Is France Going to Ban the Internal Combustion Engine?

[Imari]

Capability actually wasn't a problem - early electric cars were generally as capable as combustion and steam ones, as well as being more reliable, quieter and easier to operate.

What killed off the technology in its early days was, ironically, the electric starter motor, which helped remove one of the more tiresome aspects of driving a combustion-engined vehicle, and the discovery of vast oil reserves which suddenly made petroleum both plentiful and vastly cheaper than it had been.

Perhaps I worded that poorly. I wasn't talking about the capability of the cars, I was talking about the capability of the technology. Perhaps "room for expansion" would be a better phrase, that's what I was referring to with electric being unable to match the development of IC.

With late 1800s/early 1900s technology, there was a lot of room to improve IC cars simply by trial and error, no new technology required. One can make a very effective combustion engine with relatively simple casting and milling technology, if one puts it together correctly. On the other hand, electrics would be pretty much stuck with the problems of limited speed and range until nearly a hundred years later when better battery options were available in capacities that might power a car. The technology and raw materials didn't exist at the time, and it would be a long time before lithium batteries would become anything more than an ivory tower research project.

By the fifties, IC cars were up to the 300SL. Electric cars were up to the milk float, and that gap in developmental ability is pretty much how it stayed until computing and battery technology allowed progress for electrics. Now that we actually have the ability to make batteries of a capacity that get a decent range with decent power, are rechargeable in a sensible amount of time, last long enough, and don't weigh so much as to defeat the entire purpose. Electric at this point in time is making significantly more progress than IC, which is a mature technology and people are not that far from fiddling with minutia.

 

[homeforsummer]

That makes more sense 👍

By the fifties, IC cars were up to the 300SL. Electric cars were up to the milk float

Worth pointing out on this point though that EVs may well have been past the milk float stage had they enjoyed continuous development over the preceding half-century.

Probably not to 300SL levels - and probably nowhere close, given that battery developments have gone hand-in-hand with things like laptops and smartphones, for which the technology wasn't available regardless - but I do wonder how far the EV would be now had it developed alongside conventional vehicles.

 

[desmodan]

Imari had it right with his 'room for improvement' comment .
Modern EV's and alternative fuel vehicles are still very early in their evolution whereas traditional IC engines are so far along their evolution they're just waiting for the next big meteor strike.
The big advantage they'll have as far as development is that they'll benefit from the last 100 years of evolving the automobile.
From daVincis theoretical helicopter to a real one, about 500 years.
From Karl Benz' motorwagen to the Veyron, about 120 years.
From a Prius to a Tesla, about 10 years.

 

[Johnnypenso]

From Karl Benz' motorwagen to the Veyron, about 120 years.
From a Prius to a Tesla, about 10 years.

Not quite. The first car represented the birth of the automobile. Completely uncharted territory. The Prius had 100 years of technological advancement in automotive and electrical engineering to piggyback on.

 

[desmodan]

Isn't that what I just said

 

[Danoff]

Perhaps I worded that poorly. I wasn't talking about the capability of the cars, I was talking about the capability of the technology. Perhaps "room for expansion" would be a better phrase, that's what I was referring to with electric being unable to match the development of IC.

With late 1800s/early 1900s technology, there was a lot of room to improve IC cars simply by trial and error, no new technology required. One can make a very effective combustion engine with relatively simple casting and milling technology, if one puts it together correctly. On the other hand, electrics would be pretty much stuck with the problems of limited speed and range until nearly a hundred years later when better battery options were available in capacities that might power a car. The technology and raw materials didn't exist at the time, and it would be a long time before lithium batteries would become anything more than an ivory tower research project.

By the fifties, IC cars were up to the 300SL. Electric cars were up to the milk float, and that gap in developmental ability is pretty much how it stayed until computing and battery technology allowed progress for electrics. Now that we actually have the ability to make batteries of a capacity that get a decent range with decent power, are rechargeable in a sensible amount of time, last long enough, and don't weigh so much as to defeat the entire purpose. Electric at this point in time is making significantly more progress than IC, which is a mature technology and people are not that far from fiddling with minutia.

You just touched on exactly why it happened that way too - because it was easier. Companies don't like to spend gobs of money for decades to have a second-rate product in the hope that a century later it will take over the market.

On the topic of bans, I have no idea what France will do. In the US, however, you'll see everything on the roads - farm tractors, snowplows, horses, school buses that have been in service for decades. We grandfather in just about everything, which is why I personally know a guy who bought a car from a museum and drove it to work. In general, the idea is not to destroy a crap-top of property value with a law that bans something that was legal last year. Banning it from sale is about as near as I see us getting.

