[gauravanekar]

I have voted yes.
Its far easier for any company who have been building ICE cars for many years to build electric cars because building a car needs a lot of experience on car body building, suspension tuning and interior packaging and so on, not to mention manufacturing know how and production systems.

Its a different ball game for entrepreneurs to become a full fledged successful car companies (Tesla is an exception, also they are taking advantage of reluctance of global giants to enter EV business)

[Romeo_Mike]

Voted No.

I hope everyone here who says EVs are easier to manufacture means the components are easier to manufacture e. g. the IC engine is a far more complex piece of engineering as compared an electric motor and I would agree to this.

But to conceptualize a whole car that combines these simple components like battery pack and electric motors to provide a similar level of practicality and reliability as an ICE driven car is a fairly complex challenge. Noteworthy is the fact that EVs have appeared on the horizon couple of decades now, whereas they have become a serious alternative to conventional automotive technology only recently. Some EV tech has also inspired engineers to push the boundaries of automotive knowhow; case in point - the Konigsegg Regera with the direct drive transmission. A hypercar without a gearbox would have been unimaginable a decade ago.

Disclaimer: I do not have any preference for EVs over ICE cars and the mesmerizing growl of a V8 is one of my favorite sounds in the world. But credit must be given where due!

[Guru_GPS]

Voted Yes.


Eliminating the Gearbox and the Engine itself is a factor for me to vote in favor. I have not studied in detail how an EV is built, but my thought is, the battery pack and the connected motor are the two components that have less complexity, provided all internal features, options, electrical/electronic components and build quality remaining same.

[Spals]

Voted no.

While it seems that the engine and gearbox are more complex than the motor, making the controller and battery in such a way that the drive ability of a vehicle is achieved is far more complex. The irony is people who have expertise in tuning in IC engines need to do it!

[landcruiser123]

Voted YES!
Batteries are complicated, but EVs have lesser moving parts which are connected.
Slightly obtuse angle here:
Think of the current EV as a smartphone from the pre iOS and Android era. They were smart, but limited. We’re at that cusp where self-driving technology will take over in a few years. EVs need lesser mechanical engineers, but more computer science and electrical engineers who will be responsible for autonomous driving software optimization and also battery optimization.

[PratikPatel]

Voted ‘No’. It’s just not true. Most common misconception is that a IC engine has more parts than a Electric Motor. Yes that is a fact, but what most people do not take into consideration is that the battery pack has complicated support systems including thermal management systems. Also pound for pound, a EV will be much heavier than a ICE car.

[Sunil2307]

I voted yes. As per me the lesser the moving parts, lesser the complexeity.
For me the below are the challenges for EVs -
1. High capacity fast charging battery
2. Charging infra
3. Motor capacity

[formel_eins]

Voted No
Although it seems easy as an experiment, practically it isnt. To some extent I can agree its easier to make a 2-wheeler. But an actual car, its an effort, its not just assembling and connecting components, think about safety systems that need to be implemented. What are the chances of a quickly assembled car to pass lab tests, how many of these manufacturers would actually have the cash flow to conduct these tests ? Building is just a small part in the larger scheme, unless you have volumes your supply chain would be extremely inefficient, you can never compete, so why bother to even conceptualize

[hemanth.anand]

I've voted NO.

This reminds me of interdepartmental chats in our company.
Sales guys will say "What do these Mechanical engineers do? just draw some lines, make drawings, rotate some 3D models"
Mechanical engineers will say "What do these Software Engineers do? just google some codes and copy-paste some lines"
Software engineers will say "What do these Purchase guys do? just bargain"
Purchase guys say "What do these Sales guys do? just talk some stories in front of customer"

As a population, we are still new to EVs and hence we may feel it is easy. But it isn't. EVs comes with their own set of complications. The BOM of an EV may be smaller, but to conceptualise and make a good EV is as tough as making a conventional ICE car. during the making of a car, ICE havig physical moving parts actually is easier to troubleshoot and improve the product which is not the case with an EV. Mechanical engineers are replaced by Mechatronics and software engineers but the complexity remains.

[locusjag]

We know of a small-time entrepreneur who repairs our old PC at home at times. He dabbles in software/hardware all the time. Apparently, he and his friends have even dabbled at creating their own electric scooter. They gave up since their scooter's acceleration proved uncontrollable; theirs would just keep on accelerating and they had no idea of how to rein it in...and that's how their backyard project ended. Between them, they invested ~2 lakhs in it is what I was told.

So it does seem that while total noobs can give designing electric vehicles a shot (which you can't do in the world of ICEs), it takes some next-level capabilities to have a certain staying power.

[UB_007]

Originally Posted by locusjag

We know of a small-time entrepreneur who repairs our old PC at home at times. He dabbles in software/hardware all the time. Apparently, he and his friends have even dabbled at creating their own electric scooter. They gave up since their scooter's acceleration proved uncontrollable; theirs would just keep on accelerating and they had no idea of how to rein it in...and that's how their backyard project ended. Between them, they invested ~2 lakhs in it is what I was told.

