My next hobby car is going to be something purely mechanical. New cars are virtually impossible to work on and have mountains of compromises to deal with.

I am not enjoying having a computer constantly between me and the road. I also don't like the new lower bound for car weight due to all of the modern safety regulations. Even if you have a modern car with a ton of power, you can never truly compensate for the physics equation imposed by all of that weight.

For example: A 1988 Honda Civic weighs somewhere in the realm of 2000-2200 lbs. A 2020 model year weighs somewhere between 2700-3000 lbs. This makes a huge difference in how a car feels to drive, especially at extremes that are more likely to be explored by enthusiasts.

Something like a BMW M3 E30 would be a dream hobby car for me. There is a reason the 80s-90s model years are starting to go up in value. Car enthusiasts want that sweet spot of purely analog controls, but also with working factory A/C.

> due to all of the modern safety regulations.

People love to say this is due to regulation, but it really isn't. Safety regulations in the USA for automobiles are not terribly strict. It adds weight, for sure, but you can buy a 2100lb Mitsubishi Mirage with a stick shift. So mandatory safety aren't the biggest contributor to inflated curb weights.

Size inflation is predominantly driven by NVH and interior volume requirements from consumers. Dodge doesn't have to make the Challenger Hellcat a 4500lb two-door car. This car isn't fat for safety reasons, in fact, it score pretty damn low on safety tests.

Manufacture make heavy cars it because customers want gigantic, comfortable cruisers, with big engines, all-wheel job, 20" wheels on 265mm-wide tires, heavy duty lifted suspension, and full-length under-body trays.

Honda isn't immune to this, they don't even sell a car today that's as small in volume as your 88 Civic. The closest would be the discontinued CR-Z, which was a hyrbrid, or the no-long-sold-in-the-US Jazz/Fit, which is still quite a bit larger but only 2600lbs with a stickshift.

I love old Hondas, and you're right, they have a driving sensation that's impossible to get with modern cars. But don't blame regulations for Honda changing their ways, blame consumers. If people wanted a Civic with a 90hp engine, stick shift, four-wheel double-wishbone suspension, and 13" wheels, they'd sell one. Mitsu still does (for now).

>There is a reason the 80s-90s model years are starting to go up in value. Car enthusiasts want that sweet spot of purely analog controls, but also with working factory A/C.

People have said this exact thing for decades. It's because people old enough to remember being carted around in those cars as kids are finally getting old enough to be settled down and wealthy enough to have project cars. It has nothing to do with the vehicles themselves.

Within any given decade the things the rich kids got carted around in (or their dad commuted in) always command a premium.

It seems like that should be easier with an electric drivetrain. Much of the complexity of modern vehicles is the controls for the fuel injection, transmission, timing, and the like. An electric motor—perhaps even without a transmission—is a hell of a lot simpler.

Simpler yes, but potentially more dangerous. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that electricity can kill you awfully damn fast and without any warning. This is usually not a problem for hobbyists because the total amount of energy in a typical battery is low and the internal resistances are high. But when you're powering a vehicle, especially a high-performance vehicle, those usual safeguards are intentionally removed. So caveat hacker. Caveat mucho.

Also, LiPo batteries can explode if you're not very careful with charge and discharge discipline. Even the small ones in cell phones can do significant damage that way.

Hopefully we will get to a point where we have an LSx of electrical drivetrain. Something that is cheap, powerful, ubiquitous, and easy to install.

Right now though we have some disappointing (from a power perspective) electric drivetrains from Prius' that can be swapped or a powerful but DRM'd Tesla drivetrain that is more work than it's worth.

Well until someone builds millions of pickups and vans with the same EV drivetrain we're not gonna have an LS of EVs. The reason people like the LS is because it's everywhere and cheap. Everything else follows that.

> My next hobby car is going to be something purely mechanical. [..] For example: A 1988 Honda Civic

A 1988 Honda Civic isn't purely mechanical. It still has an ECU, for example. It still relies on electrical sensors for basic operation.

> Car enthusiasts want that sweet spot of purely analog controls, but also with working factory A/C.

