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Tiny electric motor can produce more than 1,000 horsepower

supercarblondie.com

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Re: Tiny electric motor can produce more than 1,000 horsepower

#241

Post by robotresearcher »

cesaref wrote: post #201
davedx wrote: post #6

Could lead to significant efficiency gains for EV's, because 1/4 of the motor weight means better power-to-weight ratio... a lot of things will automatically get better. YASA was founded in 2009, a spin out from Oxford University following the PhD of founder and still CTO, Dr Tim Woolmer. "Over the decades that followed both of these technologies were explored. But despite the potential for weight reduction, smaller…

I don't see the weight reduction being very significant. If we take a Tesla model 3, I believe it weighs 1611kg, and the motor shows up at 80kg if you google it (no idea if this is correct). This YASA motor by comparison weighs 14kg. So, this would drop the vehicle weight by 66kg out of 1611, so that's a 4% saving.

This motor is well more than twice as powerful as the Model 3 motor, so it could eliminate the entire weight of the second motor in the higher performance models. That’s 146kg, the weight of two adults, an 11% reduction.

Re: Tiny electric motor can produce more than 1,000 horsepower

#242

Post by rockostrich »

lunias wrote: post #198
davedx wrote: post #6

Could lead to significant efficiency gains for EV's, because 1/4 of the motor weight means better power-to-weight ratio... a lot of things will automatically get better. YASA was founded in 2009, a spin out from Oxford University following the PhD of founder and still CTO, Dr Tim Woolmer. "Over the decades that followed both of these technologies were explored. But despite the potential for weight reduction, smaller…

I wish more people on the road realized the extent to which weight reduction improves all aspects of the driving experience... it really does compound unlike any other change that you can make to a vehicle. IMO heavy vehicles are a scam and the antithesis of the direction we should be moving.

Weight is not the only thing that matters though. You also need to consider center of gravity and wheel base. A YJ Jeep Wrangler and a Honda Fit both weigh around 2700 lbs and they even have similar wheel bases but the driving experience between those 2 is night and day. A Honda Fit can take a turn at speed without feeling like you're going to go flying. You'll feel like you're able to flip making a turn going 20 mph in a YJ.

This is why the first performance mod that most people put on their cars is an adjustable coil over suspension. Dropping the car down by an inch or 2 changes has just as much of an impact as shedding some weight.

Ironically, most people put lift kits on Jeeps but that also usually comes with widening the wheel base and putting on larger wheels/tires.

Re: Tiny electric motor can produce more than 1,000 horsepower

#243

Post by doph »

scoobytuber wrote: post #214
jama211 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does it say it’s inside the wheel? Not sure about that

He’s holding the motor in the picture. That format is in-wheel BLDC.

In-wheel application is possible, but it's important to understand that the pancake shape is only a consequence of the axial flux design and Yasa doesn't make motors in other "formats". Yasa motors shaped like this have been used in several supercars and all of them have been in-board on the axles, not in-wheel.

Re: Tiny electric motor can produce more than 1,000 horsepower

#244

Post by rdtsc »

nmehner wrote: post #15
amelius wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But EVs are already heavy because of the battery. I suppose percentage-wise the motors don't make much of a difference (?)

The issue with this type of motor is that it is part of the unsprung weight since it is inside the wheel. This is probably why savings here matter a lot more (or at least in a very different way) than the battery weight.

> This is probably why savings here matter a lot more (or at least in a very different way) than the battery weight.

Wouldn't that make it worse or just ... different. Before this the unsprung weight wouldn't have had a motor in there and now it does. Increasing the unsprung weight doesn't seem a like a good thing.

Re: Tiny electric motor can produce more than 1,000 horsepower

#245

Post by DrBazza »

electrograv wrote: post #238
davedx wrote: post #6

Could lead to significant efficiency gains for EV's, because 1/4 of the motor weight means better power-to-weight ratio... a lot of things will automatically get better. YASA was founded in 2009, a spin out from Oxford University following the PhD of founder and still CTO, Dr Tim Woolmer. "Over the decades that followed both of these technologies were explored. But despite the potential for weight reduction, smaller…

> In 2025, after a £12m investment, YASA opened the UK's first axial-flux super factory, in Oxfordshire. It’s a little sad to me that fundamental innovations in electromechanical engineering like this get just a few million in investment, yet if this had been yet another derivative software startup with “AI” in the pitch, they’d probably have 10x+ or more investments being thrown at them.

