I just saw Oppenheimer (pretty good, but it’s no Barbie), and naturally the film included the phrase “you can’t put the atomic genie back in the bottle.” Thankfully that genie hasn’t done much (bomb-wise, anyway) since WWII, but the electric-car genie? Well, that guy has been busy. If anyone out there is still thinking or hoping EVs are going to go away–surely no one who visits this site regularly–rest assured EVs are here to stay. But that doesn’t mean everything with a fuel-burning engine will soon be carrying a battery and motor, or that the millions of ICE cars and trucks on the road today will be pried away from those who prefer them, or that every type of vehicle than can be electric-powered will be offered exclusively so if there are sufficient customers who want or need a fuel-burning model.
Here are two categories of possible ICE holdouts that come to mind: overlanders and muscle/sports cars. (Pssst, you can read about the Lexus rig pictured above right here, and Thomas has the 2024 Mustang GT review here). Yes, the effortless torque and precise throttle control of electric power makes EV off-roaders spectacularly capable machines, and there’s plenty of range to keep you rolling. But if you’re also burning up battery to run your campsite night after night, and don’t plan on being anywhere near a form of civilization that includes a charging network, maybe ICE power and a large-capacity fuel tank (and/or extra containers of fuel) is the better recipe for extended adventure in the wild. As for muscle cars and sports cars, you already get it: the sound and feel of an ICE engine is massive part of the car’s personality and the satisfaction of the driving experience (even more so when coupled to a manual gearbox). “But even a basic EV is sooo much faster and more powerful than many of those ‘muscle’ cars!” Well, let’s just let Corvette Man take the mic here:
Now, will there be enough actual demand for even boutique ICE options to be viable in these categories in the future? Who’s to say. Motorcycles might be a different story; as Harley-Davidson has been demonstrating for decades, a great many riders are in it for an “authentic” experience, not the latest tech or a maximalist approach to performance. And no rider who appreciates the experience of riding something like a Yamaha RD350 with its screaming 2-stroke parallel twin or a Honda CBX and its glorious combination of jet-like thrust and butter-smoothness (and F1 exhaust note) will ever put these steeds on Facebook Marketplace because their new battery-bike is quicker to 60mph.
[Editor’s Note: Peter also made this image of a two-stroke Saab 92 and its DKW-inspired engine, and I think that’s also got its own sort of appeal, especially in a hypothetical mostly-EV-era:
…so I’m putting it back in. Maybe David told Peter to lose it? Too bad! – JT]
[Author’s Note: I took it out myself, along with a few sentences about the Saab 92. Because you gotta murder your darlings. -PV]
[Editor’s Note: I’m going to say my answer to this question is off-road vehicles, mostly because I believe the best off-road vehicles have solid axles, and the reality is that EVs are just not going to have them. My off-roader of choice will always have two live axles, meaning it will always be an ICE (or a homemade EV with solid axles). -DT].
So, The Autopian Asks:
What Types Of ICE Vehicles Will Remain Appealing Deep Into The Electric Car Era?
To the comments!
I’ve had fun cars before, even special cars, but at the point at which I had them, they were also my regular transportation. It’s just been in the last couple of months I got a fun car and I don’t also need it to get groceries. The fun car is a V8 RWD with a manual transmission (’05 Pontiac GTO). I think those cars will retain appeal, ones that are engaging, more analog, for those who want to drive, not just get somewhere. EVs are great for getting around, running errands, doing the things our car-centric suburban and urban lifestyles need us to have cars for.
I mean: parsh.
Flat-six forever, nerds!
All of them (hopefully that will be all cars since EV’s suck)
I’m a little late to this one, but I would say light duty trucks with the Cummins 5.9L 12v with mechanical fuel pump. Bullet proof engine. Very good candidate for alternate fuels.
Everything Pre 80s is well worth having.
As much as we’re enthusiasts and like engine noise and manual shifting, I think for practicalities sake, if EV’s DO really take off, commercial vehicles should really be the only hold outs. Over the road trucks, HD pickup trucks, and any other commercial vehicle that doesn’t necessarily have the downtime to be charged overnight.
I get the part about offroad vehicles too, but one thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that perhaps over time people will need to re-evaluate and or/change hobbies. Maybe off-roading, overlanding and other motorsports might go away. Don’t get me wrong, they’re fun and I enjoy them, but they are not crucial to the function of everyday life.
I’d argue that “the best” offroaders will eventually be direct-drive EVs that don’t even have axels to deal with.
We’re definitely not there yet, but having totally independently controlled suspension and power to each wheel would be great… Having independant steering for each wheel could be even greater. We’re a long way from having the right kind of software to handle that, and we don’t have great control systems to handle that amount of flexibility right now, but I think that’s what the endgame would be… Though likely with a diesel backup generator for extended/camping trips.
I’m not suspension engineer (please chime in and tell me how wrong I am, if you are) but I’d assume that designing appropriate suspension for such a rig would be a bit of a challenge and/or it would need to be electrically/pneumatically controlled somehow, but it would open a lot of possibilities… Imagine having a vehicle that could literally “walk” up ledges.
