Welcome to this week’s installment of our Wednesday meme feature, folks. Links to the “found via” sources will be attached to the specific MiQ’s (Memes in Question) whenever I can remember them, which likely won’t be very often. Only the first two memes will appear above the fold to save on bandwidth usage, since I assume not everybody who shows up at this here websty will want to see all of them. This intro will appear at the top of each week’s Memezapoppin’! post. Enjoy, funny pitcher-lovers.
NOTE: I just gotta throw in a cpl points re the above Palmetto State Armory meme. One, my boy BCE swears by PSA stuff, and has weathered a veritable storm of shite from others out there who, for whatever reason, feel compelled to make sport of PSA. BCE believes in the PSA folks without reservation, and that’s really all I need to know. My trust in BCE is absolute, so my trust in PSA is same-same.
Dos, I’m sure the amazing AR15 BCE custom-built for me back during my near-death experience laid up in the horspital all doped up and recuperating from having one leg, almost half the other foot, and great hunks of the middle of my back chopped off/out (nine surgeries in two days, or so I’m given to understand) has a plethora of PSA-sourced parts in it, and I know for a solid fact that a close friend’s Glock 17 clone is all PSA parts. We’ve run hundreds of rounds through both guns out on my back deck, and neither one has ever shown the slightest sign of giving any trouble. CF LESSON OF THE DAY: “Inexpensive” doesn’t necessarily have to mean “cheap.”
Hmmm. Might have just come with another MIL there, I do believe.
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Well,
I was going to speak about PSA but your closing paragraphs did it just fine.
I don’t own any PSA built weapons, but I have bought parts and ammo from them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with their stuff. It’s an excellent value.
That ICE vs EV meme was spot on.
And that’s what actually happened back in the day. There WERE EVs early on and were aoh sky trounced by the ICE autos.
The tech for EVs has improved but nowhere near what has improved in a modern ICE auto vs the 1900 version.
Well, the tech for EV’s has improved substantially. The AC motors are amazing. EV’s suffer from only one thing really, battery energy density. Truly, everything else is better as long as you can charge the batteries. The battery need to improve by a factor of four in my opinion, which then yields twice the range at half the size and weight. Get that and we’ll build the charging stations and power plants to support them. Maybe that will happen but there is nothing like that realistically in sight at the moment.
Compare the “tech” for an auto from 1900 to today.
Don’t underestimate how far we’ve come with ICE engines. Far further than EVs.
For example, “Funny Cars” and “Top Fuel” dragsters went from 2000 Horsepower to 12,000 Horsepower in 25 years. 240 Gordie was all the rage in the 80s and he hit that top speed in a quarter mile run. They hit 330+ mph in 1000 feet now. The biggest challenge is getting the tires to hold all that power and put it on the race track.
Compare a 1970 muscle car and a 2020 muscle car. There reeally is nop comparison. MORE horsepower and better mileage and all the systems are far superior to leaf spring, carbureted, no a/c predecessors from back then.
The nice thing about 1970 was the blocks are still good and bolt on parts are readily available. You can easily take an old 454 CI Chevy Rat that made 475HP back then and simply bolt on, add in the parts to get 750-1000HP and STREET Legal today. Plus get 15, not 5, miles to the gallon. (Or is that gallons to the mile in some cases from 1970?)
“Don’t underestimate how far we’ve come with ICE engines. Far further than EVs.”
I’ve built my own cars and engines for road racing so I’m fairly familiar with automobile technology.
Top fuel technology has no real application / transfer to the real world of consumer automobiles. Road racing does however since it more closely mimics driving on the road.
The technology revolution in the ICE is remarkable. Do you know what drove it? It is not racing that did it.
There is also no comparison to an electric vehicle of 1900 and one of today. Other than still using 4 wheels and tires there is nothing else remotely the same. Multi pole AC motors with inverters Vs the simple DC motors of the past.
Why does a 17 year old kid show up in a bone stock off the showroom floor at the local 1/8 mile dragstrip and blow the doors off the high dollar ICE vehicles?
Because he’s in a Tesla. 100% torque at zero motor speed. All petroleum engines have a torque curve, and require multiple gear ratio’s to keep the engine rpm in the torque curve. There is no comparison to the AC motor. The battery is the only reason electric vehicles are not viable. If we had the battery, we would build the charging. We don’t, so we don’t.
Compare an ICE car from 1900 as well. a horse buggy with a small engine.
Street cars can now make 2000 hp. Top Fuel was just a comparison to how much power COULD BE extracted further if it were Street Practical.
Meanwhile EVs on a track are at peak levels racing against little modified street cars making 600hp. No one is racing EV Pro Stock or Pro Modifieds…
There are no practical street cars with 2000hp. Once you get above 600 or so you are traction limited, IE you can’t get the horsepower down. Not to mention the huge mechanical components required to handle that much power…
EV’s on the track are not limited, we can easily create more power, and we can do it at all four corners making it easy to put the power to the asphalt. A standard Tesla just beats the hell out of almost any ICE street machine in short distance races like a dragstrip. Even when modified, the ICE still needs lots of help with special torque converters to get the engine in the power band off the line, and that makes them difficult to drive on the street in the real world.
