SEMA 2021

 

The SEMA Show

The Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association (SEMA) offered a new Friday Experience where they sold a limited number of tickets to the public to attend SEMA Friday.  I bought one of those tickets and attended.  I have wanted to attend SEMA ever since I first heard about it from Hot Rod magazine writeups back in the 1970's.  This years event was the largest convention in Las Vegas for 2021.  I have been to MINExpo in 2021, and CONEXPO in 2020, both at the Las Vegas Convention Center as well and SEMA is a bigger show using all of the convention center halls as well as most of the parking lots.  My Garmin watch reported over 19,000 steps and almost 11 miles of walking for the day.  It's nice the LVCC Loop helps get you between some of it without as much walking. I did not get to most of the stuff in the parking lots which took up all of the Central Hall lots, and likely more. It is a huge show to cover in one day.  

SEMA is about more than just aftermarket vehicles and equipment.  It also focuses on shops that service or modify vehicles.  SEMA has many vendors of tools, shop equipment, training, software, and pretty much everything a shop would need to service or modify vehicles.  

SEMA had an area they called SEMA Electrified.  This area showcased mostly BEV performance.  

At the end of the show they have an event called SEMA Ignite where a parade of vehicles from the show drive through the parking lot of the West Hall past a bunch of bleachers.  They have live music and beer too.  They block off Convention Center Drive from the LVCC Central Hall to the parking lot of the West Hall where SEMA Ignite is.  They also block off Paradise Road for a block in each direction.  This made it a challenge to get an Uber home.    

Cat had some products there, in 2 different areas.

There were of course plenty of press there so you can find many great photos, articles, and videos online from SEMA.  The pro's obviously have far better equipment and skill than me with my 2.5 year old smartphone.  Below are some videos I captured.

Here is a playlist of 360-degree videos I took. 

Aftermarket Performance Future

Another thing that attracted me to SEMA was to see where industry was with electrification.  I wrote this article earlier about what I see as a likely path for future aftermarket performance.  While full battery electric (BEV) conversions are happening, I have only found Vonnen doing hybrid conversions so far.  There are retailers selling Tesla motors and systems.  GM and Ford have both advertised "crate" electric motors. Ford did show off their Eluminator truck built on their e-crate motor that does have a part number and the article claims you can order it now. 

There were other companies offering BEV components at SEMA such as Blacmotor and Torque Trends. 

I can see a real future for full BEV conversions, but I also see a market for hybrids conversions which appears pretty much unserved except for Vonnen.

Many look at the trends and see the bigger leap direct to BEV in all cases.  I see it a bit differently.  I agree there is a market for BEV conversions and they are compelling in many ways but I also see a market for enhancements to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.  This market is larger than some think in my opinion.  There is something about hearing the sound of an engine that really matters to some.  I am one of those it matters to.  Maybe that desire runs stronger in older folks. I wrote an article about this earlier in this blog.  For those people (which includes me), hybrid really makes sense.  The use case for performance hybrid is very different than hybrid focused on fuel economy, as all the mainstream hybrids are.  Hybrid has been in racing for years now.  Look at F1 KERS for instance, or recent LeMans race cars.  Hybrid powertains are everywhere.  Sports cars often look to racing to adopt those approaches to enhance the performance of street/track sports cars.  Supercars are already well down this path too.  Some of the first were the Porsche 918, Ferrari LaFerrari, and the McLaren P1 which came out years ago.  Many more have followed.

The other issue to consider is the increasing focus and regulation around emissions. The California Bureau of Auto Repair (BAR) has increased focus on going after modified vehicles.  The days of modifying flash files and tunes are nearing an end. Other aftermarket equipment that negatively impacts emissions will face increased scrutiny and eventual ban going forward as well.  Hybrid retrofits do not suffer these risks since they will result in neutral or decreased emissions, and they do not negatively impact emissions control or OBD. 

