PEOPLE!!! It's an engine...not a motor! ENGINGE, ENGINE, ENGINE, ENGINE!!

Under the hood we all have an internal combustion...ENGINE!!! There's no such thing as an internal combustion motor (motorbikes and boats have cc ENGINES...)

Motors are electric. Motors are electric. Motors are electric. Need proof? Walk into an appliance service center, or parts dealership and tell them you need to replace your electric engine...they'll SLAP you! SLAP SLAP SLAP I SAY!!!

We have ENGINES...NOT MOTORS!!!! This car has an ENGINE--->This car has an ENGINE---> This tank has an ENGINE---> We don't know what this one has--->

My motor mower has an engine. Should it be called an Engine Mower ?
I'm confused.

I'm afraid the distinction between "engine" and "motor" is gone, along with the distinction between "wheel" and "rim."

I have a motor car, or two. They have a bonnet and boot and the 8 has a hood that retracts. If they were Italian cars it would be different.

Well you don't hear the phrase Engine-Rama........but you do hear Motor-Rama.

Ya da, ya da, ya da......

It's pet 'peeve', not 'peave'.

Several dictionaries define "motor" as a 'machine that produces motion or power for doing work'.

"Engine" is most commonly defined as a 'machine that converts energy into motion'.


I think all engines are motors but not all motors are engines.

Does that help?


Carry on !


Cheers
DD

Soooo, why do they call it the motor way? Or a motor vehicle? Just sayin.
But I agree.

Along with motorway, motorcar, motorcycle. Motor Torpedo Boat. And motoring along down the road !


Cheers
DD

Umm? Wheel/rim = same thing. Or is wheel the whole assembly? Hmm!

Right.

In the days of multi-piece wheels you had a hub, a center section/spokes, and a rim. The rim is that part that the tire actually mounted to. Put 'em all together and you have a 'wheel'.

A one piece wheel is a 'wheel', not a rim

Cheers
DD

Please don't forget to include the fact that our Brit friends refer to the whole car as a motor (short for motor car of course). Please choose your battles wisely. And remember always to thank Brits for inventing Jaguar Cars in the first place. Along with many other fine things such as the Industrial Revolution which makes all this (and much else) possible.

Correcto!

bunch of motor mouths in this thread. "__"

So I guess Google is actually a search motor?

Engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When the internal combustion engine was invented, the term "motor" was initially used to distinguish it from the steam engine—which was in wide use at the time, powering locomotives and other vehicles such as steam rollers. "Motor" and "engine" later came to be used interchangeably in casual discourse. However, technically, the two words have different meanings. An engine is a device that burns or otherwise consumes fuel, changing its chemical composition, whereas a motor is a device driven by electricity, which does not change the chemical composition of its energy source.(3)

[3] "Engine", McGraw-Hill Concise Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, Third Edition, Sybil P. Parker, ed. McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1994, p. 714.


So, if one were to write a technical paper, they should use the terms according to their technical definitions, but for common usage they are essentially ambiguous.

ha ha ha ha

This makes sense to me. I'm a nuclear engineer and have spent nearly my entire adult life working at nuclear power plants where we employ many motor-generators. The motor is powered by electric and drives the generator. There are constant speed mg sets and variable speed mg sets where the motor and generator are connected using a fluid coupler.


Mark

I agree, it's an engine. Another definition I have heard is that a motor will produce torque at zero rpm (hydraulic or electric) and an engine will not.

It is coincidental that you say that. In my younger years I was a Quality Control Inspector in nuclear power plants and had interaction with the construction and engineering sides of the equation and that is where I first heard that there was a distinction between an electric motor and a car engine. It is not that anyone would refer to an electric motor as an engine, but I do recall someone explaining the difference to me in detail. Of course, in that setting we did indeed write reports in technical language. That is why I knew that, technically speaking, there is a difference.