There's no shortage of new cars that still offer that, too, or recently used. You don't have to go back to the late-80s to get that. It seems to be mechanical steering combined with low curb weight that you're actually focusing on, which is still a market segment receiving new models. You've basically described every Porsche up until the 2012 model year, for example (when they first introduced electronic steering). Or the entire Lotus brand. Or specialty cars like the Alfa Romeo 4c, Toyota/Subaru FRS/GT86/BRZ, etc...

And, of course, you can't forget the king of sports cars - the Mazda Miata. 30 years later & it's still just as light as it's always been. And just as good.

> Something like a BMW M3 E30 would be a dream hobby car for me.

There's so much more to a car than spec sheets, and you should absolutely chase your dreams, but realize you can also basically buy a brand new M3 E30 today. The power, weight, size, etc... of the E30 is withing spitting distance of the GT86.

Both are front-engine rear-wheel drive. Both have manual transmissions (although a 6-speed in the GT86 vs. the 5-speed in the E30). Both have a ~2700lb curb weight. Both have a 101 in wheelbase. The 86 is a bit shorter length, bit shorter height, and a bit larger width, but all within a few inches. Both have a 4-cylinder engine at around 200hp, and both rev to about 7000 rpm. Both have responsive, playful suspensions, and direct steering feedback.

Regulations definitely didn't kill anything here as the same core specs still exist.

Heh, yes, Miata is always the answer. 1992 in my stable.

How much are electric cars limited by raw torque and power? My impression is that a stock Tesla (pricy, but far from "supercar" prices) already has enough torque that it can turn the wheels past the point where they lose traction even up to quite high speeds. (Anyone know what speed?) If so, then the car's performance in that regime is limited not by engine power but presumably by things like the aerodynamics, sophisticated anti-slip electronics, and chassis movement.

What really limits electric vehicles for racing is weight and batteries. Weight is always bad, and batteries are heavy. And batteries can overheat, which means going into limp mode. The overheating seems to be getting solved relatively quickly, but the weight of batteries isn't going to come down drastically any time soon.

They're just different - electric is better in a lot of ways and gasoline is better in a lot of ways. I don't think you'll see electric cars doing endurance racing anytime soon.

EVs made explicitly for racing very short distances often have fairly small battery packs and use DC motors instead of AC -- as they have no need for regeneration, the motors are cheaper, the wiring is simpler and the possible torque is insane.

Their chief limitation is managing heat, and maintaining the DC motors themselves.

For example, electric drag racing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_drag_racing

They would also have to consider how the mass of a battery affects safety as a car goes airborne and hurtles toward other cars, fences and spectators, as well as establish the right protocol for when batteries catch fire, etc.

A stalled car in Formula 1 (last race year?) cause the driver to have to "hop" out of the car with both legs at the same time. This was to prevent a possible ground path from one leg to the other as a result "stepping" out the car.

I'm not a racing or really car enthusiast, but, don't races have pit stops where mechanics change out the tires and such? Tesla's old 90-second battery replacement tech could be used here. Just thinking out loud.

90 seconds for a pit stop is an eternity.

Just for those that don't know, pitstops these days are under a few seconds. See for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAd_t4wibM0

That's slightly misleading, as that pit stop didn't include refueling. Adding fuel will add about ~10 seconds to the pit stop. But you're still comparing ~10 seconds with ~100 seconds, which is an order of magnitude difference, when many actual races have been lost over 2 second delays in pit stops.

There's Formula E racing, their solution was to have 2 cars and the drivers switched. An interesting company to look at is Lucid Motors they provide a battery pack that lasts all race now.

You could do much better with a specialized high-risk vehicle, probably on the order of a couple of seconds.

tesla never had 90sec battery replacement tech

For raw 0-60 times a big "advantage" of the Teslas are actually their massive curb weight. There's no shortage of gas cars that can also spin their wheels at launch (or even after shifting to 2nd gear). The limiting factor for a launch is mostly friction, and you can get more friction by either increasing the tire's contact patch (such as wider tires) or by adding more weight. Yes that's now more weight you need to accelerate, but assuming you have enough power it's still a net-win.