The performance benefits of electric and hybrid are clear.  Electric motors give a very different powerband than ICE engines.  Their performance peaks in the RPM range are opposites. Combining the 2 together give a much flatter performance curve and really fill in the low end power gaps that ICE engines have, particularly naturally aspirated ICE engines.  Adding hybrid has no effect on the engine sound, other than to allow it to rev even quicker.  The driver experience is enhanced with no downside.  

Some may look at the hybrid retrofit and claim the extra weight will be a bug downside.  That would be true if the net weight gain was significant, or worse, poorly placed in the vehicle.  They would also look at BEV and plug-in hybrids and claim those batteries are heavy and expensive, which is true.  However, the battery capacity needed for performance enhancement is much smaller than what you need for BEV and plug-in hybrid where you are trying to save fuel.  Vonnen's system uses a 1kWh battery.  Most BEVs require more like 80kWh or larger.  Vonnen's system also adds a total of 170lbs but places is lower in the chassis.  The only real downside of Vonnen's system I can see if the cost.  I believe as BEV and hybrids go more mainstream, we will see these costs go down.  I really like what Vonnen has done here and I think they are only the first of many to come.  

I believe that hybrid and electric offer many benefits over an ICE powertain.  Those include:

• The energy storage (batteries, ultra-caps) can be more strategically placed around the vehicle in more optimum places for the weight.  You can also have multiple smaller battery packs to optimize weight location.
• Energy storage can use a combination of batteries and ultra-capacitors based on optimizing for the use cases of the vehicle. Other future energy storage devices can also be used.
• Multiple motor/generators can be used.  This allows for better active torque vectoring without the use of the brakes.
• Electric motor/generators are not only used for propulsion, but also play a part in braking. I like track days and brakes take a real beating on track days.  Absorbing some of that braking energy with the electric system can be a real advantage.
• Multiple motor/generators can be placed to drive each wheel independently.  This will allow for torque vectoring to optimize deceleration in and acceleration out of corners on the track.  It is also a better way to manage traction control overall.
• Electric motor/generator control is very fast.  There is very little time lag between a command and the actual torque application.  This response is far better than any ICE powertrain and give a new level of control.
• When using multiple motor/generators, a single failure will not leave the vehicle incapacitated.  It is like having multiple engines on a airplane.  You can limp home even if one or more fail as long as you have enough for the job.
• You can enhance a hybrid system to also drive an electric supercharger.  When used with a Roots or screw supercharger, a motor/generator driving the supercharger can be used in place of the traditional throttle.  This can recover some otherwise wasted energy from the Otto-cycle engines during light loads.  You can also create custom tuned boost curves to optimize for the ICE engine.   
• You can dispense with all the ICE belt driven accessories like alternator, HVAC, and power steering.  Even the water pump can go electric drive.  This can also eliminate most or all of the related hoses from those systems.  The HVAC can be all hard lines instead of hoses since the compressor can now be body mounted.  Electric assist power steering already exists.  Eliminating all this belt driven stuff lets the engine rev quicker too.
• Engine attached motor/generators like the Vonnen system allows for the removal of the alternator and starter.  No longer do you have that noisy starter to start the engine.  This can also be used for anti-stall and stall recovery where the motor/generator are used to maintain idle speed even if the engine dies.
• In the case of highly modified engines, the engine attached motor/generator can by used to stabilize the idle.  The Aston Martin Valkyrie is a great example of this where the hybrid system is used to make the car more drivable. 
• It is possible, especially in off-road vehicles, to recover energy from the suspension using electro-magnetic suspension dampers (shocks).  These can be used to actively control vehicle ride.  Electro-magnetic suspension control can be used to eliminate the sway bars and instead have the ride height actively controlled.  This will allow the off-road vehicle to rock climb and keep all the wheels in contact with the ground while also preventing body roll at high speeds.  Body roll can be actively eliminated completely improving performance of all vehicles.  In fact, negative body roll can be implemented.  Since some of the energy is being recovered rather than generating waste heat, the devices would not have as much of a heat problem as shocks do in off-road racing.  Their performance can be temperature compensated too, whereas tradition shocks change performance when hot versus cold. 
• Optionally, auto start/stop could be implemented for street cars.  When combined with moving the belt driven accessories to electric drive, you can sit in comfort with the HVAC ON and engine off for some time.  This would be great for a daily driver in town.  Like many hybrids today, the motors can both start the engine and start the vehicle moving at the same time giving good response to accelerate from a stop (unlike non-hybrid start/stop systems).  
• The ICE can be electrically warmed up.  ICE engine wear is much higher on a cold engine.  The less cold operation the better.  Using the hybrid generator to drive an electric engine heater will both worm the engine faster, and heat the coolant faster.  
• An electric heater can be used for cab heat and windshield defrosting until the engine warms up. This is safer as well as more comfortable.
• Trailers can also be equipped with motor/generators.  This can allow for all the wheels to be driven in poor traction conditions so you don't get stuck.  It also allows for regenerative braking.  The trailer can have its own battery, or connect into the vehicles electrical system.
• Electric winches can be smaller and much more powerful using the high-voltage electrical system.  
• Electric PTO accessories can by used to drive various things that tradition PTO systems did.
• The list goes on and on.