So it does seem that while total noobs can give designing electric vehicles a shot (which you can't do in the world of ICEs), it takes some next-level capabilities to have a certain staying power.

Fully Agree.
I have been part of this transformation from IC engine to electric mobility. Been working on Hybrids and eDrives for last 2 years and issues that have occurred in last years are unimaginable.
On one hand, from software and systems perspective the issues range from hill hold, hill launch, park-lock to even smallest deviations in tire size, vehicle weight tolerance etc. which we have never much bothered about in an conventional vehicle.

Of course it is a matter of time when every supplier and OEM develops their own standard operating procedures in terms of software and calibration to have error free launch.
It is estimated that today's car can have up to 1 million lines of software codes. The forecast says, future cars and eMobility vehicles will have around 1 billion lines of codes. Just to compare, a small passenger aircraft could run with 10 million line of code

Then coming to thermal management and power electronics, a fairly new territory with Range boosters and fast chargers have been significantly challenging our thermal engineers. Temperature fluctuations strongly influence battery life, cold starts etc.
Apparently, DC-DC /AC-DC converters, inverter etc needs sophisticated engineering. Imagine the efforts on Porsche Taycan 800V system, simply tremendous!

Am sure in next 20 years these techs will be mastered and engineered to perfection but today the effort to launch an electric car is much higher than IC engine car in my opinion.

[AspiringIndian]

Originally Posted by GTO

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Electric Car Section. Thanks for sharing!
====
In a Dell computer, most of the "engine" comes from Intel, Samsung & the like. It'll become the same for mass market EVs.

I need to respectfully disagree on most of what is said above.

Whoever thinks that battery technology and electric motors is a "given" hasn't understood the battery technology in it's core. Within the Li-Ion space, there are millions of different ways a battery is made. The battery in the phone is way different from the battery in the laptop, which is again way different from the battery Tesla builds. Just because you see aspiring EV manufacturers spring up is no measure of ease or difficulty. What is indeed a measure is how many EV manufacturers are as good as Tesla ! The answer is none.

In-spite of winning the F1 championship for 6 years in a row, in-spite of having arguably the best MGU-H, MGU-K and related battery technology - there is a reason why Mercedes Benz is buying the battery and related tech from Tesla for its road car production. Fiat is actively courting Tesla for buying it's electric tech.

Also - the goal posts are shifting fast, Tesla is almost ready with a fully autonomous car and it is a matter of time before such cars pass regulatory approval. So what will define a car in times to come isn't just wheels a human can drive, its wheels that drive themselves and that technology won't be available for "assembly".

If we were to say that 1000s of movies are made in India, so it must be easy to make movies - sure its easy to make bad movies but how many are great movies ? Not even 1%. So the argument is fundamentally flawed to look at numbers and say what is easy or isn't. In-fact numbers flatter to deceive.

[somspaple]

Originally Posted by AspiringIndian

I need to respectfully disagree on most of what is said above.

Whoever thinks that battery technology and electric motors is a "given" hasn't understood the battery technology in it's core. Within the Li-Ion space, there are millions of different ways a battery is made. The battery in the phone is way different from the battery in the laptop, which is again way different from the battery Tesla builds. Just because you see aspiring EV manufacturers spring up is no measure of ease or difficulty. What is indeed a measure is how many EV manufacturers are as good as Tesla ! The answer is none.

...

On this very topic:
Yesterday I received a phone call from one my ex-colleagues. He has quit his corporate job and has created a successful venture of making aftermarket exhausts and other accessories for Indian bikes called Barrel Exhaust [his products have been widely copied as well].

Several months earlier I had seen a post from him on his company's official FB page that they'll build a fast[fastest!?] electric bike in India. And yesterday he asked me to check out his video on Youtube where they've made use of a Pulsar chassis to create bare bones electric bike prototype with Motor/Battery and controller et al. It took them months to even come up this bare bones prototype. I don't have much details on the build itself, but I guess a lot goes into making everything work together in cohesion and also to prove reliable.

I guess even the Ultraviolette Electric Sports bike manufacturer is using a chassis from KTM[I guess] and this cuts down on development time of a bike from conception to prototype.

Can't wait to see what these guys would come up with as final product!

[somspaple]

Originally Posted by somspaple

On this very topic:
...
Can't wait to see what these guys would come up with as final product!

It's been 2 years since I posted about this venture and they seem to have made some progress in this aspect. Probably it indeed takes quite some time to build an electric vehicle from scratch! Received this message from the ex-colleague of mine about the venture:

"Barrel Motors (www.barrelmotors.com) from Bangalore is building India's first high performance dual sport electric bike platform. It is not only taken design inspiration from the pre-historic predator but also inspired by the character of the beast which is speed, stealth and power. Founded in 2014 under the name Barrel Exhaust (www.barrelexhaust.com) Barrel Motors Pvt limited is now gearing up the game to deliver performance ev's to the world from India. "

Followed by this pic:




Not sure what they mean by Electric Bike Platform at the moment. I've asked for more details.

[water]

https://www.khaleejtimes.com/auto/du...uring-facility

Came across this company that I have never heard of before.