EVs vs. ICE Automobiles: An Overview
Part I of II
By Dan Harkey
This article comprehensively overviews the differences between electric vehicles (EVs) and internal combustion engine (ICE) automobiles. It delves into their history, advantages, and disadvantages and sheds light on the pivotal role of government intervention and market forces in shaping the adoption of EVs. It also explores the strengths and weaknesses of both types of vehicles and the intricate manufacturing processes and raw materials involved in their production. The article underscores the importance of understanding the interplay between individual choice, market forces, and government policies in the automotive industry.
Electric motor-driven automobiles (EVs) and internal combustion engines (ICEs) are not just vehicles; they are technological marvels with unique features that set them apart. These distinctive features make these vehicles so fascinating and worthy of our attention.
- EVs and ICEs, the subjects of our discussion, have a rich history spanning 130-150 years, a testament to the enduring legacy of automotive innovation and the evolution of transportation. This rich history connects us to the past and helps us appreciate the journey of automotive technology.
- The first EV battery-operated vehicle was in 1832.
- The first ICE was about 1863, some 30 years later.
- They are both fascinating feats of engineering, and surprisingly, they work well.
- Each has advantages and disadvantages.
- It's crucial to recognize that individual choice plays a significant role in a society driven by market forces. This is particularly true in the automotive industry, where your decisions are respected and considered, shaping the landscape. Your choices matter and have the power to influence the direction of the industry.
- When the government forces its preferred transportation solution, there will be pushback because it is about control of the people rather than the climate or economic efficiencies.
https://www.energy.gov/timeline/timeline-history-electric-car
Automobile (car) vs. vehicle:
A vehicle is anything mechanical that moves. Vehicles include wagons, bicycles, electric bicycles, motorcycles, trucks, scooters, watercraft, amphibious vehicles, aircraft, helicopters, trains, airplanes, automobiles, and even covered wagons.
An automobile, commonly called a car, is a specific type of vehicle, usually four-wheeled, designed primarily for passenger transportation. It is one of many vehicle subsets, including many mechanical devices that move, from bicycles to airplanes.
EV owners love their cars; ICE owners love their vehicles.
An internal combustion engine (ICE) weighs between 400 and 800 lbs. In an EV, the electrical motor may weigh only 100 lbs. and requires a substantial direct current (DC) battery as the power source to propel the EV forward.
Most electric car motors use alternating current (AC); the battery must receive its electricity in direct current (DC), which requires a conversion device. Therefore, a conversion from alternative to direct current, either onboard or outside the vehicle, is required. Power from the grid is always AC.
- A Toyota Hybrid Battery weighs about 118 pounds
- A Tesla battery weighs between 1,060 and 1,700 pounds
- A truck battery can weigh 3,000 to 10,000 lbs for a commercial vehicle
- A semi-truck electric battery can weigh up to 16,000 lbs
The propulsion mechanisms that drive the vehicle forward differ radically between EVs and ICEs.
The cost of the entire production process of EVs and ICEs, annual maintenance, the capital outlay for replacing parts, and how to dispose of them when they are crushed into a recycle cube have similarities.
It's important to note that the adoption of EVs, which currently account for 6.5% of America's automobile stock, has been influenced by various factors. These include government forces, compulsory tax incentives, and public relations propaganda, which have played a role alongside market dynamics.
Both car purchase decisions have merits, but both have significant weaknesses. Many EV and ICE owners have raised their love affairs and affections to cult status, with open hostilities toward those who oppose them. I am a lifetime, card-carrying member of the ICE cult club, and my neighbor belongs to the EV cult club.
We peacefully coexist, but government interference vs. market forces separate us into chosen classes determined by our elite leaders for their power through political expediency. The EV market was created using significant government subsidies. Tax incentives that benefit EV drivers with free or discounted home electricity costs have helped EV sales increase significantly.
Most people do not want the government to force them to choose based on political motivations and ambitions to control them. Unfortunately, that is what is going on. Market forces are always better. The EV market is currently stalling for all the right reasons.
Which is the Best, EV or ICE?
You can research far and wide and will find supporting evidence that your decision is the best. In almost all cases, the research data is completed not with objective methods but to reinforce or promote corporate profits or political agendas subjectively. Let each car purchaser decide without political compulsion or artificial preferential tax incentives. It has become impossible in the U.S. to allow the supply and demand market to prevail.
There needs to be more reason to compare. The arrogance of one's choice does not go very far, not more than 10 feet. Comparison is like comparing your wife or husband with another. You love this one and are comfortable. No one would convince you otherwise. But then again, some disgruntled partners may argue otherwise.
Whether electric vehicles are economically or environmentally superior to internal combustion automobiles, one quickly forgets that electricity to charge the batteries is usually generated by coal-fired or natural gas methods, which emit much more emissions than the gasoline consumption of the internal combustion engine.
EV strengths and weaknesses:
Strengths:
- A beneficiary of tax benefits because of the social engineering experiment by the government
- No liquid fuel is required, so the owner saves money on gas, but the trade-off is charging the battery at home or on the road.