The main point is to not think of electric drive as a replacement for a traditional powertrain but rather a whole new way of managing energy and power.  Think of solving the various use case challenges from scratch, rather than just evolving from traditional approaches.  

I would really like a BEV for my daily driver but I want a hybrid for my sports car.  BEV just makes so much more sense for a daily driver as I discussed in this blog post.  Longer term I do hope the ICE can live on in a carbon free fuel form using future fuels.  It will be a niche though as BEV really makes the most sense for the vast majority of people in most use cases. Getting the vast majority of people out of ICE vehicles will leave the remaining niche with little overall emissions impact even if we keep using petroleum to power them.

I am an optimist and I do believe the future of performance vehicles and vehicle customization is bright, even in the face of BEV and autonomous revolution.  I still remember the 1970's, the dark ages of the automobile in many way.  Many predicted the end of high-performance vehicles completely.  They said performance is just not possible with all the new emissions regulations.  I have to laugh at that now as todays performance cars are far better then the old muscle cars prior to the 1970's when it comes to performance.  Things got far better, not worse during the 1980's once the OEMs changed their mindset.  Aftermarket performance will of course remain a niche market, not the mainstream.  But that is really the point anyway.  SEMA is a fantastic display of this niche market, and just how big it really is.  Most of the folks in this business are passionate about performance first, and running a profitable business comes after that.  

Energy Efficiency

 It's interesting to see how big of an effect mindset can be on society. Here I will share a few of my thoughts on the subject of energy efficiencies and management.  I do believe very much in reducing or eliminating waste.  As an engineer, it is my job.  If we focus on waste elimination we will positively impact costs as well as reduce energy needs and pollution.  If we just rethink how we acquire and use energy, I believe there are substantial wastes that can be reduced or eliminated.

The views expressed below are just my personal thoughts on opportunities for more efficient use of energy and a pathway to a much cleaner environment.

Transportation

Personal commuting

Commuting is the task of moving people (and related cargo) from one place to another.  I see this is a bit different from driving but it certainly includes that. I will focus on energy here rather than get into autonomous commuting.  A typical petroleum powered vehicle is less that 40% efficient use of fuel energy for propelling the vehicle, and that is when it is actually moving.  At least 60% goes to waste, mostly in the form of heat.  Then when we want to decelerate (brake) we dump all that kinetic energy into even more waste heat. That is very significant energy waste.  Also consider how much time is spent idling at a stop.  Integrate this waste over a typical drive cycle and very little of the total energy consumed is used for propelling the car.  Extremely wasteful.  Hybrid powertrains can really help especially in city traffic.  However a hybrid still lugs around a very heavy inefficient powertrain that requires significant maintenance.  I believe that the best powertrain for nearly all commuters is pure electric.  Here are some of my reasons:

