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Comment by rewiuoeriouf | Hacker News Reader

I'm very curious why this statement is so unpopular. It's demonstrably true, at the current moment.

The main reason is that both EVs and ICE vehicles have complex supply chains that are currently being disrupted. It isn't like ICE vehicle's supply chains can't be disrupted like an EV supply chain, it is just disrupted by different things.

I ordered a Ford Maverick Hybrid last year in October. Things that have been constraining items for Ford in that last year: Spray in Bed Liner

Co-Pilot 360 (Blind spot monitoring and such which is on both regular gas vehicles and hybrids)

Luxury Package (Again available across both gas and hybrid, I believe because of heated seats)

Tonneau Cover (Again available across both gas and hybrid)

Mud Flaps

Overall EVs are mostly new vehicles, new vehicles tend to require new parts so the supply chains are younger and less robust. Older EVs such as the Chevy Bolt seem to be available right now.

All of the things you mention are electronics, which are at least (arguably) optional, or at least minimal, on an ICE.

I am not saying an ICE is a better idea. I'm saying that an EV is, by some definition, unreliable from the drawing board onwards.

To really put the cat among the pigeons - does this make it, in a practical sense, less sustainable?

Not all.

AFAIK the spray-in bedliner is a physical component.

Tonneau cover, depends on the model. Mine, there was a slight delay, but FWIW was a 'rolling' (i.e. no electronics) style.

Mud flaps, pretty sure are not electronic.

As another 'ancillary' item, wiring harnesses have been hard to come by, which has an impact on both ICE and EVs. Electronic, but not a silicon supply constrained component per se.

My bad, missed those.

My point still stands - a dependency on electronics, and especially cutting-edge electronics, makes you dependendent on a complex and fragile global ecosystem.

So does depending on anything with plastics or steel

Electronics are not minimal on an ICE. Sure on a very old diesel engine you could make that argument. But modern cars require a whole suite of electronics just for the engine to function. You have position sensors, engine controllers, air flow sensors, emissions sensors, CAN bus modules. Sure it is possible to make a vehicle without those but that vehicle will not be nearly as efficient as modern vehicles, won't run nearly as long, and people won't buy it.

Largely the main issue is reliability has nothing to do with it. It is all producibility. Currently every car company is struggling with producing vehicles ICE or EV. Nobody is asking is the Ford Bronco sustainable? Even though the wait time is longer than the Ioniq 5. Vehicles that people are not as excited about like the Prius or the Bolt are available right now.

You could make a perfectly usable ICE-powered vehicle from scratch in a blacksmith's forge, and indeed that's basically how the earliest ones were made.

Good luck doing that with an electric vehicle.

That isn't really a worthwhile path to go down. Since said vehicle would be barely functionable. If that is the threshold I can wrap copper wire to make my own electric motor and put thousands of potato batteries in parallel to connect to it. Then control speed by manually touching the wires together.

I believe the first EV might even predate the first ICE vehicle.

Reference: https://www.energy.gov/timeline/timeline-history-electric-ca....

https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-advice/who-invented-the-fir....

"Barely functional" in what sense?

The vehicle you could make with a "Black smiths forge" would be barely functional by todays standards. If your standard is something that converts stored energy into motion EVs and ICE takes similar levels of technology to implement. Which is why they were both invented around similar times.

>Which is why they were both invented around similar times.

The ease with which you can make oil-based fuels convert chemical energy into mecahnical motion, is the reason that EV development largely stopped until quite recently. Efficient EVs are the pinnacle of materials and electronics engineering.

It seems like just the opposite to me. The current wave of EVs are very early technologies that stem from neglecting the cost of batteries for a long time.

15-20 years from now, they'll likely look more like the pinnacle of engineering, but they are actually pretty crude right now.

> The current wave of EVs are very early technologies

The efficiencies of the various powertrain components are very high (eg, charging efficiency and motor controller efficiency). I really don't see how they can be improved by very much.

The main area of improvement is the battery.

>they are actually pretty crude right now

Interesting. I am assured that they are the latest and greatest in motorised transport!

> >they are actually pretty crude right now

> Interesting. I am assured that they are the latest and greatest in motorised transport!

These two concepts are not mutually exclusive.

In that case I'll hold off on buying an EV until these new, futuristic and not at all crude vehicles get made.

Hopefully by then, we'll have solved the problem of how to sustainably fuel both the manufacturing process and the fuelling of EVs.

Again, what are you defining as "barely functional"? What would they not do, what would be lacking?

