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[MrDude_1]

Sure the modern engine has multiple moving parts. However its design and operation is well refined and understood, so "parts to wear out" becomes moot at production levels.

Not really. Ask a car service tech about "pattern failures" - this is when a particular model of car has an issue in the design where it always breaks in a certain way and always needs the same repair. A recall is where this pattern failure is so bad it could get someone hurt or killed and needs to be proactively fixed. That shows the designs are not quite so well understood.

And moving parts wear out or go out of adjustment.

A modern ICE vehicle is just designed to wear out past the warranty period.

An electric bike is "simple" in that it's got very few moving parts to fail or wear out, and "simple" in that there's no maintenance.

The main "part" that wears is the battery chemistry, and the bikes are new enough we haven't reached an answer on that.

Sure, the controller and BMS are really complicated, but the good thing is it's all solid state digital electronics, which is really robust once it gets past the "bathtub curve" of initial failures. Except for the contactors, there's no moving parts to wear and a lot fewer failure modes.

It's like when ICE went from points to electronic ignition. You had weights spinning on springs at engine RPM to set the timing advance and a breaker that had to be fine-tuned as to the exact opening point. That went out of adjustment (or just plain broke) in a couple months and the regular tune-up cleaning it and setting it back to the correct positions made a big difference.

Now you don't hear of an "igniter box" failing pretty much ever. It just keeps on truckin' and you never have to tune it up.

It's a lot more complex internally than the simple spinning weights and cammed breaker, and needs to be made in a clean room semiconductor foundry, but it's got a lot less failure modes.

I can't produce a modern battery, but I'm sure there's folks on this forum that could wind their own motors and make their own controllers from discrete semiconductor components. You can probably make a lead-acid battery at home too.

It won't be a Zero, but then your homemade simple piston engine in your garage won't be a CBR engine either.

 im hearing you say: "ICE vehicles have failures that come out over time, sometimes in cycles and need to be refined but they never get to it. They make it work just long enough for the warranty." then go on about how the electric isnt reliable now, but "parts need time and refinement to be reliable"...

didn't you learn your lesson? unless you're refining your own vehicle, you're dependent upon the manufacturer.
They are not going to go back and redesign your vehicle. They will tweak theirs as needed for the warranty period, but then move on. If you try to make a system perfect before shipping it, it never ships.

This will not change with electric vehicles. This remains identical to ICE vehicles.

What you are complaining about with ICE, still applies to electrics. Nothing has changed.. except your misguided outlook on the complexity, and your opinion of the company it comes from.


Personally I find the dismissal of EV complexity an insult to the engineers that work at it.

[firepower]

Modern solid state electronics is extremely complex at a molecular / chemistry level and micro circuit level.
But taken as a component and circuit level you can basically build advance circuit following instructions with out even knowing electronic theory. It's become almost as simple as Lego.

Simplicity is that the batteries , motor and controllers are complete assemblies and can be wired together easily.many have converted their bikes and cars with no electrical or electronic training.

Modern electronics is very robust if you stay within its design parameters.
 Components are simpler and definitely less maintance
Ice has had a century of engineering and world wars to advance it. EV have only had a decade and took  advantage of  li-ion due to mobile devices.

[mrwilsn]

Personally I find the dismissal of EV complexity an insult to the engineers that work at it.

So, I'm looking under the hood of a car with an IC motor and I see this small brick?!?! I look a little closer and it's a BATTERY!?!?! What's it doing in an IC vehicle??  I thought those things run on Dinosaur juice.  I follow the cables and discover that this battery is connected to a small ELECTRIC motor and there is a little box with some electronics in it and it CONTROLS the voltage from this battery and turns the electric motor.  Seems this electric drive train hiding in the IC vehicle is required in order to get this Rube Goldberg machine started!  And it's been there for decades! Who knew that ICE drive trains were so complex they need an electric drive train added just to get moving in the first place!

So I realize, just get rid of the rube goldberg machine....add more batteries....make the controller and the motor bigger and BOOM...pure electric EV....MUCH simpler.  I get rid of a ton of extra moving parts that are prone to failure and the car still works great and its quieter!

Complex engineering does NOT equal a complex machine.  What makes a machine complex?!?!

Well....let's take a look at the guidelines for a Rube Goldberg Machine competition...

A step in the machine is a transfer of energy from one action to another action. Identical transfers of energy in succession should be counted as 1 step.
Example: A sequence of dominos hitting each other should be counted as 1 step. Counting 100 dominoes as 100 steps is repetitive and not in the spirit of Rube Goldberg.

Cool....so just add steps that use energy and thus make the machine less efficient.

How efficient are ICE?  18%-20%
How efficient is an EV? 85%-90%

Sounds like the EV is much simpler.

The fact that an EV is a marvel of engineering does not make it complex and I don't know a single engineer that will get insulted if you tell them the design of their machine is simple and elegant....more likely they will get a smile on their face....unless they are competing in a Rube Goldberg Machine contest in which case you might as well have just punched them in the face!

[MrDude_1]

Personally I find the dismissal of EV complexity an insult to the engineers that work at it.

So, I'm looking under the hood of a car with an IC motor and I see this small brick?!?! I look a little closer and it's a BATTERY!?!?! What's it doing in an IC vehicle??  I thought those things run on Dinosaur juice.  I follow the cables and discover that this battery is connected to a small ELECTRIC motor and there is a little box with some electronics in it and it CONTROLS the voltage from this battery and turns the electric motor.  Seems this electric drive train hiding in the IC vehicle is required in order to get this Rube Goldberg machine started!  And it's been there for decades! Who knew that ICE drive trains were so complex they need an electric drive train added just to get moving in the first place!