• Nearly zero maintenance.  No oil/filter changes, no coolant flush, no trans service, no spark plugs, no accessory belts, no idling, no hoses, no air of fuel filters, etc.  The electric powertrain is far simpler with less moving parts to maintain or fail. This significantly reduces waste of not only energy but also generation of trash, much of it being hazardous waste.
• Longer service life.  While engines and transmissions have improved in durability, they still pale in comparison to an electric powertrain.  There is of course the battery which is the biggest challenge for electric vehicle durability.  However, battery technology continues to improve and with the increased focus more recently, I believe we can solve this problem and have energy storage that lasts for decades soon. Until then, we can recycle batteries.  
• Regenerative braking.  Instead of just wasting the kinetic energy slowing the vehicle down with brakes, a well design electric car recovers most of it, storing it back in the batter to be used on the next acceleration.  This is a huge deal!  Not only does this drastically reduce brake wear and dust pollution, it saves energy.  You get to recover a portion of the kinetic energy and use it to accelerate back to speed. This is a clear win-win no brainier.  
• No idling, ever.  Electric vehicles do not use propulsion motors to power anything but moving the vehicle.  All accessories are electric so they can run independent from an engine.  No more wasteful idling ever.
• No need to waste a trip to "refuel".  Unlike petroleum, electricity is already available at our homes, businesses, hotels, stores, etc.  Because of this you don't have to make a special trip, or add a wasteful stop in your commute to refuel.  Instead, the vast majority of daily commuters can simply plug in at home, work, the store, restaurants, etc.  You don't need a special charging place but rather just charge at the places you already go.  No sitting and waiting to refuel.  The refueling happens wherever you stop. This is a big paradigm shift I don't feel many people really grasp.  When electric cars are discussed, people always go right to lack of charging stations as the reason they are not ready for an electric car.  Those should only be needed for long distance drives.  You should never need this for our daily commuting.  I think people get stuck in current mindsets and struggle to adapt to this new approach.  I believe we will get over this. If we all went to electric vehicles we would not need anywhere near the dedicated charging stations that we have gas stations in town.  We would only need them along interstate highways.  In town any building can have charging ports at parking spaces but even these would not get near the use that gas stations do today.  All hotels, restaurants, work places, grocery stores, etc., can have charging stations and some already do today. Inductive charging is coming too.  This will allow wireless charging like some cellular phones have today.  Just pull into a parking spot and charging will happen automatically. Since charging still takes significantly longer than filling a fuel tank, we will need more charging stations on interstate routes away from towns.
• Ability to heat and cool the vehicle while it is parked and even while sitting in the garage.  Instead of hoping into a cold or hot car, or having to start and warm up the car (more waste) you can run the heated seats and HVAC before you even get in the car.  You can even do it (for short periods) while it is in the garage with the doors closed.  This actually helps maintain your range as well since you can do this while it is plugged in and not use the battery.  Another benefit is safety since you can warm the windows and prevent fogging before you drive away.
• I believe we will soon have more modular battery solutions.  While permanent in-car batteries will likely continue, we will augment that with portable batteries that can be used not only for extending your car range but also standby power for your house and portable power for camping and other things.  We can think more wholistically about batteries and all our electric needs and buy modular batteries that have multiple uses.  We already see this in power tools today where you can use the same battery in a drill, weed whacker, leaf blower, etc.  When it comes to larger batteries for cars and homes, this concept can scale up.  If we can standardize in this space, we can even have a battery ecosystem that would allow for swapping depleted batteries for charges ones quickly.  While you are charging your cars main battery at the roadside station you can also swap out a few battery modules, reducing your stop time and extending your range considerably.

Mass Transit

City bussed and local trains can and all go electric.  The same comments for cars apply here.  The use cycle is of course much larger as busses operate all day long.  They do spend a significant amount of time idling at stops.  They also make short acceleration/deceleration cycles constantly.  Here the savings switching to electric is big.  Not to mention the emissions from petroleum powered vehicles in some of the more confined inner cities, tunnels, and drop-off zones in large venues can be a problem. Then there is the noise reduction as well.