It’s not even close. I can produce more power to the asphalt with AC motors quite easily, something very difficult to do with internal combustion engines. You need mechanical (power robbing) components to couple each wheel to the output shaft of the ICE. With AC motors we just put one at each wheel, no gearing is even required.
AC motors can handle far more than their stated capacity if you can keep them cool. I can easily run a motor for a short term near it’s breakdown torque, typically more than double the normal torque.
There is a reason we have diesel electric locomotives. The diesel is just used to generate electricity.
You don’t watch Roadkill/Hot Rod Garage. They regularly build 1000hp and above cars these days. As does Kindig It, Texas Metal and Iron Resurrection.
Also, the Dodge SRT Chargers have factory 750-800 horsepower
I have watched them, but not very often. Seen one seen most if it.
1000hp is a long way from 2000.
There is always going to be some guy with some car that has a motor ready to grenade but putting out a lot of power before then. These are not street drive able vehicles and they don’t drive them to work or the store. They are show cars.
You cannot put down over 600 hp with regular street tires*, so the ability to produce more power than that range is just for smoking the rear tires. It’s not a usable vehicle for much of anything else.
*slicks are illegal, and wide tires might give you some bight to launch, but don’t drive it in even the slightest bit of moisture or you’ll wrap it around a pole. Wide tires don’t work in the real world which is why the cars are not really usable.
You’re missing the point. The advances in horsepower is an efficiency gain which is driving the mileage gains and other efficiencies of the modern auto.
Since you have 350HP and you are only using 1/3 of the POTENTIAL power you’re getting 25MPG out of a car that in 1970 would get 10mpg.
And HP is just one aspect.
Automatic transmissions, suspensions, anti-lovk brakes, traction control etc etc etc make the auto more efficient, easier to drive, safer and better gas mileage than even 20 years ago, never mind 50.
The Auto revolution is easily as profound as any advanced in electric cars.
I don’t know what your “point” is since I’m aware of the advance in technology that has made cars better and better from one end to the other. I have never stated anything different.
An EV can beat an ICE car all day long. It doesn’t mean it makes sense to own an EV anymore than it makes sense to own an 800hp car that can’t put the power to the road without destroying it’s own tires.
Both are toys.
“Also, the Dodge SRT Chargers have factory 750-800 horsepower”
“more horsepower than its tires can handle”
https://www.caranddriver.com/dodge/charger-srt-hellcat
Car and Driver agree’s with me 🙂
Edit: 6.2l engine means that it is supercharged and at nearly 2hp per cubic inch, don’t count on it lasting very long. It’s a grenade.
“(Or is that gallons to the mile in some cases from 1970?)”
🙂 close in some cases…
My 3200 pound off the showroom floor 1969 Z/28 Camaro (302 CI) would get 9-10 MPG. Realistically, it had 350 HP (GM stated 290 for insurance). My Yukon Denali weighs 6000 pounds, is nearly as fast as the Camaro (a thinly disguised race car), and gets 21mpg at 70-80mph.
My old 84 Grand Wagoneer managed 7-8mpg…
Just to get back to what the actual conversation starter was,
“The tech for EVs has improved but nowhere near what has improved in a modern ICE auto vs the 1900 version.”
And this is what I disagree with. All the automobile advances are the same for both cars with the exception of the drivetrain. Car safety – airbags, energy absorption zones, seatbelts, interior design – are elements common to both ICE and electric vehicles. As are comfort features like AC/heat, sound systems, video screens, etc.
The ICE has gone through a remarkable period of improvement, originally spurred by – gasp – the pollution reduction requirements. No matter the the underlying reason, the engine of today is vastly superior to those just 25 years ago. No question about this.
Where we disagree, apparently, is on the improvement in the electric power train. Most people have no understanding of the real differences or the advantages electric has over petroleum. Take the diesel electric locomotive for example as I pointed out earlier. A diesel engine powers a generator to produce electric current for the locomotive drive motors. Why? Because we can now run the diesel engine at a constant speed, at it’s maximum torque rpm, producing a maximum level of electric current all the time. Just a diesel engine and a generator. The electric motors are directly coupled to the locomotive drive, and we have eliminated a huge, heavy, complicated mechanical transmission. We get instant 100% torque on demand from the electric motors.
In a car we use an even more advanced motor, and AC motor with an inverter that converts DC voltage to AC voltage providing very precise control of torque and speed. I use this combination every day in industrial applications. When I started my career we used DC motors and many machines had an AC motor driving a DC generator to power the DC motors. Westinghouse was one of the big suppliers of the “DC Gen Sets”. Technology replaced all that, a huge improvement and change that is at least in line with the improvements in the ICE.
As it is applied to automobiles a battery is used and this is the weak point in the EV. Substantial improvements in battery’s have been achieved but not enough to challenge the efficiency of the ICE powered vehicle. ICE has it all across the board – enough power for the task, decent cost of energy, the mechanicals are well developed and long lasting, and the infrastructure exists to supply the energy inputs to keep the system moving.
As I stated earlier, quadruple the battery density and EV’s will then challenge the ICE vehicles, not because of the bullshit climate change crap, but because the EV has inherent advantages for personal transport.