But then again, maybe that takes all of the fun out of it?
I think near future, miatas are the obvious answer, and might be in the future unless we get some categorical advancement in battery tech. Oakley shade guys are already getting on the tesla train, and I suspect the highly confident slow muscle car owner is an outlier that’s wildly overrepresented in internet car nerd circles. In contrast, EV manufacturers are nowhere close to a small, lightweight gokart kind of vehicle, and won’t be for a while. Deep into the future, I think it’ll depend on gas availability, but I’m guessing future Jay Leno types will be mainly invested in naturally aspirated anything, and people in deep rural areas might still rely on fossil fuels to get around.
I genuinely think the hot hatch will stay ICE. The Mazda 3 Turbo is an example of a car that wouldn’t work as an EV. It makes a good noise in the cabin, despite also being a comfortable long cruiser (with a tiny gas tank lol). It’s a car of eccentricities, but the big appeal is how you can go from family hatch to hot hatch with the flick of a switch. Hyper hatches like the Golf R may go EV, but for something that’s about the experience of getting on the highway commute home like you are escaping the evils of the 9-5, I think it will stay with an ICE for a long time.
Ok am I absolutely insane or are EVs not going to truly replace ICE engines in our lifetimes? So many extreme timelines to get rid of gas engines and like how? I won’t complain though, I like my big engines.
That really depends how old you are. are you 60 or 20? that extra 40 years makes a huge difference since EV’s weren’t a thing 20 years ago.
It will, but it will take a few decades. It also depends on where you live. Regardless, even if all new vehicles sold are EV’s, people will continue to drive their older ICE vehicles.
Depends on how many more coal firing electric plants are built.
You’re actually one of the sane ones…the EV stans are delusional insane fanatics
Trucks for anyone that tows a load. I cant trailer my race car on an 8 hour tow with electric. And secondly anyone who drives for fun, anyone who finds a manual transmission appealing will never enjoy driving an electric car.
Conversely, put a manual in an electric. https://www.theautopian.com/i-briefly-off-roaded-an-electric-jeep-wrangler-concept-with-a-manual-transmission-heres-why-it-was-so-glorious/
I suspect serious hauling is either going to necessitate gas staying around for that specific use case (with some arcane permitting system to meet environmental regs in certain countries) or they’ll somehow have to make hydrogen viable. It might be that hyper dense fast charge batteries are around the corner, but it seems like we’re looking at at least a decade of just slow marginal improvements.
I was visiting a friend in San Diego recently, she was telling me about how they’re a green houshold – no paper plates, washable napkins instead of paper towels, short showers, etc.
We were later talking cars, and I remarked that she must be excited when her car (3 series manual coupe) needs replacing. The answer I got was “Hell no! I love my manual, and I can’t get that in an EV”. She then mentioned a specific late model BMW that was going to be her next car because it has a traditional manual.
To be fair, she works from home and doesn’t drive that often, they even often walk to the grocery store if it’s not a big trip. Her fiancé rides his mountainbike to work a few times a week, and their 80 series Landcruiser is only used for camping trips to the desert.
Incidentally, they let me use the 80 while I was visiting, and holy hell do I love that thing!
Road trip cars – especially hybrids that aren’t too expensive to run. A 700-mile day in a RAV4 hybrid is 2 tanks of gasoline and you can plan your trip around the fastest or most enjoyable route. It’s gonna take a really long time before a lot of people are comfortable with road tripping an EV.
In the absence of government mandates and other disincentives, any ICE vehicle will remain appealing to inner city residents for decades to come.
As long as gas stations are accessible and electrical service inside older homes/apartment buildings is suspect, 10-15 year old ICE beaters with range comparable to new will tend to be more affordable to purchase, and depending on the owner’s situation, more practical to own than their used EV equivalents, many of which will be dangerously close to needing a battery replacement.
Any kind owned in the deep south/hurricane country, where power outages can last for days or weeks after a nasty storm.
For all the justifiable worry about “what the grid can handle” with regard to an explosion in electric vehicles, Southerners and Midwesterners have a separate worry altogether: what if the grid, exactly as it exists today, is not powering your house at all for the rest of the week? What if you have to evacuate, and your batteries don’t have enough juice in them to safely get you to the next nearest charging station outside the “cone of uncertainty”? What if you get stranded on the side of the road in the middle of the storm as it is coming ashore? What if you had only been able to top off your tank at a little country store in the middle of nowhere and keep moving?
Internal combustion engines will remain common in the South and the Midwest even beyond the necessary ” improvements in infrastructure,” because we know from experience that even the existing infrastructure sometimes just stops working in bad enough weather.
How often can you pump gas when the power is out? If the power is out, everyone is hosed, not just EV drivers. The big plus for EVs is that they don’t burn as much fuel sitting in the traffic jam on the evacuation route. Remember that big snowjam last winter? EV’s had heat for days while ICE ran dry. If you are paying even cursory attention to the hurricane warnings, you’ll be fully charged before hitting the road. Really, how far do you have to go to get out of that cone of uncertainty? The hardest part is finding a place to spend a couple of nights to wait out the worst of the storm and pray your stuff is still there when it’s over.
