The Internal Combustion Engine years are falling (ICE). With new schemes and promises coming, we all know that one day very soon the sales of cars with an ICE will disappear. There will be no more V8’s, no more 4-cylinders either. However, there is one large issue with getting rid of ICE cars. Electric cars or cars with alternative fuels are stupidly expensive. Also, most ICE engines are somewhat clean and they do have heaps of development within them since there has been plenty of investment within them over the last decade.
No car manufacturer who makes ICE cars wants to stop making combustion engines. whether it’s diesel or petrol. It would be a huge kick in the balls for them as most car companies have invested millions into their combustion engines and they also employ hundreds of people who work on these engines. Let’s not forget about parts either. Engine parts make a manufacturer a huge amount of money per year and stopping sales of new ICE cars would really hinder that.
Most car manufacturers then want to use ICE powerplants because they have invested so much into them. Companies like GM or VW-Audi group use these powerplants throughout their cars which are all part of the same platform. The only way for car manufacturers to keep making these internal combustion engines cars comfortably is to give them a little extra electric boost. Plug-in-Hybrids is the best of both worlds since manufacturers can invest in alternative fuel powerplants whilst at the same time carry on manufacturing ICE cars and not worrying about a wasted investment.
The manufacturing of engines is huge in the motor industry. It employs hundreds of thousands worldwide and for most mainstream manufacturers, if they stopped using ICE in their cars, all these people would most likely lose their job. How sad is that? We know one day some of these people will but it’s about finding a balance.
Electric cars are great. They have no emissions and they are somewhat cheap to run. Yet when it comes to manufacturing that is a different story. Electric cars in some cases take up more energy to make on a whole than what the average new ICE car makes in its lifetime. Batteries, first of all, are a hassle to make. You need first of all a lot of precious finite metals which unfortunately are held in corrupt countries like DR Congo. Then you need to make the battery which involves a lot of energy and skill. The battery itself is worth well into the thousands and as a phone battery, they only last for a certain period of time prior to replacement.
Fully electric cars then are stupidly expensive when new. This means only the”elite” can afford them. The infrastructure is not ready yet and manufacturers cannot cope with the pressure governments are putting on them to make electric cars. It needs to be a more gradual process if I am honest. Tesla is also stupidly overvalued like other companies. What does this mean? Simply that there will be a dot.com bust and boom but just for new EV startups. Therefore, the whole process and idea of electric cars need to slow down as I am going to put this as simple as possible. Nobody can keep up.
Is Plug-in-Hybrids Cars Effective?
Yes. You will find the standard hybrid car makes over 100g of CO2 whilst the plug-in-hybrid only makes just over 48. See the difference there? More than half. Yes, an electric car makes zero but right now we need to slow down because we are actually using quite harmful methods to make electric cars, and also a big question remains is where on earth are we going to get electricity for all of these cars when they’re in a majority, when actually right now we do not have enough electricity for a world with a minority of electric cars? People will argue that we can use renewable energy systems but there is no way that in ten or twenty years you can develop enough renewable systems to sustain a world with a world full of electric cars.
However, we have to progress from ICE cars one day hence why the use of plug-in cars needs to be used more. Best of both worlds. You get a battery and an engine. You don’t have to charge the battery if you don’t want to. You can run on gas or electricity. It’s probably a lot easier to make and also plug-in cars are far cheaper than fully electric cars. Let’s not forget that there is room to decrease the number of carbons a plug-in hybrid makes by investing in these plug-in hybrid cars.
Plug-in hybrids will become more popular in the long run as the world isn’t ready for fully electric cars yet. The infrastructure is not there yet and energy companies need a few years to actually develop the technologies in order to charge these cars. How stupid would it be that we would need to rely on fossil fuels etc just to power our electric cars? Exactly, that is why we need time in order to develop the technologies needed to charge all of these cars.
A plug-in hybrid needs less energy to run it since the battery is usually smaller than a fully electric car. It also allows you to actually create something very special indeed. You can finally create a dynamo to generate electricity from the engine for the batteries which increases the range. Therefore, you only need to actually fuel up your car with gas in order to charge the battery. Now, why does this kill two birds with one stone. Simply because making electricity involves a powerplant in which most of them use fossil fuels. In fact, over 64% of the world’s electricity is from fossil fuels. Now gas is a fossil fuel being oil so, if we can get that to not only power the ICE but also charge the battery, then things are sorted.
These are the same thoughts BMW had with the I8 and it worked well. However, it is costly to do this since the I8 was a car that cost over $100,000. Lexus and Toyota have done self-charging hybrids for years but never a proper plug-in hybrid. Manufacturers can really kill two birds with one stone here as they can continue to invest in battery packs etc whilst still maintaining their engine-building workforce and investments.