 

[Joey D]

I've only briefly been to France so I'm not really sure what car culture is like there, but the biggest problem I see is battery supply. Unless battery manufacturing technology makes a huge leap forward it's going to be difficult to sustain production of that many batteries for cars, especially when you think the Tesla has something like 7,000 batteries in its packs. 2050 is a long ways off though, so anything can happen.

 

[05XR8]

The Leaf is cheaper to service at a Nissan dealer(alternates from $90 or $300 to service at each 10k interval), than all the models Nissan sell. Shame it's the price of an NP300 and not a Pulsar.

Anyway, the perfect time to have experimented with "modern" electric cars, would have been the bubble car era.

 

[homeforsummer]

Isn't that what I just said

I think he was getting at the fact that even though Prius to Tesla seems like a big leap in terms of green vehicle technology, it's not a huge leap in terms of actual automobiles, since both the Prius and the Model S are still effectively "modern cars" and benefit from the previous hundred years of technology leading up to the "modern car".

Your Benz Motorwagen to Veyron comparison was a more accurate indication as to the progress of technology - and is more what I was getting at when I wondered what EVs would be like if they'd been developed alongside conventional vehicles, rather than having a rush of development in recent years.

The interesting part of this thought experiment is that certain things we consider "normal" about current vehicles aren't necessarily required by EVs - like a low hood, for example, or things like multi-ratio gearboxes and thanks to things like dual-motor torque vectoring, even differentials. An EV with a hundred years of EV-exclusive evolution could be completely different from what we now consider a modern car to be.

Anyway, the perfect time to have experimented with "modern" electric cars, would have been the bubble car era.

That would have been interesting - kind of a precursor to cars like the Renault Twizy or Toyota i-Road. The improved response, refinement and reliability would have been much more important for bubble cars than things like range, since few did huge distances in bubble cars anyway.

 

[Legro]

Quite frankly, I'm more concerned about the preservation of internal combustion cars as historical objects and a hobby than anything else. Everyday grocery getters have already slowly started to naturally switch away from the traditional pure internal combustion and situation should be dramatically more towards this direction by 2040 even without any dramatic legislation changes to the current situation regarding internal combustion cars.

However, I'm not entirely sure what they've said is much more than an incentive for manufacturers to keep focusing on the development of EVs. It's not 2040 in a long time, there's absolutely no guarantee the 2040 French government will sign a ban or an unreasonably high tax on new ICEs.

 

[Northstar]

Quite frankly, I'm more concerned about the preservation of internal combustion cars as historical objects and a hobby than anything else.

I wouldn't be too worried about that, cars have been the main form of transport for close to 100 years now and the horse industry is still going strong. It probably will be more expensive to run them though since not many companies will be mass producing oil and petrol.

 

[homeforsummer]

horse industry

 

[Legro]

I wouldn't be too worried about that, cars have been the main form of transport for close to 100 years now and the horse industry is still going strong. It probably will be more expensive to run them though since not many companies will be mass producing oil and petrol.

I admit I might have worded it bit wrong, but I didn't say it as a genuine worry but rather as something all petrolheads and car enthusiast should focus on instead of the usual refusal of all sorts of ways the world comes up to improve different aspects of personal transportation the regular non- car people (and a considerable number of actual car people) care about.

 

[Joey D]

I had to put a conference call on mute because I trying so had not to laugh and almost choked. Good show.

 

[desmodan]

Good points by homeforsummer.
What I what I was trying to get at (badly) was that everything we do/make rides on the shoulders of what came before and all the hard work it took to get to that point.
Any vehicle from now on, fossil fuel or alternative, will benefit from 100+ years of developing suspension, gearboxes, soundproofing, aerodynamics and where to put a cup holder

 

[Danoff]

Good points by homeforsummer.
What I what I was trying to get at (badly) was that everything we do/make rides on the shoulders of what came before and all the hard work it took to get to that point.
Any vehicle from now on, fossil fuel or alternative, will benefit from 100+ years of developing suspension, gearboxes, soundproofing, aerodynamics and where to put a cup holder

More broadly, any vehicle ever made rode on the shoulders of all of the technology that came before it. Check out this 1700 year old chariot with built-in nav:

http://www.ancientpages.com/2014/07...1700-years-ago-is-an-engineering-masterpiece/

I agree with the general point, that ICEs are "old" (meaning heavily refined) technology, and EV's are "young" (lightly refined) technology. I do not think there is any going back for ICEs. I think we may have already seen the pinnacle of the purely ICE automobile. It looks something like the Audi R8, the Veyron, and so-on.