Well, than, let me make it simple for you:
electric motors are not engines, and
“electric engine” is incorrect; an electric motor is not an “engine”,
and bicycles are not engines either.
Clear enough?
The word “engine” predated the invention of both the steam and internal combustion heat engines. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the term “engine” was used for any complex piece of machinery that served some special function, even if it was powered by animals or humans.
Electric motors are not heat engines, but they are still engines.
So, you think that an electric motor is an engine in 21st century United States English.
And you think a bicycle is also a motor.
Okay. Fair enough. Noah Webster defines them differently, but that’s okay too.
From Webster’s dictionary:
Definition of engine
1 obsolete
a : ingenuity
b : evil contrivance : wile
2 a : something used to effect a purpose : agent, instrument
mournful and terrible engine of horror and of crime —E. A. Poe
b : something that produces a particular and usually desirable result engines of economic growth
3 a : a mechanical tool: such as (1) : an instrument or machine of war (2) obsolete : a torture implement
b : machinery
c : any of various mechanical appliances —often used in combination fire engine
4 : a machine for converting any of various forms of energy into mechanical force and motion; also : a mechanism or object that serves as an energy source black holes may be the engines for quasars
5 : a railroad locomotive
6 : computer software that performs a fundamental function especially of a larger program
Noah Webster died in 1843, he likely never encountered engines as we think of them today.
So are Google, Bing, Yahoo and others search engines or search motors?
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Power is dEnergy/dTime : the generation of energy at a rate.
I think that its conversion to entropy is a loss, though not in the Gibbs free energy sense.
Converts potential energy integrally; you can’t separate the burning of gasoline from a ‘regular’ engine. If you have a hybrid that has only an electrical motor, burns fuel only to make electricity, that’s a motor, not an engine. Note my definition excludes steam from engines since steam is produced by burning, the steam sent to the motor.
Did you hear about the Chinese trolley that has a huge capacitor (they charge much more quickly than batteries and with much less loss) good for about .25 miles, charges at every stop?
People also stop using brands as generic terms for a product. It’s been a long time since I heard anyone call a camera a “Kodak”.
Oh, and it’s Kawasaki that makes Jet Skis, not Suzuki. Another Kawasaki trademark that’s in danger of becoming generic is their off road utility vehicle known as the Mule, as Polaris, Honda, and even John Deere jump on the off road utility vehicle bandwagon. Basically 4WD golf carts for ranchers and hunters.
You’re right. I should have googled that. Oh, there’s another one!
Google! Good one Whitey! I am now feeling guilty for stirring this pot. Could we agree that our language (English) constantly evolves/devolves into a confusing mixture of common usage versus technical correctness? In an attempt to return to “car” related subjects I will add another generic term. “Car”. It is frequently used to describe Pickup Trucks (not a car) and SUVs (debatable) most often in media reports. It is why I often use “vehicle” in my posts.
That was nowhere near the dreadful blunder made by a former U.S. president…
Obama Calls Navy Corpsman a ‘Corpse-man’
At the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday, the commander in chief [Barrack Hussein Obama] not only got a sailor’s name wrong, but couldn’t figure out how to pronounce “corpsman.” Yes, he said “corpse-man.” Twice.
CSA 
I’ve reached that conclusion, deciding that debating the definition of a word in any living language is a fool’s errand best left to those who stubbornly resist inevitable change.
If anyone would like to debate the meanings of words from dead languages, such as Latin, I’d be willing to engage, especially since Latin has a comparatively smaller lexicon than English. Those Ancient Romans really had to economize with their vocabulary a lot more than we do.
I’d also be willing to discuss German words that have very specific meanings, such as kummerspeck and shadenfreude. There’s no debating the definitions of those words!
I’ve seen a few rotten tomatoes thrown at our current and prior presidents in this thread – could we please make a gentleman’s agreement to be mindful of those who disagree, and not go there? I was doubtful this thread was relevant to the board (and my opinions about knocking the poor spelling and grammar of new posters are well known) but I appreciate those who have returned it on-topic. Thanks.
Fuze instead of fuse.
It’s “Schadenfreude”, also remember that it’s a four syllable word, the final e in German words is not silent.
Also, it’s über, not uber, and it’s not pronounced “oober” the “ü” sounds sort of like the “ue” in fuel.
Back to cars. Let’s all start pronouncing Volkswagen correctly. It’s “folks-vagen” The “a” is like the “a” in “father”. I see so many people who wouldn’t dream of mispronouncing “tortilla” or “jalapeño” incorrectly just totally ignore the umlauts above German vowels and German pronunciation conventions.
Is fuse/fuze similar to tire/tyre; that is, American/British spellings?
I like the British term for transmission, “gear box”. Only two syllables, easy to say. Over there, the term “transmission” refers to the entire drive train, the gear box is one part of the transmission system.
Taking some things from land to a ship totally changes their names, cannons become guns, ropes become lines, halyards, sheets, painters.
Hispanics are much more recent immigrants and there is a large population that know the Spanish language, or at least knows many of the pronunciation conventions. German immigration took place so long ago for the most part, that today’s people with German heritage are several generations removed from their German ancestors. Most children of immigrants understand some of their parents languages, but don’t speak them. Third generation people rarely speak the languages of their grandparents, unless it was English. Even then, we speak The American dialect, not GB English.
Great Britain itself has various dialects of English and their English likely isn’t the same as it was when a lot of them left to settle the new world. Many of the things they have totally different names for are things that weren’t invented yet when they settled in America.
When I hear old timers conversing in German in Texas, they often throw in English words, especially for things that were invented after their ancestors already lived in the U.S., das Telephone, das Airplane, das pickup truck.
A guy I work with speaks the South African dialect of English, which is very similar to the Australian dialect of English.
Good point, but then confusion reigns for those of us on the other side of the pond when the Brits refer to bumpers as “fenders”. And, what we refer to as fenders are called “wings” in The UK.
And “pavement” means the sidewalk.