Do we have a number on the number of people who have died modifying electric 
vehicles. My guess is none.
 

    On Thursday, December 6, 2018, 9:34:24 PM CST, brucedp5 via EV 
<ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote:  
 
 

http://www.thedrive.com/tech/25229/for-tuners-and-hot-rodders-the-electric-cars-of-the-future-present-a-host-of-new-challenges
For Tuners and Hot Rodders, the Electric Cars of the Future Present a Host
of New Challenges
November 30, 2018  Eric Adams

[image  
https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/genovation-hero.jpg
]

The age of electrification will add new twists—and risks—to the ancient art
of modifying cars. 

Car culture was built on the backs of tuners and tinkerers, the diehard
automotive enthusiasts who, for more than a century, have been willing to
swap out engines and transmissions and body parts for stronger, lighter,
more powerful upgrades—or in more recent times, even just tweak onboard
computers for more turbo boost than the manufacturer might have thought
prudent. Cars, after all—even the sportiest of them—must still tow the line
on economic, efficiency, longevity, durability, and safety when they leave
the factory. Why not dig in a bit once it’s yours, even if it means giving
up a bit of something the carmaker or government would rather you have to
feed your need for speed?

But with the coming age of electrification, is the juice that fuels
tuner/hot-rodder/customizer culture about to vanish? After all, electric and
hybrid cars are complex black boxes that would scare off even the most
committed gearheads. Their motors—dense, sealed cylinders buried deep in the
machines—possess no discernible entry point or remotely tweak-able
appendages. Batteries present terrifying challenges to anyone without an
electrical engineering degree—and rightly so. What’s a wrench looking to
dial in quicker acceleration from an electrified ride to do?

At first glance, not much. When I asked a Honda representative at the Los
Angeles Auto Show about the potential for owner enhancement of electrified
vehicles, the typically tuner-friendly company was—predictably,
perhaps—decidedly cautious, despite the rabid car culture that surrounded
the Southern California venue. 

“We recognize and appreciate that people want to personalize their vehicles,
and we don’t expect that to change as more vehicles become electrified,”
said Chris Naughton, after consulting with colleagues on the clearly
sensitive matter. “That is why we offer a full range of accessories to help
personalize vehicle appearance and, depending on the model, a variety of
driving modes to suit the mood or need of the driver.”

That said, he then definitively discouraged monkeying with the carmaker's
machines in any fashion not developed or endorsed by the company itself,
particularly with respect to electric powertrains. “Working with high
voltage electrical systems in modern EVs can be very dangerous, with
potentially deadly consequences if certain service procedures are not
followed precisely,” Naughton said. “Thus, the stakes can be much higher
modifying an electric vehicle versus modifying a traditional vehicle, and
these risks should not be taken lightly.”

But if owners or even professional aftermarket tuners were to try and climb
into an EV’s powertrain to monkey around, they’d likely have a tough time
figuring out where to even start. Today’s electric vehicles no longer simply
have electric motors in place of the engines and batteries where the gas
tank used to be; they’re fully integrated in ways that internal combustion
vehicles simply never have been. In the new Audi E-Tron SUV, for example,
the Quattro all-wheel-drive system alone taps very specific elements of
battery, suspension, and motor capability to fine-tune its off-road
scrambling and on-road handling. 

“Such powertrains are very hard to mess with,” said Audi engineer Michael
Wein, project manager for the electric Quattro system. “You can’t just boost
the turbos anymore or put in new gear ratios. They have to be fit precisely
to the right battery and the electronics of the motor itself, and all the
thermal management systems factor in, as well. It’s nearly impossible to
turn this system because it’s really, really complicated.”

He notes by way of example that in internal combustion vehicle programs,
each system could be developed more or less independently—but in an electric
vehicle, the battery, motor, cooling, chassis, transmission, and
electronics, and even the suspension, are all developed as a complete
package in a single, very large team. The resulting systems work much faster
and in complete harmony with each other—and are in fact already engineered
to maximize performance as much as possible. After all, the Tesla Model S
P100D electric sedan can accelerate to 60 mph in less than 2.5 seconds, the
Audi E-Tron can fully disable its traction control to unleash some
legitimately good drifting capabilities, and the Jaguar I-Pace can shred
racetracks in the morning then tackle gnarly off-road ascents in the
afternoon.