- Lower maintenance due to the efficient electric motor
- Exhilarating acceleration
- Quiet
- Social acceptance as a status symbol
Weaknesses:
- Maintenance can be problematic for EVs due to the lack of a comprehensive national infrastructure for servicing and the availability of parts, a challenge that ICEs do not face to the same extent.
- Sparse charging stations, and people wait in line to charge
- Living with range anxiety between charging stations. Future technologies using solid lithium metal instead of graphite lithium-ion batteries may help substantially increase the range
- Battery charge retention reduces over time from initial capacities. As time passes, the battery loses its capacity to hold a full charge
- High cost of battery replacements
- Copper wiring is routinely stolen from charging stations by criminals hungry for a quick buck. Opportunistic thieves repeatedly target the same facility, leaving the operator with costly repairs. EV car owners are stuck
- Tires wear much faster because some electric car drivers tend to drive like sports cars. I replaced my tires at 41,000 miles, whereas a Tesla driver may get 5,000 to 10,000 miles. The tire guy told me many Tesla drivers think they are in a Porsche because of the power-exhilarating thrust forward. But this is a driver, not a car characteristic
- Limited functionality in extremely cold or hot weather conditions.
- They are a niche product purchased mainly by high-income urban consumers with garages for charging
- Automobile manufacturers have found that EVs have drained billions from profits because they cost more to manufacture than they can sell them for
- Considering the physics of electric transmission, each recharging station could power an entire town
- Upgrades of high-voltage grid systems and thousands of new large transmission-level transformers are needed, which would cost trillions of tax dollars
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/nissan-aims-cut-costs-30-simply-remain-competitive-evs
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/great-reset-didnt-work-case-evs
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/joe-bidens-ev-vision-america-falling-apart
ICE strengths and weaknesses:
Strengths:
- Flexibility and reliability
- Independence of mobility
- Distance between fuel stops
- Availability of fueling stations
- Operated in all kinds of weather
- Cost of maintenance
- Proven over 100-plus years as a transportation method
- If you can afford an ICE, put in gas, and it will run
Weaknesses:
- Relies on fossil fuel and oil
- Frequency of oil changes and tune-ups
- Is discounted because of the social engineering experiment to rid people of all the things that provide mobility and flexibility in their lives
Hybrid Automobiles:
A hybrid has electric battery power, a motor, and an internal combustion engine. Toyota introduced the first mass-produced hybrid, the Prius. The modern versions allow driving with electric energy only for 37 miles before switching to the internal combustion engine. Mileages range from 53 to 58 mpg, with a driving range of 640 miles. The 2023 Prius was redesigned and is dramatically more beautiful than its older brothers.
For potential EV buyers, a hybrid gives an owner greater freedom and flexibility. The gas mileage is substantial, but the performance is generally limited because most hybrids are lower-end cars with small engines. The high price and the high performance of the few upper-priced vehicles may be a cost-driven limited market. High-end EVs have existed primarily because of government subsidies.
Summary:
In a society driven by market forces rather than government compulsory purchases, there should be room for both EVs and ICEs. Individual choice should reign supreme.
When governments distort markets, inefficiencies and trillions of dollars of waste occur. Governments do not operate with maximum efficiency and profits as the primary objective; they use intentional distortions, malinvestment, overproduction, and confusion to retain power and authority over the people.
Part II of II
The following material in part II is for the technically-minded reader.
What raw materials are necessary to manufacture any vehicle, including EVs and ICE?
Most EV and ICE automobile components are identical in manufacturing. They are made from excavated raw materials from the earth that are processed, molded, milled, and mixed with many other substances and compounds for conversion into finished components.
Most automobile parts and components are completed overseas because the raw materials are processed and formulated for a radically cheaper cost.
Many countries have regulatory nightmares, massive invasive bureaucracies, strong-armed labor unions, employee rights with rights-not-to-work (quit quitting) provisions, and enormous liabilities for all manufacturers of the productive class. Labor unions in modern socialist countries like France and Germany have layers of bureaucracy and powerful unions. Truck drivers and farmers can shut down entire countries at will.
China, India, Mexico, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan have lower labor costs. Manufacturing parts in the US is prohibitive after paying all the non-productive bureaucrat hanger-owners, and their costs are added to the final product. Our system encourages benefits accrued for dozens of marginally productive subsets, from ethnic, crony privileges to labor union affiliations.
What are the major components of a vehicle?
- The chassis. An automobile's chassis comprises the frame, suspension system, axles, and wheels.
- An upper body structure is welded or bolted to form a super-structure for all automobiles. The superstructure contains the frame and most of the visual parts.
- The engine. The EV is an electrical power generator driven by a massive battery. ICEs have an internal combustion engine with a petroleum fuel source stored in a gas tank. Both options provide the power to drive forward and backward.
- A transmission System is primarily used in ICE s
What are the similarities in the manufacturing process of an EV and an ICE?
- All automobiles, whether electric vehicles (EVs) or internal combustion engines (ICE), are manufactured similarly, except for the engine compulsion and drive train.
