of the DMC DeLorean (example pictured)."
40 years to the day, what a coincidence.
I suppose that if you like attention it could be a "win". Driving one gets you a lot of attention, even 30+ years after "Back to the Future" came out. The appeal of those movies made that car immortal.
The DMC-12 is a hotbox in the summer and the stock AC just can't keep up. That's my biggest memory. Rolling the window down would be fine, except that the portion that can roll down is tiny. You get no airflow to speak of. If the doors were redesigned so a larger portion of the window rolls down it would help tremendously.
It may just be my body shape, but I can't get comfortable in the seats. I wouldn't want to ride in it for a long time. re: driving - It's probably also the lack of performance, too. If I'm in that more reclined "sporty" driving position I expect some response when I mash the accelerator. As an EV the performance could be radically enhanced. That would definitely be neat.
I felt that visibility was bad. The high window sills, gigantic A pillars, and sloped windowshield always made me feel like I had to second-guess what was going on around the car. The hood is deceptively long, too.
It would be a neat conversation piece to have one, for sure. As an EV it could be made wickedly performant. I think it would still feel like riding in a low-slung box that you are just peeking out over the top of, though.
Some of that could be the R134A conversion. You would typically want things like a larger condenser to get equivalent cooling to the R12 it came with, but that's not always feasible.
Hell yeah! That was one of the issues with the original DeLorean: the body screamed "super fast," but the engine couldn't really keep up with the expectation.
Did you turn on the flux capacitor?
Sure, it's never going to be BMW, but I don't think it wants to be.
Basically whatever they produce will end up being a collectors item of some sort.
[0] https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/back-future-delorean-plans...
Maybe they are full of shit and always have been. But I could see a good team with limited resources realizing how in over their heads they are 10 years ago, only to circle back today and be able to pull it off.
Doc answers brilliantly: "Hey hey! keep rolling there! no no no no no this sucker is electrical! But I needed a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity I need!"
Geez that's how nuclear power advocates should describe their "electrical generating stations"
Anyway, fun to hear that an electric version may come about. If it charges from a nuclear-heavy area it will indeed be as doc said.
So this solution has been staring us in the face. Really they should've just dropped in a motor as part of the hover conversion.
"Mr Fusion" could product 1.21GW.
For about a tenth of a second. It then needed a recharge, so about 33kWh, half that of a Model 3
And to paraphrase him, if you are going to drive, you might as well do it in style. That kind of is the point of a DeLorean. Its engine never was the selling point; rather the opposite.
We could be looking for a future resembling what we have today in some formula categories that are basically a power unit paired with a dallara or lolla chassis.
VW has invested monumental amounts in this but I imagine will keep it all locked down to the VAG family. Perhaps they're open to licensing opportunities. Canoo ($GOEV) on the other hand is in the news for their skateboard platform being adopted by Hyundai/Kia and potentially being the base of the new Apple car.
In theory DMC could build upon a Canoo skateboard, or license another EV startups skateboard.
I wonder if an Android like fragmentation of the market makes sense here - a company like Google developing and maintaining the software, another customizing it to fit inside custom hardware.
I guess there are further software parallels in the build vs buy debate.
The front and back part of the car, Tesla creates them in a single peace casting, is directly connected to the battery.
The finished product:
https://i2.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/202...
With batteries:
https://www.thedrive.com/content-b/message-editor%2F16008149...
Here is the first leaked picture of what it will look like inside:
https://preview.redd.it/99vbj85b0jc61.png?width=664&format=p...
I would expect the frame and engine/transmission to be more of a concern. I'd be doubly suspect of the electrical components, since it's a 20th century British car.
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a34673012/where-is-the...
And some history on DeLorean overall:
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15352382/back-to-the-futu...
…and it’s a pretty wild history.
Seems to me this is a giant loophole. Like as if Coca Cola re-released an old recipe with real coke in it and everyone just went "Sure! It's authentic!"
Could someone enlighten me?
the key for those loopholes is low volume and similar limits. It allows to start making cars, like Tesla had with original Roadster which otherwise wouldn't be let on the public roads. I think it is a great approach in US to have those limited loopholes in various domains which allow to start making things - such loopholes are absent in for example Russia (my old country) and through the Europe and that affects the entrepreneurship and innovation.
It very likely does but it also saves a lot of peoples lives each day. I mean, not only niche cars, but not having good basic safety in general on the roads. Road fatalities per one billion vehicle km is at 7.3 in the US according to Wikipedia. The worst Scandinavian country is Denmark with 3.9. I guess it comes down to if you want Freedom To Do Stupid Things (like no helmets on a motorcycle).
