ICE Engines Hear to Stay Regardless of War Against

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

On 12/10/2020 at 12:46 PM, Enthalpic said:

Toyota was/is a leader in hybrid.  They have the tech and know-how to switch to full EV.

However, as I said originally, they simply do not believe that the ICE will become obsolete, so they will not commit to abandoning it, regardless of their technical capabilities. And here is what they just said themselves:

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Toyota-Theres-Too-Much-Hype-Over-EVs.html

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 12/15/2020 at 3:35 AM, Rob Plant said:

I think Solar is the way to go for California and that is relatively cheap just ask @Jay McKinsey and is getting cheaper.

The cost of installation may remain a barrier however, but I'm sure Jay will inform you better than me on that.

Ron I totally agree with you on NG regarding heating and for power gen back up to renewables.

It truly is a crime regarding all the flaring in the shale patch. Is there no practical/economical way of capturing this resource? or should there be an environmental tax on all flaring to reduce this.

Welcome your thoughts.

Flaring should not be allowed except minimally. I have spent a lot of time explaining ways to use the natural gas onsite. Very few drillers have taken advantage of all the options. I would rather assess penalties rather than rationalize them as taxes. Taxes just get added into the price the customers pay. You can ramp up penalties to frequent offenders. 

[Rob Kramer + 696]

20 minutes ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

However, as I said originally, they simply do not believe that the ICE will become obsolete, so they will not commit to abandoning it, regardless of their technical capabilities. And here is what they just said themselves:

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Toyota-Theres-Too-Much-Hype-Over-EVs.html

1)Because they sell them at a profit. - what they didn't say.

2) they don't want to displace millions of jobs 

3) they don't want balck outs

4) they can sell EV components at low profit margins remain green and profitable.

EDIT: TOYOTA to me is like Canada.  There (were) not the worlds problem. And majority of the world would improve if its standards were that of Canada or TOYOTA.  Most cars should be slower and hybrid IMO. 

Edited December 18, 2020 by Rob Kramer

[ronwagn + 6,290]

8 hours ago, Rob Plant said:

Dan I agree 100% with what you say based on current technology.

What I was trying to point out to @ronwagn who asked why dont they have solar panels on EV's  was that they already did and here is one.

The fact that Aptera claim to never need to charge it is somewhat fanciful I would agree and I don't class this as a car.

The point I was making originally is that the car body panels will be the battery (ie graphene battery) in the future, no solar panels, lightweight (no heavy battery to cart about) 1000 mile range, super fast charging (a few minutes) this is what I see as being the future and whoever cracks it will be king of the EV world and ICE engines will be niche only ie military

I have heard about graphene for many years. I never hear of any real world uses, but I have not researched it since it seems cost prohibitive. There are other ways to make lightweight yet strong materials. I looked briefly at the article but didn't see anything realistic. Maybe you can tell me more, or I will research it again when I have time. 

I have followed the Aptera for many years also, it is just a potential small niche player that never made it. 

Edited December 18, 2020 by ronwagn

[ronwagn + 6,290]

9 hours ago, Sebastian Meana said:

Yeah, there's still a lot of improvement on Internal combustion engine, Formula 1 did get 50% efficiency and over 1000 Horsepower from tiny 1.6 V6, 4 years ago, most likely they are nowadays at around 55% efficiency, and that's with just a single turbo, no thermal recovery system, no dual spark plugs, no urea-water injection in the intake, passive instead of active jet ignition, no turbocompound, no second stage turbocharger

And is a small 13000RPM engine, larger slower revving engines with similar tech would be more efficient and surpass the 60% barrier, before you start attaching the aforementioned stuff

Your theoretical max Internal combustion efficiency is around 80%, having a shot at 65% efficiency wouldn't be a much of a trouble with current technology.

l have a 3 cylinder 83 HP Mitsubishi Mirage with a CVT transmission. It is my go to car in town although we also have a minivan and a large van. I don't know how it can handle the mountains but think it would be fine in the right lane. 33/41 mpg. 

https://www.mitsubishicars.com/mirage/2021?gclsrc=ds&KWID=43700040140835513&cid=paid_search_brand_mirage_bing&cid=paid_search_national_brand_mirage_bing&#hero-area-v2

[Rob Kramer + 696]

2 hours ago, ronwagn said:

l have a 3 cylinder 83 HP Mitsubishi Mirage with a CVT transmission. It is my go to car in town although we also have a minivan and a large van. I don't know how it can handle the mountains but think it would be fine in the right lane. 33/41 mpg. 