Welcome to the UK and its innovation hostile environment. We don't have the US culture of throwing VC money at things and seeing what sticks.

Re: Tiny electric motor can produce more than 1,000 horsepower

#246

Post by imtringued »

scoobytuber wrote: post #214
jama211 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does it say it’s inside the wheel? Not sure about that

He’s holding the motor in the picture. That format is in-wheel BLDC.

That format is the standard format for axial flux motors...

Re: Tiny electric motor can produce more than 1,000 horsepower

#247

Post by jq-r »

throw-qqqqq wrote: post #187
mort96 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Range being worse with a fully loaded car than with a lightly loaded car isn't exactly news, and not exactly limited to electric cars. I can clearly feel my old diesel struggling more when I'm driving 3 friends and with loads of heavy stuff in the back than when I'm alone. That makes the gas bill more expensive.

You probably know already, but ICE cars only convert about 20–30% of fuel energy into motion, while EVs are often +90% efficient. So when an EV has to work harder (extra battery weight or colder weather), you notice the drop in range more. In an ICE, the same load is less visible because most energy gets wasted as heat. This is also why cold weather seems to affect EV range more.

The unexpected benefit which I've noticed when switching from a small, light car to a heavier, medium EV car is that the latter doesn't drive/feel any worse when fully loaded. Makes the trips that much more pleasant.

Re: Tiny electric motor can produce more than 1,000 horsepower

#248

Post by robotresearcher »

thesz wrote: post #229
davedx wrote: post #6

Could lead to significant efficiency gains for EV's, because 1/4 of the motor weight means better power-to-weight ratio... a lot of things will automatically get better. YASA was founded in 2009, a spin out from Oxford University following the PhD of founder and still CTO, Dr Tim Woolmer. "Over the decades that followed both of these technologies were explored. But despite the potential for weight reduction, smaller…

Tesla Model Y's battery is 771 kg. The motor in Model Y weights about 45 kg, about three times as much as the motor in the article. By reducing dual motor configuration weight from 90 kg to 28 kg, we reduce total powertrain weight by 7%.

The new motor is also much more than double the power output of the Model Y motor, so the second motor and its wiring could be eliminated completely.

Re: Tiny electric motor can produce more than 1,000 horsepower

#249

Post by FabHK »

electrograv wrote: post #238
davedx wrote: post #6

Could lead to significant efficiency gains for EV's, because 1/4 of the motor weight means better power-to-weight ratio... a lot of things will automatically get better. YASA was founded in 2009, a spin out from Oxford University following the PhD of founder and still CTO, Dr Tim Woolmer. "Over the decades that followed both of these technologies were explored. But despite the potential for weight reduction, smaller…

> In 2025, after a £12m investment, YASA opened the UK's first axial-flux super factory, in Oxfordshire. It’s a little sad to me that fundamental innovations in electromechanical engineering like this get just a few million in investment, yet if this had been yet another derivative software startup with “AI” in the pitch, they’d probably have 10x+ or more investments being thrown at them.

Seems to me everyone wants to invest, instead, into something that can be "web scale" with low marginal cost, that is, natural monopolies. There is not enough anti-trust enforcement.

Re: Tiny electric motor can produce more than 1,000 horsepower

#250

Post by FabHK »

DrBazza wrote: post #245
electrograv wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In 2025, after a £12m investment, YASA opened the UK's first axial-flux super factory, in Oxfordshire. It’s a little sad to me that fundamental innovations in electromechanical engineering like this get just a few million in investment, yet if this had been yet another derivative software startup with “AI” in the pitch, they’d probably have 10x+ or more investments being thrown at them.

Welcome to the UK and its innovation hostile environment. We don't have the US culture of throwing VC money at things and seeing what sticks.

This is less UK vs US, more hardware vs software.
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