Fun fact: most gas stations these days have a generator sufficient to run the pumps and POS system.
Another fun fact: running the heater in the EV burns a shitload more energy than a heater core does.
Oh, another fun fact: predicting the weather in an increasingly destabilized and hazardous climate is exponentially harder, meaning any hurricane track predictions 3 days out are just throwing darts.
But you’re not interested in facts.
‘Fun fact #2’ is factually incorrect. ICE cars are incredibly inefficient heaters on a per unit energy basis, they do however have plenty of excess heat during normal forward motion. While idling or stopped, as Rob noted, they do not, and idle gas cars use around 1/2 a gallon an hour. That is ~17 kW to ‘run the heater’. EVs will do 1-5KW for extreme cold and whole cabin heating. Seat heaters generally top out around 500W.
Fact 3 is likewise exactly as relevant for ICE and EVs.
Fact 1 is certainly true. Likewise true is that for busy stations, they may only have a single day worth of fuel on-site, rendered even less by panic buying in an emergency. Can’t get any fuel if there isn’t any fuel around.
Idling cars do not use 1/2 gallon an hour, they use .166 gallons an hour.
https://youtu.be/dFImHhNwbJo?t=138
.166 gallons… when it’s a Toyota 5A-FE 1.5L 4cyl engine. Now let’s talk about all the V6 and v8 engines out there.
I’m guessing that a good number of vehicles on the road DO use 1/2 gallon per hour when idling.
Even if it was 0.166 gallons per hour. The best a ICE car do is match an electric heater. This is fundamentally true. ICE cars use radiant heating (with intercoolers and fans), electrical radiant heating is effectively 100% efficient. Gas heating, best in class (in HE homes) gets you 96%. You can’t do better, and I’d be willing to bet everything I own you’d do a lot worse than that in practice. Probably not even 80%.
And many new electric cars have yet another power up their sleeves. Heatpump systems. COP as high as 3 (1 unit of energy spent to move 3 units of energy into the car) is very achievable, and at worse, it just approaches radiant.
It is very possible to find situations where a car has to increase fuel flow to keep a cabin heated, or where an idling car cannot keep temperatures up.
I lived in hurricane alley for a long time, and I’ve been through many hurricanes beginning with Frederick in 1979. Since you’re interested in facts, here are a few more to lay on you:
1) Hurricanes have been difficult to predict for, let’s see… “ever”.
2) People who live in hurricane country are used to planning for them and their vagaries. The folks who would end up with an uncharged EV when they need to evacuate are the same folks who would also have 1/8 of a tank of gas or diesel.
3) In hurricane country, the heater will be the last thing you’d need to run in your vehicle during an evacuation. Even if it happened to be chilly outside, having Ma and Pa and Meemaw and Bud and Buffy and Fido in the car will generate more than enough heat.
4) It’s not power supply that’s the limfac when it comes to gassing up your car – it’s the loooooong lines. If you’re expecting to get fuel during the evacuation, you’ll have a long wait during which to regret your poor planning.
5) Most of the evacuation time (which can run into days) will be sitting still or barely moving. EVs are the star of the show in that situation.
TLDR: as a veteran of many hurricanes, I’d 100% rather be in an EV than in a dino-fueled vehicle during an evacuation.
“Another fun fact: running the heater in the EV burns a shitload more energy than a heater core does”
That is absolutely false.
While technically you’re right the sentiment isn’t wrong. You just need to add the word usable to the sentence. The heater in an EV absolutely burns a shitload more usable energy than a heater core.
Yup!
The power isn’t out a hundred miles from the coast as you’re evacuating. But there is probably not be a charging station there. That’s my whole point.
You got it!
“But if you’re also burning up battery to run your campsite night after night, and don’t plan on being anywhere near a form of civilization that includes a charging network, maybe ICE power and a large-capacity fuel tank (and/or extra containers of fuel) is the better recipe for extended adventure in the wild.”
Just how long will that extra fuel will last charging your campsite battery out in the middle of nowhere?
Bring some some solar panels and you can charge your battery as long as the sun is shining.
The fuel will last you until you drive to your next destination and stop at Oodnadatta roadhouse on your way.
The difficulty with a BEV is that Oodnadatta doesn’t have any charging infrastructure; it would be charitable to even say they have electricity.
You can also easily strap an extra ~712kwh in four jerrycans as a safety margin on your trailer, the same can’t really be said for BEVs.
Nice try, but current panels will only net you a few miles per entire day of charging. The real answer is hybrids/rex.
Yeah, I was going to say, how many panels are you lugging around? Those cooler size battery “generators” take all day to recharge with a solar panel in good conditions. A whole car?
Anything with decent towing capacity. Millions of people have boats/trailers/shit to tow and outside of some sorta battery breakthrough, EVs suck at it.
the least-expensive ones
Tractor trailers aren’t going EV anytime soon.
Range, mileage between repairs/maintenance and the ability to tow that kind of weight ensure their continued use of ICE’s for a long time to come.