https://www.mitsubishicars.com/mirage/2021?gclsrc=ds&KWID=43700040140835513&cid=paid_search_brand_mirage_bing&cid=paid_search_national_brand_mirage_bing&#hero-area-v2

I just saw a British news article on Twitter where a company sells a brand new small car for 8000 euros the add says cots less than EV rebates. If people wernt so pikey and wanting some sort of status this would replace many a 3. Something L V6 late 90s to 2010 . 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.carscoops.com/2020/12/2021-dacia-sandero-launched-as-uks-cheapest-new-car/amp/

Edited December 18, 2020 by Rob Kramer
Weblink

[ronwagn + 6,290]

1 minute ago, Rob Kramer said:

I just saw a British news article on Twitter where a company sells a brand new small car for 8000 euros the add says cots less than EV rebates. If people wernt so pikey and wanting some sort of status this would replace many a 3. Something L V6 late 90s to 2010 . 

Not familiar with that but a large Indian corporation had a very small, light car a few years ago. It never got exported to the West for safety concerns and was not even popular with many Indians. It did look cute and useable off the highway though. 

[Rob Kramer + 696]

2 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

Not familiar with that but a large Indian corporation had a very small, light car a few years ago. It never got exported to the West for safety concerns and was not even popular with many Indians. It did look cute and useable off the highway though. 

I added the link. Its a rebadged Renault.  Lowest trim is 65hp up to 100hp and a diesel version. The base model is .9L 3cyl and 4.5L/100km (just 1.3 gal per 60miles) 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

2 minutes ago, Rob Kramer said:

I added the link. Its a rebadged Renault.  Lowest trim is 65hp up to 100hp and a diesel version. The base model is .9L 3cyl and 4.5L/100km (just 1.3 gal per 60miles) 

I will check it out, thanks. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

21 minutes ago, Rob Kramer said:

I just saw a British news article on Twitter where a company sells a brand new small car for 8000 euros the add says cots less than EV rebates. If people wernt so pikey and wanting some sort of status this would replace many a 3. Something L V6 late 90s to 2010 . 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.carscoops.com/2020/12/2021-dacia-sandero-launched-as-uks-cheapest-new-car/amp/

I would go with the bifuel engine at 99 h.p It is just as pretty as our Mirage and I always like roof racks. Thanks for sharing. I hope it is successful. I have never seen such a large price range! The base is a great deal for those who can't afford the upgrades.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,131]

15 hours ago, Rob Kramer said:

 But as for stock markets I wouldn't be long Tesla. It's only hope would be to become a self driving delivery service of people and goods.

That won't work in the USA at least.  Same reason Boeing does not own an airline.  That would be called a monopoly.  Then again, Amazon has been allowed to deliver now... Frankly this must be stopped if you ask me and Amazon needs to divest large sections of its empire. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,131]

14 hours ago, Sebastian Meana said:

Yeah, there's still a lot of improvement on Internal combustion engine, Formula 1 did get 50% efficiency and over 1000 Horsepower from tiny 1.6 V6, 4 years ago, most likely they are nowadays at around 55% efficiency, and that's with just a single turbo, no thermal recovery system, no dual spark plugs, no urea-water injection in the intake, passive instead of active jet ignition, no turbocompound, no second stage turbocharger

And is a small 13000RPM engine, larger slower revving engines with similar tech would be more efficient and surpass the 60% barrier, before you start attaching the aforementioned stuff

Your theoretical max Internal combustion efficiency is around 80%, having a shot at 65% efficiency wouldn't be a much of a trouble with current technology.

And said engine lasts a whopping ~1000miles and often does not get that far at high speed.  Operating engines at VERY high temperatures to gain very high efficiencies, using ultra lightweight pistons which do not last long has been done MANY times.  No one cares, as they do not last more than a couple of hours so the headline 50% efficiency!!!!  sounds cool, but has been done many times. 

[Sebastian Meana + 278]

11 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

And said engine lasts a whopping ~1000miles and often does not get that far at high speed.  Operating engines at VERY high temperatures to gain very high efficiencies, using ultra lightweight pistons which do not last long has been done MANY times.  No one cares, as they do not last more than a couple of hours so the headline 50% efficiency!!!!  sounds cool, but has been done many times. 