That weight is terrible for all sorts of other reasons, but that massive ~4,900lb curb weight combined with all-wheel drive is a major factor in the Model S's 2.3 second 0-60 times.

A lot, actually. Tesla batteries are capable of 1500A @ 350V (and much more on a temporary basis, ie Ludicrous mode), which is already 535kW ≈ 717 HP.

Not at high speeds! Or at least, not in a way that's unique to electric motors. ICEs use multiple gears, but it's a similar overall torque picture. (Try multiplying out ICE torque with its gear ratios some time!)

Torque is k*HP/rpm, whether electric or ICE. If you can slip the wheels you can go faster. It's well known in the supercar world that you can often do a great estimate of top speed based on HP alone, given how aero dominates at speeds above 100mph and these cars aren't wildly more drag-efficient than one-another.

At high speed you can increase downforce and thus grip at the cost of increased drag. At lower speeds your limited to the tires which are effectively independent of the rest of the car. At high speeds wind resistance eventually dominates so:

Top speed ^3 * cross sectional area * drag coefficient = HP.

Which is why supercars are so low to the ground, having 1/2 the cross section effectively doubles your horsepower. Though that’s assuming the car can handle the forces involved.

At what speed to you expect the Tesla to be engine-power limited rather than traction limited? (I certainly didn't intend anything like 100mph, but I was thinking like ~40mph.)

I've heard that EV motors need to be guardrailed to keep them from snapping the axles.

The axle strength on this thing must be crazy.

7 electric motors must be able to crank out torque.

look at the youtube videos where tesla updated "track mode" for the model 3.

(people don't generally realize the model 3 performance is almost 500 hp)

Already done! NEDRA [0] is the north American drag racing scene that has been around over 20 years. Much of the best DC EV equipment was developed by the hobbyist market. Perhaps the most impressive example of hobbyists becoming electrical engineers is the self-taught inventor of the Zilla DC motor controller [1], which is still a force to be reckoned with in performance EV conversions. Electrathon [2] is a series that's highly accessible to high schools and individual hobbyists - the goal being to cover as much ground as possible in one hour on one kWh.

EVs are comparatively easy to get started on as a hobby. The production EVs are only making it easier by populating the secondhand parts market, and electric drivetrains are much simpler and easier to fit than ICE conversions.

[0] http://www.nedra.com/

[1] http://cafeelectric.com/zilla.php

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrathon

Maybe just with the software but with the hardware no way. On modern EVs it's too complex, miniaturized and tightly integrated to be able to play around.

Anyway, just like with Tesla, I expect that if you mess with the factory software to extract more features or performance you'd normally have to pay for, the manufacturer will void your warranty or lock you out of their charging networks.

The EV future doesn't look good for custom tuning.

ICE look way more complex than EV to me. More moving parts, more feedback loops. I wouldn't be surprised if enthusiasts were able to swap the controller for something else.

But then I perfectly know you are right about the general tendency of integrated and locked-in parts in engineering nowadays.

How will you swap the controller when that's sealed in the motor casing and the other car's computers will be programed to lock-out non orginal parts in software.

The Fast and furious style tuning is super easy on ICE cars but I expect it will be almost impossible in the EV future.

Put in a different motor, I'd guess. They're cheap compared to engines, and people certainly swap those regularly. New ECU perhaps, as necesasry. Modders are going to mod, for sure. And there's no guarantee that Tesla-style anti-consumer behavior will be prevalent with all manufacturers or that it won't get shot down by the gov't. Some manufacturers actually embrace their modding enthusiasts.

Except nobody makes aftermarket motors the same way nobody makes aftermarket engines. Engines are _THE_ most OEM thing in a car as it takes massive resources to engineer and test a new engine design.

There are definitely aftermarket engines, though admittedly most swaps by far are for different OE designs.

Given the utter simplicity of electric motors, I imagine that aftermarket creations will be much more common.

I feel like, with most of the HN crowd, you underestimate the sheer complexity of current EV motors. It's not just a spinning rotor in a stator that when you plug it into a battery is starts to move.