Delivery, garbage, mail, etc.

All of these vehicles have even more start-stop and idling periods than the mass transit category above.  Same concepts apply but with even bigger energy savings.

Where does battery electric maybe not make sense?  

I believe there are several categories where hybrid powertrains are likely the best instead of pure battery electric:

• Sports cars.  While you can make very high-performing electric sports cars, many drivers would miss having the engine as part of this experience.  The Porsche 918, Ferrari LaFerrari, and McLaren P1 were some earlier examples showcasing what hybrid powertrains can do for performance.  These applications do not need much energy storage since the car depends mostly on the engine to supply most the power, only using hybrid to enhance performance and braking.  This approach should make it's way across most sports cars, not just these supercars.  It can be enhanced to provide better active torque vectoring and traction control too. This is a small market share and collectively does not add up to much energy waste in the big picture.
• Long-haul trucks, especially going over mountain passes.  Hybrid makes the most sense here to give the truck a long range and keep the weight reasonable.  The hybrid power can be used to downsize the engine to optimize it for Brake Specific Fuel Consumption (BSFC) while at steady speeds under typical loads.  Use hybrid power to add acceleration and hill climbing power and for regenerative braking.  It could even be possible to make smart mountain passes where trucks going up can take power harvested from trucks going down.  This would improve safety by keeping the brakes cooler as well.  

What about the waste and environmental impact of all those batteries?

Many electric car opponents discuss the cost, energy use, and waste of the batteries for electric vehicles.  It is certainly true that there is a real cost and we need to manage how we handle batteries at the end-of-life.  Todays batteries are hazardous waste.  However, these batteries are getting better and lasting much longer than they once did.  We can also develop recycling programs to recover the materials from the expired batteries.  Of course that is not cheap either.  Energy storage is an engineering problem to solve and as demand increases, the motivation to solve this will also increase research and development. With a world of smart people working on this, I believe we will see breakthrough invention and innovation make step-change improvements as well as continuous improvements in this area.  New electric energy storage can be relatively easily retrofitted to existing electric cars too.  I believe if you buy an electric car now, by the time you need to replace your battery there will be cheaper and better options available than there are today.  These better options can also increase the range of the vehicle, and potentially the charging rate.

Carbon Neutral Fuel

During the energy transition, we should also develop and implement synthetic gasoline.  Many are working on this including Porsche.  Today there are businesses operating to capture CO2 from the air only to pump it underground and earn carbon credits.  Instead of doing that, we can capture carbon from sources like exhaust stacks or both stationary and mobile sources where high CO2 concentrations exist and use that to make synthetic gasoline.  The big benefit here is that it can be used in the cars we drive right now.  The average age of cars on the road today is over 11 years old.  If we completely stopped building internal combustion engine (ICE) cars today, even 11 years later we would have a large population of them still on the road.  Carbon neutral synthetic gasoline can have a huge immediate impact.  Porsche and Siemens are working on this fuel and producing it right now. More on the Haru Oni plant here.  In very remote areas, the CO2 can of course be captured from the air too to make this fuel. One of the big carbon emitters today is aircraft and a synthetic fuel can certainly hold promise for reducing this substantially. 

Electric Power

Our traditional mindset has a grid with large centralized power generation facilities generating the electricity and distributing it with weather prone ugly powerlines.  It seems most still look at this mindset when applying solar power.  Why?  Instead of making large solar power projects that cover acres of land and then having to send it over these powerlines, why not generate it at the point of use, or at least much closer to the point of use?  Every roof can be used to generate solar power.  Picture every large building having an optimized solar grid on the roof.  Not enough space?  OK, cover the parking lots too. Everyone would get nice shady parking and no land is wasted.  Parking lots are not exactly a view anyone will miss and keeping the sun off the cars will is another big benefit.  Empire Cat has done many solar parking lots in Arizona. This seems so logical to me. One of their installations at Sky Harbor Airport can generate over 4GW.