Which is a lot in racing terms, is more like 1400 miles, at full throttle, then you have to count the free practice and the qualifying, and is more like 2800 miles, put a giant turbocharger in your car at 90PSI, drive it like a maniac and tell me if it last 2000 miles, if you make a road engine based with the fancy stuff of a f1 engine (the electric turbo, the aluminium-ceramic composite castings, the god knows what kind of steel piston with copper crown) if most likely going to last 300K Miles, mainly because you would make the engine spin slower and use lower intake pressures

[Sebastian Meana + 278]

19 hours ago, Rob Kramer said:

I've never hear of efficiency anywhere near thoes numbers. I've worked on single and dual turbo cars and trucks with dual spark plugs. I think your trying to imagine a hp/engine size when efficiency is distance over energy. Diesel with compression ign and turbo can be close to 33%-35% efficient if it is off at a light. You want minimal drag smooth idle steady power and quiet . So for gas a prius type hybrid or volt / bmw would be most efficient.  Captures heat in thermos so no warm up . Off at lights . Charges battery apon breaking . Still 4L/100 say? New ones probably closer to 3L/100... volt like 2.4? So a regular small car like an accent or versa is 6-7L/100km. So that would be 70% efficient if it were measured that way but its not your joining a 33% efficient engine with a power scavenging EV power train and heat gathering system. If what you were saying is true Toyota would put in a 600cc Twin turbo dual spark plug and have 3L/100 then ev scavenging to 1L/100km. 

Depends on many things, does your diesel engine have a EGR system? you use steel or aluminium pistons? (aluminium expands and increases friction on the cylinder liners), how fancy is your turbocharger? the Natural Gas wartsila 31SG gets around 52% efficiency, 7100MJ/KWh, there's many places where you can increase the efficiency of the engine, The toyota dynamic force engine gets around 41-42% thermal efficiency and is a naturally aspirated with a normal spark plug

You "only" need to get 850 horsepower from the combustion engine with the current flow rate limit (100kg/h) to claim 50% efficiency and 920 to say you get 55%, Mercedes in 2016 had around 1000 horsepower with the whole hybrid thing, and 840 from the Engine (rulebook says the electric motor is limited to 160 horsepower)


-Having a higher coolant temperature means a lower "Delta.T" between the cylinders and the block and less heat can escape
-Having a prechamber in the spark plugs helps in a more homogeneous combustion the Guys at Mahle say a naturally aspirated engine with a refined cocentric spark plug and injector prechamber would get around 45% efficiency
-Using a turbocharger that is always glowing cherry red, helps a lot
-Then there's the ceramic coatings and insulation in the exhaust headers and around the turbo to keep heat in.
-The biggest thing must be the electric turbo that likely has magnetic bearings, instead of using a wastegate to regulte turbo pressure they use a electric motor-generator to slow it down or spin it
-There's many places in the turbine housing where efficiency can be increased, modern turbos have efficiencies of 65-70% geting 85% efficiency in the turbo is possible using a very detailed turbine and compressor wheel and a diffuser/inlet guide vanes to prevent turbulence in the housing
-Using equal length exhaust headers increase scavenging during the exhaust stroke

 

[NickW + 2,714]

On 12/13/2020 at 7:43 PM, Old-Ruffneck said:

@Dan Clemmensen, I see now alot of panels going on roofs here in central Illinois but the panel are usually on east or west sides where you get 3 month of decent sun and then the sun day by day heads back to the south. So where is the magic line where one actually is getting the best benefit from the not so pretty panels thrown up on roofs. As a roofer I can tell you the avg life span of shingle roofs they are installing today is 15-18 years. So if roof is 4 years old and gets new panels on the roof and then needs replaced in 12 years the cost I would guess is going to be high to remove, install roof, reinstall panels. Or is my thinking this far north the panels only produce "X" amount of electricity and takes longer for panels and batteries to pay off? And if that is the case, how long do the batteries last?  Or am I thinking too far into the future?

For that latitude you are looking at about 1400 KWH / KW panels  for a south facing roof. Knock about 15% off for a due west or East installation so 1200 KWh / KW. 