So I realize, just get rid of the rube goldberg machine....add more batteries....make the controller and the motor bigger and BOOM...pure electric EV....MUCH simpler.  I get rid of a ton of extra moving parts that are prone to failure and the car still works great and its quieter!

Complex engineering does NOT equal a complex machine.  What makes a machine complex?!?!

Well....let's take a look at the guidelines for a Rube Goldberg Machine competition...

A step in the machine is a transfer of energy from one action to another action. Identical transfers of energy in succession should be counted as 1 step.
Example: A sequence of dominos hitting each other should be counted as 1 step. Counting 100 dominoes as 100 steps is repetitive and not in the spirit of Rube Goldberg.

Cool....so just add steps that use energy and thus make the machine less efficient.

How efficient are ICE?  18%-20%
How efficient is an EV? 85%-90%

Sounds like the EV is much simpler.

The fact that an EV is a marvel of engineering does not make it complex and I don't know a single engineer that will get insulted if you tell them the design of their machine is simple and elegant....more likely they will get a smile on their face....unless they are competing in a Rube Goldberg Machine contest in which case you might as well have just punched them in the face!

You're clearly one of the loony EV people without perspective.
Its people like you that make it hard for the rest of us to change the perception of electric vehicles.
You need to check yourself and see if you have an actual point to get across before replying... you're just arguing and pandering for the sake of insulting.

[firepower]

His points were valid, I don't see what's Looney. Why would any car or bike start up today choose to invest in ICE when EV are so much simpler and simpler to manufacture. Especially when you can buy from OEM , batteries, motors, controllers , or design your own and have them manufactured by OEM like Zero are doing.

Even ICE manufactures are getting into EV , Even CEO of GM claimed killing the EV1 was a big mistake.

The idea of start motor > drive motor makes sense, of course it be different motor design , same as controllers and batteries, but the logical thought and design is valid.

ICE developed because fuel supply could be controlled and profitted greatly from, even to the extent of lobbying to get electric trams removed from cities. Same reason hydrogen is being pushed , when direct battery storage is so much more efficient.

[mrwilsn]

You're clearly one of the loony EV people without perspective.

Dude! I'm a loony EV person trying to GIVE perspective (or more accurately, context) to the two completely different arguments (Electric motors are simple...and....EVs are just as complex as ICE).  I apologize if I offended you....that wasn't my intent.

You need to check yourself and see if you have an actual point to get across before replying... you're just arguing and pandering for the sake of insulting.

I'll summarize...

1. Comparing the gas engine (not including ECU, gas, gas tank etc.) to the entire EV drive train (battery, controller, and EV) isn't a fair comparison.
2. All of the basic components for an EV are already in every vehicle with a gas engine.  4 out of 5 people would agree that its a simpler design if you can take a car, remove a bunch of stuff that requires lots of maintenance and the car still works just by making whats left bigger.
3. Some of the simplest designs still require a lot of difficult engineering.  Calling an EV simple isn't an insult to EV engineers.

Exhibit A: Luke Workman, EV engineer, describing ICE as a Rube Goldberg machine and then going on to say how much simpler it is to have an EV drive train.

Inside Batteries: Zero Motorcycles Senior Battery Specialist, Luke Workman

Its people like you that make it hard for the rest of us to change the perception of electric vehicles.

Telling people that an EV is just as complex as in ICE without the proper context isn't helping the perception of electric vehicles.

Argument 1: Electric motors are simple.
Context: Electric motors require less steps and fewer moving components that can fail to turn energy into motion.

Argument 2: EVs are just as complex as ICE.
Context: Just because a design is simple doesn't mean there isn't a lot of complex engineering that goes into making the end product.

[drumgadget]

Oops!  Correct ..... my apologies to MrDude.

I still like the description - the advent of the high voltage/high current capacity Li chemistry battery "system" caught me napping in the Pb/acid gel cell stone age!

M.

BenS, I really like your description of the "battery" in an ebike - albeit a more modern one than my 2011 S with its 336 individual Molicells .......

Still running OK, though ..................

Mike

That wasn't my description, that was quoted from mrdude's lecture.

[MostlyBonkers]

This topic feels a bit familiar, in an uncomfortable way.

A modern CPU is an extremely complex piece of engineering and yet very reliable. They are often in machines that are left on all the time, like servers, and yet they keep running without fault for years.

Many individual components may be complex, like the BMW engines or EV motor controllers, but if they are reliable the whole system can be reliable. I don't think anyone here would ever suggest that either ICE bikes or EV's aren't complex. I think Richard's comment was about how the overall design of having relatively few components in an EV makes it simpler to grasp and perhaps less interesting to watch animations about.

Moving parts are what tend to have higher failure rates. Solid state electronics should generally be more reliable, though for how long I'm not sure. Televisions often last twenty years or more without a problem. That BMW engine will still work in fifty years time if cared for. Will the electronics that control it still work then? You can't maintain chips. Who cares other than vintage bike collectors who might actually want to ride them?

For the normal service life of a bike (10-20 years), I think electric bikes have the potential to be far more reliable than their ICE ancestors without any maintenance. EV's will become obsolete much quicker though. I don't expect to see any unmodified Zero 2015 bikes on the road in ten years time. I very much doubt there will be very many ICE bikes on the road by then either. Not for everyday use at least.

Is there anything to argue about? The writing is on the wall for ICE in all it's forms and it's time the world wakes up to it, I think.