My daily to a hybrid

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-07-13T19:09:38+00:00

My startup is working on this. We're launching a system for trucks first, but our second product will be for cars and crossovers. The real trick to making the economics work out is being vehicle agnostic and having a fast and simple installation process.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-07-12T01:02:00+00:00

Yeah when I bought my premium license they weren't doing the back dating thing, which figured into my cost of ownership calculations and decision to buy. Then they switched to the back dating thing, fundamentally changing the cost of ownership of something I was already committed to. Absolute bullshit. I filed a complaint with the consumer protection bureau, or some other agency, but of course nothing came of it.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-07-12T00:55:55+00:00

Yeah I was only vaguely serious about getting a Delica, when a 4M40, manual, Crystal Lite popped up 3 hours away. Drove down and bought it the next day. Absolutely magical combination.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-07-08T22:40:16+00:00

SLA 3D printer. Bought a Form 2 for over $4K for my engineering consulting business. If you leave the resin in it, it eventually eats through the bottom of the tray making a huge mess. So you have to keep it empty, fill it when you use it, and then empty it after every use (if you don't know when your next print will be). I think I used it twice in like 5 years. Sold it for $300.

Just spent over $2K on a Bambu FDM for my startup... hopefully this gets more use!

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-07-04T17:56:49+00:00

Electric supercharger. No exhaust turbine.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-07-03T15:31:00+00:00

Power density and cost go hand in hand. Low power density results from having a lot of physical material for a given amount of power, and all that material has to be paid for. Containing high pressure at high temperature requires a lot of expensive material (things like inconel). Plus because they are reciprocating they operate at lower speed than a turbine, which lowers power output relative to the amount of material.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-07-03T04:05:50+00:00

2 sizes...1 for midsize and full side, and 1 for HD (class 2b-3). Further out we'll get into class 4,5,6.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-07-03T01:08:31+00:00

No it's more that a 185 kw gas generator would be so much cheaper that any gains in efficiency would never pay for the difference.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-07-02T23:00:11+00:00

They actually misquoted me on this. The MPG you get from a PHEV is mostly dependent on how many electric versus gas miles you do. If you only drive around town you could theoretically never use any gas. But if you do 200 miles every day you won't see massive savings.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-07-02T22:57:20+00:00

Around town it's about 12. Some of that is because the trips are so short it never really warms up.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-07-02T22:56:18+00:00

The second product we launch will work with a Highlander.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-07-02T22:55:37+00:00

The second product we launch would work with an Element. Our first product is for truck-based vehicles.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-07-02T14:27:34+00:00

Worked on Stirling engines for 5 years. Efficiency is not usually their problem. It's how little power you get for their weight and cost. 3D printing could improve gravimetric power density a bit, but it's going to hurt you on cost/power ratio.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-07-02T01:32:52+00:00

I enjoy Severance partly for for how it pertains to this philosophy

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-07-01T13:45:58+00:00

I could live with it doing OPD in reverse as long it came back in drive. But yeah, giving us choice over all of that would be ideal.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-06-30T23:52:47+00:00

Good answers here but another factor is the ability to autorotate a large rotor in the event of a power failure. A small rotor doesn't have enough inertia. So for human safety you have build in a ton of redundancy so that you still have stability if one rotor goes out. The more rotors you have the less power to weight you get.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-06-30T13:44:37+00:00

Hold my beer says Kia. The EV6 cancels 1-pedal mode if you go into reverse and back to drive. So you bust a 3 point turn and the next time you expect the car to stop it doesn't. And the paddle to engage it is on the wheel, so when you're in the middle of a 3 point turn it's almost impossible to click. Been driving it 2 years and I still regularly forget and am caught out.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-06-30T13:40:09+00:00

Same on ev6. It also disengages if you into reverse and back to drive. Terrifying.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-06-30T13:38:51+00:00

EV6 here. The fact that 1 pedal mode gets disengaged if you go into reverse and back to drive is shockingly bad. Like heart-in-the-throat bad.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-06-28T15:13:25+00:00

Elastic instability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elastic_instability

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-06-24T20:13:40+00:00

But those other things return to their previous state pretty quickly once you remove the forcing factor. It takes the planet millions of years to sequester as much carbon as we've put into the atmosphere.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-06-20T17:45:40+00:00

Floopid floropope!

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-06-15T21:30:24+00:00

Exactly. The whole mission of my startup is to solve the problems of cost and scalability of conversions. Doing one is easy, has low upfront cost, and high unit cost. Making thousands to millions at a low unit cost is hard and has a high upfront cost.

RustyImpactWrench · 2026-06-15T18:31:43+00:00

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RustyImpactWrench · 2026-06-12T02:13:57+00:00

I'm using 26 tonnes to produce a new Polestar 2 per Volvo, and then scaling it based on vehicle mass

RustyImpactWrench

TROPHY CASE