Ask the Editors: Motor Vs. Engine
This a motor or an engine?
This is a simple question with a complex answer. Right now, today, they have a mix of each. By definition motors run on electricity and engines run on combustible fuel. The engine converts various forms of fuel into mechanical force, while the motor simply transforms electrical energy into mechanical energy.
That answer wasn’t so complex, you say? Well here’s where things start to get messy. Until recently most every off-road vehicle was of the fuel-burning, “engine” variety. Now that we have hybrids and full electrics, that means we really do have a blend of motors and engines out there.
But you always heard your gas-burner referred to as a motor, right? That’s because the two terms have been erroneously used interchangeably since inception. Hilariously, it’s not even in ground vehicles where society was led astray. The long accepted use in professional rocketry is that solid-fuel rockets are motors, while liquid-fuel rockets with moving parts (like pumps) are called engines.
While a purist may insist you’re wrong in calling your quad’s gasoline-burning engine a motor, the truth is language and its rules are made-up institutions at the end of the day. How long does a society have to use something incorrectly before the rule-book becomes updated to make it correct? After all, nobody’s ever called our road-going cousins enginecycles.
