• RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    How about the rare earth materials as well as much more expensive metals in the motor and electronics construction? An ICE engine is well understood and you can pick up a higher performing aluminum block and head crate motor for ~$13k or so. The higher trim Tesla motors are ~$20k, and they can have up to four motors. That’s a huge difference.

    E: y’all downvoting…why? OEM electric motors for cars like a Tesla are expensive AF whereas you can get a relatively inexpensive ICE (~$7k for a base model V8 crate motor). That’s retail, not the manufacturer internal price.

    • nednobbins@lemm.ee
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      17 hours ago

      China has more rare earth deposits than the US but that’s a bit misleading. Rare earths show up in trace amounts all over the world. China has them in higher concentrations.

      The bigger issue is that China has been the main refiner of rare earths for decades. That means they have all the infrastructure for actually making it available and they’ve developed a bunch of technologies and processes to do it way cheaper and more efficiently than anyone else can.

      I don’t know the pricing specifics of EV motors but I have some familiarity with electric motors, in general. The technology hasn’t really changed much in a long time. We’ve have 3 phase motors and hall effect sensors for ages. They’re better than older electric motors but the huge technology leap, that made EVs practical, was the batteries.

    • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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      13 hours ago

      No way does an electric motor cost that much.

      Have you seen the amount of precision engineering that goes into building a combustion engine? That is ridiculously expensive.

      • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        No way does an electric motor cost that much.

        Did you check numbers before you posted or did you disagree out of hand with zero thought to it? I didn’t pull these numbers out of my ass.

        https://gbtimes.com/how-much-is-a-tesla-motor-replacement/

        $10k-$30k, I posted a midrange price. Another site had them as “cheap” as 7k, but either way if you need 2-4 of them it’s not cheap.

        That precision engineering has been establishing itself for well over a century, we get the cheaper price thanks to the economy of numbers. piston engines were driven by steam well before ICE. Yes, I am abundantly familiar with ICE engines having built several and in fact have one under assembly in my garage right now. There’s a massive difference between a boring consumer grade crate motor and any purpose-built high-end track motor as far as engineering goes even if the parts are essentially the same.