Bear in mind that no-one cares about things like iPhone integration, reversing cameras, lane assist, or any of the other pointless crap that overcomplicates modern vehicles.

>That isn't really a worthwhile path to go down

It sure is. Given a year in my garage, I bet I can make a more useful, power-converting device from scratch using internal combustion tech than using electronics.

>I believe the first EV might even predate the first ICE vehicle.

I also believe that is true. What's old is new again - time to get rid of those "dinosuar tech" ICEs and move on to...the even older EV?

Somehow electric delivery trucks are the new hotness, yet here in the UK, (lead-acid powered) milk floats are also a symbol of a byegone age.

Given they were invented around the same time a combustion engine and electric motor take a similar level of technology to create. They require a certain level of machining and material sciences. The biggest changes that have occurred is in the "fuel" massive leaps have been made in oil refining and battery tech.

Getting any kind of performance and efficiency out of an electric motor requires a sophisticated controller, which is why development of EVs stalled for so long. Semiconductor tech has only recently progressed to a point that makes this viable. This says nothing of battery tech, which has also seriously lagged.

Even now, EVs barely compete on practically any metric with ICE cars (except tailpipe emissions) - in my opinion, the main drivers of market demand for EVs is marketing for the new shiny, and government regulation (at least here in the EU/UK. It will be illegal to manufacture an ICE, quite soon).

Electric motor controls have been around a very long time. That isn't to say they haven't gotten better but I would say the largest part of the motor controllers that requires sophistication is regenerative braking and such. But just controlling a motor speed has been around for many years, example hybrid electric trains, elevators, water pumps. Motor controllers were not the limiting factor for EVs it was battery tech. Not sure what metrics you are looking at but EVs cost less per mile to operate, accelerate faster, are quieter, and have lower maintenance. Those may not be the metrics you look for but saying EVs can't compete is ridiculous.

>Electric motor controls have been around a very long time.

Not in a format that is useful for EVs, there hasn't. Only recent developments in semiconductors have made it viable to design a motor controller that is very efficient across a broad range of torques and speeds, and is also lightweight and cheap enough for use in a small passengar vehicle.

>example hybrid electric trains, elevators, water pumps.

Those examples of controllers have almost nothing in common with modern EV controllers.

> Not sure what metrics you are looking at but EVs cost less per mile to operate, accelerate faster, are quieter, and have lower maintenance.

Let's have a look at those.

I am not convinced that the "cost per mile to operate" has been fully worked out over the full lifetime and ownership of an EV - we have yet to see how the overall economics of EV ownership will work out as they filter down the 2nd hand market chain.

We will also see how the cost of maintentance works out - EVs are not currently known for being reliable.

https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/ev-reliability-varied-as-...

Accelerating quicker - well, that's fine, if you want to burn through battery, and mess around at the lights. It's also not too hard to find or modify a car to make it have more acceleration.

That just leaves quieter - which is an undeniable benefit, if only it were safe for multi-ton hunks of mobile metal to be silent. As it is, all the EVs I've seen have speaker-generated tones at low speeds.

That's certainly true for Newcomen's atmospheric engine, and possibly true for Watt's steam engine, but certainly not for an Otto cycle engine. You would at the very least need a lathe and mill to make the precision parts necessary.

Come to think of it, a video series about bootstrapping a 19th century machine shop from a 15th century blacksmith's shop would be extremely interesting.

Here we have an advantage, because we don't really need to make any precision components - we have millions of them just lying around.

>When people talk about the "reliability" of EVs

I haven never heard of somebody talking about the "reliability" of a car, or any other durable good, in reference to the reliability of its supply chain. Saying that a product has a fragile supply chain is not a valid counterargument to somebody touting its reliability.

"EVs have an especially fragile supply chain" could be a true statement on its own, but "EVs have a fragile supply chain, therefore they're unreliable" is only true if we use a different definition of "reliability" than people typically use in the context you gave.

Interesting thing to think about, eh? I think we are going through a permanent shift in the availability of electronic components, and this idea will become more widespread (that is, the reliability of supply chains),

Not really. Also using words in a different way than everyone else doesn't make you insightful, it makes you a bad communicator.

Presumably because the supply chain problems have also been impacting non-EV vehicles. Peugeot last year had to switch back to analogue dashes on some models as the electronics for the fancy screens weren’t available.

At least that is an option for a non-EV! Maybe Hyundai should work on a mechanical or otherwise analogue motor controller.

Now you are thinking outside the box! why don't Hyundai just use a potentiometer to control the motor.

They can even make it go to 11 on the performance spec.

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