Global Solar Atlas

[Rob Kramer + 696]

2 hours ago, Sebastian Meana said:

Depends on many things, does your diesel engine have a EGR system? you use steel or aluminium pistons? (aluminium expands and increases friction on the cylinder liners), how fancy is your turbocharger? the Natural Gas wartsila 31SG gets around 52% efficiency, 7100MJ/KWh, there's many places where you can increase the efficiency of the engine, The toyota dynamic force engine gets around 41-42% thermal efficiency and is a naturally aspirated with a normal spark plug

You "only" need to get 850 horsepower from the combustion engine with the current flow rate limit (100kg/h) to claim 50% efficiency and 920 to say you get 55%, Mercedes in 2016 had around 1000 horsepower with the whole hybrid thing, and 840 from the Engine (rulebook says the electric motor is limited to 160 horsepower)


-Having a higher coolant temperature means a lower "Delta.T" between the cylinders and the block and less heat can escape
-Having a prechamber in the spark plugs helps in a more homogeneous combustion the Guys at Mahle say a naturally aspirated engine with a refined cocentric spark plug and injector prechamber would get around 45% efficiency
-Using a turbocharger that is always glowing cherry red, helps a lot
-Then there's the ceramic coatings and insulation in the exhaust headers and around the turbo to keep heat in.
-The biggest thing must be the electric turbo that likely has magnetic bearings, instead of using a wastegate to regulte turbo pressure they use a electric motor-generator to slow it down or spin it
-There's many places in the turbine housing where efficiency can be increased, modern turbos have efficiencies of 65-70% geting 85% efficiency in the turbo is possible using a very detailed turbine and compressor wheel and a diffuser/inlet guide vanes to prevent turbulence in the housing
-Using equal length exhaust headers increase scavenging during the exhaust stroke

 

Your mixing alot of stuff here. Like turbo efficiency isn't a turbod engine efficiency. Toyota spending its entire business is at 42% means one engine can be used at 42% not all engines are at least 42%. The coolant and engine material are for heat going through the engine not energy getting to the wheels. And its a trade off heat through engine vs dragging cylinders and short engine life. Same with turbo your not having a fire liability under a hood 24/7 cherry hot. And almost all exhaust manifolds are flow tested since the 90s. Trust me I love engines but there not getting out past Toyota 42% without hybrid. And I know of Toyota and Mazda 5 cycle . Its all the same gotta remove the radiator warm up and exhaust heat to be more than 42% and that needs peltier plates for heat to electricity or a steam engine to use the heat to turn another engine ect. Alpt of people have been doing this for alot of time . Its just easier and cheaper most often to just use another liter of gas per 100km.

Edit: another thing your forgetting or main thing is the more efficient an engine the more KM you want to be able to use it for. A taxi or transport truck needs power and efficiency.  But also to last 300k for taxi and 1M miles per engine on the semi. A dragster that gets rebuilt every 5th 1/4mile is not the same.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Rob Kramer

[Sebastian Meana + 278]

4 hours ago, Rob Kramer said:

Your mixing alot of stuff here. Like turbo efficiency isn't a turbod engine efficiency. Toyota spending its entire business is at 42% means one engine can be used at 42% not all engines are at least 42%. The coolant and engine material are for heat going through the engine not energy getting to the wheels. And its a trade off heat through engine vs dragging cylinders and short engine life. Same with turbo your not having a fire liability under a hood 24/7 cherry hot. And almost all exhaust manifolds are flow tested since the 90s. Trust me I love engines but there not getting out past Toyota 42% without hybrid. And I know of Toyota and Mazda 5 cycle . Its all the same gotta remove the radiator warm up and exhaust heat to be more than 42% and that needs peltier plates for heat to electricity or a steam engine to use the heat to turn another engine ect. Alpt of people have been doing this for alot of time . Its just easier and cheaper most often to just use another liter of gas per 100km.

Edit: another thing your forgetting or main thing is the more efficient an engine the more KM you want to be able to use it for. A taxi or transport truck needs power and efficiency.  But also to last 300k for taxi and 1M miles per engine on the semi. A dragster that gets rebuilt every 5th 1/4mile is not the same.

I know that turbo efficiency isn't engine efficiency, but hey, if you can make your compressor wheel more efficient in compressing the air you can lower the compression ratio on the engine and lower the energy you actually need need to compress air, compressing stuff requieres a lot of air.

And it's true, you can't get past over 45% efficiency in a naturally aspirated ICE engine without adding a high degre of complexity on it, but if you can make  that complexity somewhat cheap and reliable you can keep selling explosive clocks

you can possibly get formula 1 efficiencies on a road car or a class 8 truck with great reliability, is just gonna be a very expensive engine if is not mass produced, (metal matrix composite castings? Cromoly tool steel rods and crankshaft?  Inconel exhaust valves headers and turbo? electric turbo with levitating magnet bearings? Cryogenic threated intercooler?)

