News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by JoeAltmaier on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:49AM (#23311844)
1 gallon of gas is 33kwh. And can be 'recharged' into a vehicle in 10 seconds.

So sure the Roadster can hold what, 6 gallons? Like an econo-box. And weighs 2 1/2 - 3 tons. Much of that in battery.

Yes, weight is still the big issue.

Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by Retric on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:53AM (#23311908)
An EC engine is a long way from 100% efficient. Model 3 Long Range is 310 mile range on a 75kWh battery. Cars are not hitting 310 miles on 2.3 gallons of fuel.

For the most extreme comparison, a Bugatti Chiron gets an EPA 11 MPG so the roadster is arguably the equivalent of a 56 gallon fuel tank where the Chiron is stuck with 26 gallons.

PS: A better comparison would be a similar ~200,000$ two seater but none of them are optimized for fuel efficiency.

Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by ThrowawayR2 on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:36AM (#23312444)
> "And weighs 2 1/2 - 3 tons."

A bit of a tangent but it'll be interesting to see what effect an all electric vehicle future has on the design of roadways, bridges, etc. I imagine that many things will need to be rebuilt to handle the additional load.

Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by mikestew on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @12:46PM (#23313367)
They're already built for it. The '73 Pontiac Bonneville I rode around in as a kid weighed 4300 lbs. And as sibling comment mentions, anything not a car or light truck will outweigh anything with batteries. Our Sprinter-based RV weighs 10K lbs. empty, and it is a small RV.
Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by selectodude on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @12:31PM (#23313179)
They're already "designed" for 18-wheel trucks which weigh 15-20 times that. Even heavy EVs are nothing compared to heavy transport.
Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by ThrowawayR2 on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @12:39PM (#23313283)
To use your own example, they're designed to handle a certain quantity of 18 wheelers but they're not designed to handle traffic that is entirely composed of 18 wheelers.

Raising the average vehicle weight from 1.5 to 3 tons will definitely have an effect.

Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by selectodude on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @12:51PM (#23313430)
But not as much as it would seem, since road damage is a quadratic function of weight and one truck does as much damage as 9600 1 ton cars. Doubling the weight of the car would maybe narrow that by a few percentage points, but vehicle miles for any personal vehicle at essentially any weight is a rounding error compared to one truck.
Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by Retric on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @01:51PM (#23314246)
Bridges at least need to be designed for just 18 wheelers because over 50 years that’s going to happen at least once.
Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by war1025 on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @05:41PM (#23316747)
Roads are designed for a certain amount of "axle weight" [1] which basically means to carry a heavier load you need to add more axles to distribute the load.

I would guess electric cars are still negligible in that metric, though.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_axle_weight_rating