On the other hand, we’ve been monkeying with machines since before the
Industrial Revolution, so to think that whole line of human desire might
grind to a halt simply because we’re transitioning from cylinders and
gasoline to magnets and electrons is ridiculous. Just ask Andrew Saul,
founder of Genovation, a Rockville, Maryland-based company that caused a
stir at the Los Angeles show with its all-electric Corvette conversion. That
200-plus mph car mates dual electric motors with a conventional, stock
seven-speed manual transmission, and multiple battery packs distributed
throughout the chassis. He scoffs at the idea that EVs are either
untouchable or, more critically, boring. 

“My vision for the future of electrification is that it’s going to be fun,”
Saul said. “People see this car and are amazed that you can have an electric
car with a stick. That’s been extremely gratifying for our team.”

While he acknowledges that many systems, such as in the aforementioned Audi,
will be difficult to penetrate, that doesn’t mean you can’t swap components
or get creative to fashion a fully customized vision. “It is going to be
tricky, because there’s not a lot you can do with a stock system and not
many ways you can soup up an electric motor,” he said. “But you can reduce
weight to help with braking, handling, and acceleration, and you can change
the gear ratios and other parameters, and use higher performance tires for
better acceleration and handling.”

The real success, he argues, will come with more deep-tissue approaches that
capitalize on the new capabilities brought by the EV revolution. His
electric Corvette, for instance, will soon have the ability to
instantaneously change performance profiles to ones developed by
professional race drivers. For instance, you’ll be able to experience the
setup Emerson Fittipaldi developed for the Laguna Seca racetrack, choosing
one that most closely matches your current driving environment or
preferences. Even more accessibly, many EVs are already starting to come
embedded with granular controls of such things as regenerative braking, such
as in Honda’s Clarity plug-in hybrid. Though in some respects cryptic to the
average owner—and not exactly appearing in the kind of car the import-tuner
crowd would go nuts for—its paddle-based braking adjustment system and
modulation of the hybrid powertrain does answer many enthusiast driver’s
desire for a degree of controllability. As that thinking trickles over to
other models, it’ll go a long way toward scratching tuner itches.

That still won’t fully feed the bulldog, though, and modders will inevitably
go as deep as they can to achieve the performance they crave. In some ways,
this will simply be an extension of what we’ve already mastered: hacking the
ECU, the process in which the car’s firmware is tweaked by individuals or
aftermarket companies to boost performance. Audi’s Wein noted that even when
it comes to full EVs, “where there’s a will, there’s a way,” and a Jaguar
engineer echoed that sentiment. 

“Anything is possible, particularly as we move toward a more software-driven
world,” said Dave Shaw, the chief product engineer for Jaguar Land Rover who
oversaw that development in the company's sporty and highly off-roadable
I-Pace electric crossover. “Especially if you understand the way the cars or
their systems are integrated, the possibilities become endless, really.”

Though the company doesn’t recommend such modifications to its own vehicles,
Shaw spoke generally about EVs and the relative ease with which a
knowledgeable tuner could dial performance parameters up or down. “As long
as you have the battery, the capacity, the current, and the cabling to move
one to the other, you can quite literally just ask for more amps to make the
car go faster or dial it down to make it more efficient,” he said. “It’s a
lot easier than balancing fuel and air mixture ratios. You are governed by
the laws of physics, of course—cable sizes, cell characteristics—but you
have the flexibility to chip away at the parameter you want to sacrifice,
whether its durability, reliability, or something else.”

Hardware modification will be harder, he adds, noting that electric vehicles
are engineered very tightly to maximize interior space—but even there,
“everything seems to be getting smaller,” so a creative tuner could in the
future swap in new or more powerful or more efficient components that will
do more with the space originally allotted in the vehicle ...
[© thedrive.com]


+
https://www.autoblog.com/2018/12/04/ford-mach-e-trademark-ev-crossover/
Ford files 'Mach E' trademark, possibly for EV crossover
Dec 4th 2018  Ford has been teasing its upcoming performance electric
crossover using a ... With inspiration taken from the company's Mustang
sports car, the sporty EV had ...
https://img.vidible.tv/prod/2018-05/24/5b06fd49a3fc0244aec81ada/5b06fddf98c5ee7ef906d4e5_o_U_v1.jpg




For EVLN EV-newswire posts use:
 http://evdl.org/archive/


{brucedp.neocities.org}

--
Sent from: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/
_______________________________________________
UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub
http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org
Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)

  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: 
<http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20181207/7e9afe73/attachment.html>
_______________________________________________
UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub
http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org
Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)

Reply via email to