That said, I don't think you can compare a Tesla Roadster to a 1981 car in safety. I agree there should be some allowance for niche cars but 40 year old safety being sold as new?
something like this. Though those stupid things aren't niche cars or any other innovations. It is plain old stupidity - US has 10K/year DUI related deaths, Denmark - 75/year, 2x less per capita. Also bigger cars popular in US like trucks - while fully public road certified, they are conceptually and engineering wise are relatively behind the curve - resulting in more deadly accidents.
TIL.
From a government perspective, as long as these cars are niche, they probably don't mind so much. I can go and buy a 1955 Morris Minor fairly easily and it won't have seatbelts, but the assumption is that I would be aware the car doesnt meet modern safety standards.
Your laws are not EU-wide, by the way. Most of the EU doesn't require the approved parts to pass inspection, and only requires the inspection at regular intervals, not after every repair.
>only requires the inspection at regular intervals, not after every repair.
This is how it is in Scandinavian countries too by EU law (well, in EU member states, I don't know about Norway). It is inspection every 4 years or if it is a vintage car (30+ yro) every 8. You also don't need "approved parts" (what does that even mean?) and I can freely buy parts from the US and Germany and use if I want to and have done so (I have a US-only model motorcycle).
The manufacture have to get all their car types certified by the state, like how NCAP crash-test one of each model, and if it is certified in one EU country it is in all. But if you change the car significantly (like upgrade an old 80's Trans-Am with modern parts) you have to get it certified all over again for that one car as it is now a unique untested car. Possible but extremely expensive. Sure it doesn't give you the freedom to drive some of the homemade monstrosities some drive in the US but it also doesn't block niche cars or vintage cars.
Germany is really crazy about TUV approving everything down to plastic grill. MCM covered it during their visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yO1S-zICX4
They definitely needed to iterate on the design a few times. The gull wing doors were super cool, but also highly failure prone. The engine desperately needed a turbocharger which was in the works when DMC folded. The electrics were typical British 80s fire hazards. One good thing is that unlike many cars of the era it is not plagued with blistering or peeling paint.
I wouldn't dare call 2900lbs fat though.
My 1982 Honda Accord weighed 2100lbs. Everything back then, before air bags, ABS, and other safety features, weighed considerably less. Honda CRX with a manual transmission weighed in at 1700lbs. So I stand by my statement, the DeLoren was chunky. :)
So what if it doesn't have crazy horsepower? It's a plaything like any other sports car but more emphasis on style.
What are you gonna do in bumper to bumper traffic anyway other than look good?
I speculate the widespread ability to do small scale manufacture of the base skateboard (wheels, motors, battery, "frame" part of body on frame) dropping to $5000 in about 10 years.
Sure it might not get the range / weight advantage of Big Auto EVs (that is, once the rest of Big Auto starts to close the gap with Tesla), but it will probably still do 200 miles for daily driving or fun driving. It probably won't have slick software, won't self-drive, etc.
Then there is the drop-in engine replacements. Again, once batteries get cheap and good enough, you can probably get a 100-150 mile range on a all-in-one battery+motor drop in for a, for example, chevy big block. Stick shifts could do regen with the old "engine braking", or single pedal driving could probably be done too.
But it might save a vast array of old cars. If the cheap skateboard can be tailored for the old car wheelbase/dimensions, you could see old cadillacs rolling around with these inside of them.
Yes I know strictly speaking it's a blog post from today.
If the question is "How did John Delorean get his start?" it seems to me like "at General Motors" is a better answer than "by buying LMC".
What I intended was: Hey, John DeLorean started a car company with his name on the door, which is super-cool. If I wanted to go get started on creating Sokoloff Motors, what's the background I should seek to maximize my chance of succeeding? I wonder how John DeLorean got his start... In that regard, becoming a division head at GM is probably overwhelmingly the most relevant experience.
I'll drop the topic here with a final apology for any unfairness or "gotcha" feeling that I caused.
When I was in school they tried to teach us self-esteem and all that, and that nobody else could make us feel any certain way. Water off a duck's back and all that. There's a little truth to that, but it's largely bullshit. The real truth they didn't so much teach is that conversation is not happenstance and although such a thing as talent for it may be real, it's mostly a skillset. It can be practiced and learned. It can even be trained.
One of you said something that wasn't quite unambiguously clear, which is an opportunity to improve. The other took one of those possible meanings and ran with it, offering a different valid interpretation of the phrasing and a correction based on that point of view. That's another opportunity to improve. Getting to the shared understanding first rather than after the fact would have been nice, but we're all human (or at least passed this instance of the Turing test) here.
Thanks for not being a dick about it, and I for one happily accept your apology.
Woah! Can you imagine what the cars today would look like if they hadn't and became a huge hit following the movie's status!?
Truly iconic.
What cars today are you talking about?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_DeLorean#Arrest_and_trial
They wouldn't need roads...