[Old-Ruffneck + 1,177]

On 12/17/2020 at 7:27 PM, ronwagn said:

Flaring should not be allowed except minimally. I have spent a lot of time explaining ways to use the natural gas onsite. Very few drillers have taken advantage of all the options. I would rather assess penalties rather than rationalize them as taxes. Taxes just get added into the price the customers pay. You can ramp up penalties to frequent offenders. 

Flaring servers a couple purposes, and if you've never worked on gas wells or oil wells then you'll not get "why" they flare. I understand what you said in the past but to be honest, if "bad" gas is mixed with the good gas when completed they can't on site in the middle of nowhere compress and take to refinery and pollute the good gas' there. Also flare run on rigs in operation so if they get a major gas kick it routed to the flare and burned off safely. Alot of the West Texas natural has pockets of H2s and extremely toxic and takes 200-300 ppm to kill a drill hand. I roughnecked for 6+ years back in late 70's till reaganomics killed the oil industry in mid 80's. I am/was H2s certified back then....had to be or you'd not have a job. Goggle map Loco Hill, NM and look at the satellite view, clear east to Maljamar, NM and check out the amount of wells. 95% of them contain H2s and it will eat the drill string and anything metal. So they would get several wells drilled and scrap the drill string and xray'd it was shot. FLARES were always going just in case.... Of course drilling today is totally differs from 40 yrs ago but the gas' are still there. Drill a well north of Pecos, Tx by 30 miles close to the NM border and I don't believe gas lines are totally finished yet, so when you complete the well and it has excess gas, too costly to compress and transport, so they burn it off. Everyone wants 2.15 a gallon gas but start mandating and forcing wells to double in price, gasoline will double too. My 2cents worth here, take or leave it.

[Old-Ruffneck + 1,177]

9 hours ago, NickW said:

For that latitude you are looking at about 1400 KWH / KW panels  for a south facing roof. Knock about 15% off for a due west or East installation so 1200 KWh / KW. 

Global Solar Atlas

40 square roof or 4000 sq feet for some here, and is due north and south meaning the 2 major hips face east and west and a 3 sq hip facing south. So far I pretty sure a NG generator would suit me better in the long run. 

[Rob Kramer + 696]

4 hours ago, Sebastian Meana said:

I know that turbo efficiency isn't engine efficiency, but hey, if you can make your compressor wheel more efficient in compressing the air you can lower the compression ratio on the engine and lower the energy you actually need need to compress air, compressing stuff requieres a lot of air.

And it's true, you can't get past over 45% efficiency in a naturally aspirated ICE engine without adding a high degre of complexity on it, but if you can make  that complexity somewhat cheap and reliable you can keep selling explosive clocks

you can possibly get formula 1 efficiencies on a road car or a class 8 truck with great reliability, is just gonna be a very expensive engine if is not mass produced, (metal matrix composite castings? Cromoly tool steel rods and crankshaft?  Inconel exhaust valves headers and turbo? electric turbo with levitating magnet bearings? Cryogenic threated intercooler?)

Your process is exactly what the politicians are saying.  Mandate higher epa mpg. Design costly pain in the butt 1% efficiency gains. Or keep it simple stupid and have a reliable small underpowered cheap engine and strap a 30$ thermos a 400$ battery and 400$ motor and change some software. You got a hybrid and it's off at lights , doesn't need warm ups and recovers breaking . Plus due to its nature you can make it a tech package and sell it at a premium.  Again in stop and go traffic pr city driving all the stuff you mentioned wouldnt beat a hybrid. And on the hiway you'd be hard pressed to notice the difference its more likley they person with more power would just speed more and pass more and use up the extra 5% of efficiency in poor driving habits.

Edit: if your searching engines with high power and long lives most impressive I've seen was a 1200hp 2.6L nissan skyline gtr daily driver from Japan with 40k km on it at the time of the video. Now thats a good tune.  