As a former EV automotive engineer, the complexity added to the newer designs to maximize efficiency has skyrocketed and so have the points of failure.

One EV project I worked at had the brushes fail after 20k KM needing the motor disassemble and brushes replaced. At another one we had attempted cooling the rotor and from too much vibrations, the coolant could leak inside the sealed motor totalling it.

People expecting EVs to outlast ICEs on reliability are in for a serious wake-up call.

I don't really think EV motors are super simple, but I appreciate just how many moving parts there are in a modern ICE.

I totally agree on the reliability point. ICE drivetrains have really been refined and typically last quite a long time. Last I checked, it's not usually the drivetrain that takes a car out of service anyway, so I don't expect EVs to really change the overall life expectancy.

My Tesla has been great, so far, but there are a lot of oddities that I don't think will age well. I probably won't keep it past the warranty period.

It depends. If you're looking at an old school ICE with limited or no computer then they are super simple to understand and work on. Having tools, lifts, etc are generally the thing outside of reach.

I think one of the reasons older Jeeps (with manual transmissions) are still really popular for off roading is that they are super mechanical and very easy to work on in the field. You can carry with you parts that are likely to break based on what you're doing and fix them yourself with a bit of know-how.

You can also tune them however you like as changing suspensions, axels, carbs, differentials, or even clutches is pretty straight forward if you have the tools. Hell, you don't even need to rely on the battery to start it as you can just push it to get it going. Super reliable in a sort of way if you're in the field and need to self repair.

You replace that with aftermarket upgrades. Nobody is going to care that a Leaf "R-type" isn't stock.

People already retrofitting tesla motors inside of vintage Porsches, I’m sure as more EVs end up in junkyards more will make their way into speed junkies hands.

Personally if I could retrofit my 240z with an electric drivetrain I would, I just wanna smoke some Tesla’s off the line :)

Yes, but OP was talking about the future of tuning EVs, not old ICEs with EV parts.

Probably.

Lots of dedicated automotive hobbyists end up being specialized mechanical engineers. They might not know the formal math behind systems, but they have a reason to learn. Today's hobbyists might look up tables for calculating fueling requirements for the expected airflow of their setups, as tuning an engine invariably means figuring out airflow volume for an intake setup, then calculating injector duty cycles to deliver a set volume of fuel over a specific timespan.

I doubt there will be many people modifying new EVs due to their complexity. But people are definitely converting old cars to EVs and that requires a pretty deep knowledge of EE principals.

After the drivetrain is perfected, will they become chemists and work on tire compounds?

It would be interesting to see them pop up on a quarter mile drag strip. Probably they already have, I just haven't been to drag races for decades.

I remember them being quite the experience though. The eye burning fumes in the air. The sound so violent that you feel like the thing could turn the entire track into a crater. When the things took off you could feel your organs shaking.

Not sure you can replicate that experience with an electric car. More likely tastes change and maybe drag racing dies out. Those races were the pinnacle of the ICE experience for me though.

The 1950s and 1960s were the heyday of the dragstrip. Look at movies of that period. They look so slow. Many production cars today could easily outrun "hot rods" of that period.

It's been a long time since power was the problem in racing. It's all about keeping the wheels on the ground now. If you're burning rubber, you're not getting max acceleration.

I had the experience of getting an all access pass to an NHRA event at Bandimere in Colorado a few years back. I stood behind the start line, about 15 yards for most of the event. Being that close to a top fuel drag car at launch was a sensory experience: extreme noise even with plugs inside of over-ear protection, sound waves pushing me back, bits of rubber hitting my legs, and a little bit of "rain" from the water in the exhaust falling.

Seems like they'll run into 'right to repair' issues, where they'll need to replace much of the electronics to get the proper access.

There is already a large market of jailbroken and aftermarket ECUs as well as alternative firmware for tractors because of this. If it gets popular and stays legal, people will find a way around it.

Right, aftermarket, or make it yourself, is what I'm talking about. Your ability to tune is currently limited by access, you need to get the access before you can tune, one way or another.