Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

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electric motors are dead simple. There isn't much to improve.

But the entire system of the vehicle, and the way we use vehicles, and the way those form factors affect society and people's lives are very, very complex. So basically, the shift in technology is going to enable changes and improvements in all of those ways.

Also, look at what Tesla, Lucid, and even Volkswagen have been able to achieve in terms of innovations just to date. Tesla has found ways to let electric motors spin faster, drive vehicles more efficiently, get built cheaper, and without rare earths. Lucid has Tesla beat in terms of comparable capacity in smaller packaging. Even Volkswagen has impressed Munroe and associates with some of their design around motors.

I'd bet you can find people mistakenly saying, "there isn't much to improve," in internal combustion engines over their long history. Even now, this isn't correct. I suspect 21st century innovation in vehicles is just beginning!

I think you will find that there is a certain tolerance for complex systems, and when one part of the system gets simpler, you have to scramble as a user to claw back that reduction for yourself. Only some companies pay that dividend entirely to the user. Some keep it for themselves, and others split it with you.

Which is to say, if the drivetrain gets simpler, the rest of the car will become more complex. Some of that could be good, like more/better heat pumps, but some of it will be complecting other parts of the car.

> But the entire system of the vehicle, and the way we use vehicles, and the way those form factors affect society and people's lives are very, very complex.

But that's no different from combustion cars. What matters is that the motor (by far the most complex part of a combustion car) is now a simple part in an electric car. The rest stays about the same in terms of complexity. So the overall complexity has gone down!

Say a combustion car had 100 complexity units, of which the motor has 50, the rest has also 50.

For a electric vehicle the complexity of the motor is say, 5 units. The rest is the same. So the overall complexity is 55.

You may ask why electric cars are so much more expensive when they are less complex. The obvious answer is that the batteries are expensive.

But that's no different from combustion cars.

False. EVs enable tunnels with far less ventilation. Electric motors enable form factors which would be impractical with an ICE engine.

Say a combustion car had 100 complexity units, of which the motor has 50, the rest has also 50.

You're still limiting your thinking to the motive function of a single car. That's not the entirety of what I'm discussing here.

Those improvements are the transfer of existing motor innovation to cars or improvements to supporting technology.

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