(Disappointed this one doesn't appear to have flight or time travel capabilities planned tbh. Battery tech obviously needs more work)
(My 2 grumpy cents)
And even if it was, why 'would it not make it far'? Cars are made out of steel, stainless steal worse then other types of steel.
The first car that is actually structurally stainless steel will by the Cybertruck as far as I know.
Either way, I'm in.
The idea that Tesla has an economic moat is laughable. GM also thought they were untouchable. Where are they now?
The cars, they're just the providing a market for the above
There are already tons of EV companies and all the big automakers are already producing EV as well. Just in terms of pure electric vehicle you have Rivian, Lucid in the US, there is Xpeng, NIU and others in China, and those are already valued in the billions.
Tesla skeptics have been saying 'competition is coming' for literally 6 years now. I literally read that story every single year. And in those 6 years Tesla increased its global market share every single year.
Comparing Tesla and GM makes no sense what so ever, GM was toppled like 100 years, like 30 years after it has peaked in sales. Tesla on the other hand is more like a startup growing year over year by around 40%.
Based on your other comment you have some believe that some other companies might simply show up with superior batteries and massively improve on what Tesla (and others have). This will not actually happen if you understand how the battery industry works. And even if it does, it would take year and year after the first car with a new battery is produced, to reach anywhere close to real volume production. (You seem to believe they are 'ramping up production now, which is simply false no idea where you got this from).
Go look at QuantumScape manufacturing plan and even if you assume Toyota or somebody will get there twice as fast (not very likely) the numbers will not actually be enough to be mainstream. Toyota has been talking about their solid state tech for years and no car with it will come out for years.
Tesla on the other hand has a 30ish% silicon anode battery going in huge volume production this year and the amount of silicon will grow every year after tat. And the main advantage of silicon anodes is that you can put them into traditional factory, you know all those 10s of billions of factories that are being built right now (compared to 10s of millions for solid state factories). That is why Tesla and many others, including just as many startups (SILA for example) bet on silicon anodes and not solid state.
My bet is that by 2030 the majority of EV produced will not be solid state, rather traditional but with a high silicon graphite anode.
Availability of batteries will be the moat and will continue to be so for many more years. Just in terms of material sourcing alone there is a huge bottle neck.
> Where are they now?
GM still exits and still produces a huge amount of cars, like millions, including electric cars. They are building a copy of the Tesla Nevada factory (ie 35GW per year plant)
You simply don't know what these automotive giants are planning (possibly colluding), have been planning but what is certain is that they signaled mass production of EV vehicles.
More importantly I know about global battery capacity and how new capacity gets added and how much. I also know how much lithium, cobalt and nickel is mined and how much needs to be mined for the global industry.
You still believe that Tesla is some small player that is gone get crushed by the larger competition. Tesla has a higher market cap, easier time to raise cash, is the largest consumer of Li-Ion, has the largest long term supply contracts for materials, is close partner to all major battery producers (LG,CATL,Panasonic) and they are by far the most vertically integrated and they will soon add their own batteries to mix. In a 3-4 years Tesla will be one of the bigger battery producers in the world themselves.
We also know have a good idea how long it takes car makers to produce new vehicles and secure the supply chain. Look at 'all in on EV' GM, they are building a massive battery factory that by 2025 will be smaller then Giga Nevada is right now. In that same time Tesla plans to build another factory that will more then double or triple output of current Nevada and Giga Nevada will continue to grow as well.
Ford has no supply chain at all in North America and relies on LG in Poland. We know about how much output is planned from there and most of that is not for Ford. Ford has already realized that their idea of just 'buying what in the market' will limited them a huge amount.
Batteries can not be magically created, nor can lithium mines. We already know about all the battery factories that will go online and we know where they will send most of their supply. Nobody will catch up to Tesla in the next couple years.
Today's winner can easily be tomorrow's winner. What's wrong with arguing that Elon Musk might not be the all seeing eye and the demigod that his followers elevate him to?
We ARE in the biggest asset bubble in history, that might have to do with skewing the true value of a company that is considered worth more than the top 3 automakers combined.
Maybe it can also be powered by Mr. Fusion.
Low availability and high cost of replacement parts, not many mechanics are familiar with them, need to avoid scratching them in any way because you don't paint them...
Not to mention gas consumption, safety, etc.
You can make a profitable business from a DeLorean. Like selling wedding photos and such... but as an everyday car it is not the right choice.
Many jurisdictions around the world are already banning the sale of new ICE vehicles from about 2030
I would be shocked if any company anywhere is sinking R&D money into designing new ICE motors, and I believe we're seeing the last evolution that will ever come. They'll keep building what they've already designed, but they're not going to sink billions into designing new ones.
Yes, yes, tractors and transport trucks and whatever will persist, but I think for mass produced passenger vehicles, we'll never see another big ICE R&D breakthrough like Variable valve timing or variable vane turbos or overhead camshafts. It's over.