Edited December 19, 2020 by Rob Kramer

[ronwagn + 6,290]

1 hour ago, Old-Ruffneck said:

Flaring servers a couple purposes, and if you've never worked on gas wells or oil wells then you'll not get "why" they flare. I understand what you said in the past but to be honest, if "bad" gas is mixed with the good gas when completed they can't on site in the middle of nowhere compress and take to refinery and pollute the good gas' there. Also flare run on rigs in operation so if they get a major gas kick it routed to the flare and burned off safely. Alot of the West Texas natural has pockets of H2s and extremely toxic and takes 200-300 ppm to kill a drill hand. I roughnecked for 6+ years back in late 70's till reaganomics killed the oil industry in mid 80's. I am/was H2s certified back then....had to be or you'd not have a job. Goggle map Loco Hill, NM and look at the satellite view, clear east to Maljamar, NM and check out the amount of wells. 95% of them contain H2s and it will eat the drill string and anything metal. So they would get several wells drilled and scrap the drill string and xray'd it was shot. FLARES were always going just in case.... Of course drilling today is totally differs from 40 yrs ago but the gas' are still there. Drill a well north of Pecos, Tx by 30 miles close to the NM border and I don't believe gas lines are totally finished yet, so when you complete the well and it has excess gas, too costly to compress and transport, so they burn it off. Everyone wants 2.15 a gallon gas but start mandating and forcing wells to double in price, gasoline will double too. My 2cents worth here, take or leave it.

You sound like you know what you are talking about, but I think you and I are both behind on the technology available to clean the gas and use it. I am no chemist so don't want to get in too deep. You are talking worse case scenarios, but flares occur all over the world and without limits in many cases. I lived near one in Bakersfield, California and it once spewed sticky soot all over part of the town. They had to wash a lot of cars. I am willing to pay more to use the natural gas being wasted. Actually I am an advocate for using natural gas vehicles as is done in parts of the world. California is the leading user in the U.S.A. Still they want to get rid of natural gas!

This is how it can be done:

https://www.croftsystems.net/oil-gas-blog/what-is-stranded-gas/

https://www.aogr.com/magazine/cover-story/using-associated-gas-to-power-on-site-operations-provides-compelling-benefits

https://en.infratechnology.com/applications/strandedgas/

 

[NickW + 2,714]

6 hours ago, Old-Ruffneck said:

40 square roof or 4000 sq feet for some here, and is due north and south meaning the 2 major hips face east and west and a 3 sq hip facing south. So far I pretty sure a NG generator would suit me better in the long run. 

Typical solar panels have a rating of 150W per m2 (11ft2). Based on the annual production from each face you can work out your yield. 

Problem with solar in high latitudes is low winter output. I have 1460w split between east and west. We get about 60-70% of our electric in the summer months but only around 10% in the winter months. 

Its still cost effective as it was a DIY installation. I don't export anything as all surpluses get dumped through an immersion into my hot water cylinder. I would have though installing solar would have been dead easy for you if you are a roofer. 

My return is about 12-13% per annum tax free which is better than watching our cash get deflated in the bank at 0.01% interest

[Rob Kramer + 696]

 

[Rob Kramer + 696]

A must watch and please re link to all renewable and ev discussions. 

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

On 12/10/2020 at 10:47 AM, Rob Plant said:

 

"Those companies (GM, Fiat-Crysler, Ford, Toyota, Honda, etc.) will fade away, because they cannot catch up with Tesla's 10-year head start."

Maybe they will maybe they wont.

All they need to do is get with the latest tech as in buy it or copy it.

These companies are huge so dont underestimate them just yet.

You are correct that batteries are the key and until someone can develop a graphene battery (or similar) as the car's shell (therefore eliminating a lot of the weight from the vehicle) then all bets are off.

Tesla's technology cannot be bought because no one else is doing what they're doing. Tesla has also made a point of acquiring small firms the automotive industry might have relied on to bridge the gap.

To better understand this, I'd recommend looking at Sandy Munroe's teardowns and interviews on Youtube. There was much ado about blemishes in Tesla bodies, giving the impression that Tesla is a bunch of amateurs. However, when they looked at the electronics, they found a level of quality and sophistication typically reserved for the most advanced aerospace applications. You can't duplicate that with a random team of engineers; you must hire, develop, and unleash the best. The automotive industry is mostly incapable of doing this.

Consider that the automotive OEMs spent several decades offloading R&D onto their suppliers, relying solely on ICE technology to maintain control of markets. They no longer have the engineers to do what Tesla does, and good engineers don't want to work for them. A few automotive OEMs will survive, of course, but most are screwed.

As for batteries as structural members, Tesla's new battery cell will do exactly that. You might be surprised how much technology they have coming down the pipe.