Homes are starting to get more solar power and this makes sense, especially in places like the desert where sun is abundant and air conditioning is one of the highest power consumers that happens to coincide with the most solar power generation.  This can also be used to charge the electric car in your garage.  

Home energy storage has many benefits and should expand going forward.  As small-scale local energy storage (mostly batteries) becomes more affordable and longer life, this will really help stabilize the grid and ensure more homes don't loose power during events with the grid (power outages).  It would be great to see less high-tension power lines in the world.  They are expensive, weather prone, and ugly and nobody will miss them,  

I see a continuing need for the power grid but only to fill in the gaps where/when solar cannot be generated, and to move power around from producers and consumers.  Every building can be both a producer and a consumer.  

I think there are places for wind power generation.  Like solar, you are dependent on mother nature to provide the right conditions.  In both cases, alternative power and energy storage will be needed at times.  I believe natural gas cogen plants can fill this need well in cases where the power is needed for longer periods.  Nuclear power can also be used here.

Electric energy storage can also be used to make better use of solar and wind energy.  Energy storage does not always mean batteries.  There are many methods of storing and retrieving energy.  

Hydroelectric power is one of the best power sources and we should of course continue to maintain and utilize our dams.  

I still believe there is a place for coal and natural gas power, primarily as standby or peaking power, especially during the energy transition.  This can be started for cases like the Texas deep freeze of 2021.  Keep this electric generation capacity available but use it as a last resort.  

Thermal Energy

We heat and cool our homes and other buildings.  We also convert energy to heat for things like hot water, drying our clothes, etc., and move heat for air conditioning  There are many inefficiencies here where we can make better use of the thermal energy and reduce the need of gas, coal, oil, and electricity.  Take for instance a typical home on a hot summer day.  We run the air conditioning to pump heat to the outside while we use other energy such as gas or electricity to heat the water and dry our clothes in a dryer.  Why do we take the air conditioned air from inside our home only to heat it to dry the clothes?  Why can't the dryer take the heat you are already pumping out of the house to heat the clothes in the dryer?  In fact, why can't it take the hot air from outside to start with already hotter air on warm days?  These things can easily be done actually.  To start with we need dryers that have both intake and exhaust pipes instead of just exhaust.  Then we can bring pre-conditioned air into it and optimize this energy.  

Today you can buy heat pump hot water heaters and these really make sense in certain hot climates.  Geothermal systems also make sense and can be used to also heat the hot water.  In the summer heating your hot water will actually save energy versus just cooling the house.  Hot water heat can and should be added to heat pump systems in hot climates.  You take the heat from where you don't want it (the house) and pump it to where you do (the hot water tank).

There are times when you can simply bring in outside air to heat or cool the home.  If you have a smart thermostat and air handling system, you can monitor the temperature and humidity inside and outside.  If conditions outside become more desirable, just pump that air into the building.  This also brings fresher healthier air into the house.  In some cases you may want to add better filtration systems to the air coming in from outside but that is cheap and easy.  Active duct valves are also needed to make each room in the building comfortable.  This becomes especially important in multi-story buildings.  In buildings with a basement, you may be able to cool the top floor simply by bringing colder air from the basement and pumping it to the top floor.  This will make both spaces more comfortable.

In the winter we take warm air from inside our homes, heat it more in the clothes dryer, and then pump it all outside while our heating system runs trying to heat the house.  Often people will also run a humidifier to add humidity to the house.  Instead, you can simply use the hot humid air your just produced in the dryer.  You would still want to condense some of that humidity out and you may want to employ a heat exchanger for most the air as you can add too much humidity but the current state is very wasteful.    

Thanks goodness we are finally replacing wasteful incandescent and halogen light with LED.  This really makes sense in hot seasons and climates.  Back in the day we would run incandescent bulbs which used over 80% of the energy they consumed to produce heat, only to have to run the air conditioning more to pump all that waste heat back outside.  That is very wasteful.