- Typical ICE automobiles have about 30,000 parts, from the most miniature nuts and washers to the engine block. An EV usually has about 15,000 or as many parts. Smaller, stripped-down automobile versions will have less, and top-of-the-line, high-tech with luxury add-ons will have more.
- The drivetrain of an ICE vehicle may contain 2,000+ moving parts, while EV motors have around 200 pieces that need maintenance and occasional replacement.
- Transmissions used in ICE cars need periodic fluid changes, maintenance, and an occasional overhaul.
- EVs usually do not have multi-speed transmissions. Instead, they have a single-speed transmission that regulates the electrical motor.
It is essential to understand that manufacturing an EV or an IC is similar, except for the propulsion system. An ICE requires an assembled block of parts engineered to run on petroleum fuel. The primary processes are fuel intake and conversion to gas, compression, combustion, power stroke, and exhaust.
https://studentlesson.com/components-of-internal-combustion-engine/
https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-electric-car
A vehicle's tires alone may contain as many as 200 separate components or substances. Tires contain natural rubber, synthetic rubber, steel, nylon, silica (derived from sand), polyester, carbon black, and petroleum. Although 60% of the rubber is manufactured from oil-derived hydrocarbons, natural rubber is contained in the remaining 40%. A combination of ingredients and manufacturing processes will lead to different performance characteristics.
Petroleum and petroleum-derived hydrocarbons are required in the entire manufacturing process of both EVs and ICEs. That includes the giant excavation tractors (burning up to 1800 gallons of diesel per day) used in the extraction process from rare earth to mining the raw steel components. The two processes are the blast furnace/primary oxygen furnace route and the electric arc furnace route. The product will be that the molten materials are transformed into steel. The steel will be milled into a finished product and shipped to a manufacturer.
Automobile plastics are derived from natural, organic materials such as cellulose, coal, natural gas, salt, and crude oil. They are formed when crude oil is mixed with thousands of different compounds and then molded into preformed parts.
All of the above manufacturing processes could only be completed with fossil-based petroleum. None of the processes could rely solely on solar energy to manufacture, form, and distribute the parts and components.
Herein lies the Solar Hoax. Those who push the solar agenda refuse to understand that it would be virtually impossible at this time in history. The 5,000 most common products consumed around the world require petroleum. Eliminating these products would include eliminating gasoline, oil, automobiles, commercial transport, air transport, sea transport, asphalt, cement, synthetic polymers, cosmetics, and many more.
With a full-court press of elimination, a 30 to 50-year cycle will pass, including the requirement to invent new fuel materials to replace petroleum-based inventions of new composite materials and manufacturing processes.
What is the power mechanism that drives an ICE automobile forward?
Liquefied fossil fuel, or petroleum, is the energy source in an internal combustion engine. When the liquid is forced into the engine, it is converted into a gas form using a pressure constriction device or a venturi mechanism. The venturi allows compressed air and a splitting process to convert liquid gas into an atomized gas. The atomized gas is forced into the combustion chamber. A firing spark ignites the atomized gas in the piston chamber. The firing spark ignites the atomized gas, creating an explosion. The result causes the piston to thrust downward with force. As the piston rises, the exhaust is emitted into a chamber, which eventually goes out of the car's rear. A multi-cylinder engine produces enough power thrust to drive the automobile forward when done sequentially. The power is transferred from the motor directly through a transmission, drive train, and rear differential to the rear wheels.
Using technological advancements, accelerating the engine can accomplish greater thrust forward and higher revolutions per minute. Although the spark is a minor component of the entire engine system, it is the most important and necessary event. The engine would only start or accelerate with fuel, fuel atomization, and the spark. To many of us, including me, more horsepower and faster acceleration are beautiful when used in moderation.
Battery manufacturing:
https://www.upsbatterycenter.com/blog/metals-used-batteries/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8390110/
The difference in manufacturing (MFG) of EV vs. ICE
All automobiles start the manufacturing process with the extraction process of raw materials, usually out of the earth. Steel is the most common material used in a car.
Raw materials come in many forms: Steel, aluminum, glass, iron, plastics, rubber, synthetics, and special fibers. Every single part must be extracted, formed, molded, and milled into a precision part. The pieces are assembled into a component installed into the car.
It is essential to understand that manufacturing an EV or an IC is similar, except for the propulsion and transmission systems. An ICE requires an assembled block of parts, an engine or motor, and petroleum fuel. The primary processes are intake, compression, combustion, power stroke, and exhaust.
https://studentlesson.com/components-of-internal-combustion-engine/
Automobile plastics are derived from crude oil and organic materials such as cellulose, coal, natural gas, and salts. The formation of the plastics is a combination of crude oil mixed with thousands of different compounds and then molded into preformed parts.
The raw materials come from many sources extracted from the earth: aluminum, glass, iron, plastics, rubber, and special fibers. Every single part must be removed, formed, molded, and milled into a precision part. The pieces are assembled into a component and delivered in a large container ship or an 18-wheel diesel-burning big rig.