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Mercedes‑Benz starts large‑scale production of electric axial flux motor

media.mercedes-benz.com

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Re: Mercedes‑Benz starts large‑scale production of electric axial flux motor

#51

Post by stasomatic »

numpad0 wrote: post #40
AndrewDucker wrote: post #4

It would have been awesome if that article had, at any point, explained what an electric axial flux motor was, and why anyone might want one.

Most motors have N-S axis of magnets aligned tangential to the axis of rotation. Axial flux motors have N-S poles parallel to rotation. This allows motors to be thinner and wider as well as anyhow more lighter and sometimes easier made. Whether they make sense depends, it seems.

This sounds straight out of an 89’s sci-fi flick. What time we get to live in!

Re: Mercedes‑Benz starts large‑scale production of electric axial flux motor

#52

Post by farx »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #4

It would have been awesome if that article had, at any point, explained what an electric axial flux motor was, and why anyone might want one.

Visited Astrall Dynamics, a Chinese startup that builds quadrupeds with axial flux motors here in Shenzhen. Super cool to see the robots in actions, carrying 60kg of weight up over 20 flights of stairs quite rapidly. The high torque at the compact form factor was super impressive. As far as I understood they are more complex to manufacture, especially at scale.

Re: Mercedes‑Benz starts large‑scale production of electric axial flux motor

#53

Post by PxldLtd »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #4

It would have been awesome if that article had, at any point, explained what an electric axial flux motor was, and why anyone might want one.

Here's a great Instructable on building one yourself, much better explanations in there.

https://www.instructables.com/Designing-and-Building-an-Axia...

Re: Mercedes‑Benz starts large‑scale production of electric axial flux motor

#54

Post by eptcyka »

manarth wrote: post #45
eptcyka wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all of those inventions are bad. But not all of them are coming from a place of necessity. All of them do increase complexity. My gripe with Mercedes is not that they are constantly pushing boundaries on what can be done with more tech. My main gripe is that the EVs they are building are essentially as complex as the ICE cars and follow largely the same design principles as the ICE cars. For instance, in the EQS,…

> "instead of applying engine breaking when the driver takes their foot off the pedal, they went to great lengths to _move the break pedal_ in proportion to the amount of engine breaking that is currently being applied as per the VCUs command" Regenerative braking slows the car more aggressively than an ICE where you take your foot of the gas, so the pedal change isn't putting on the brakes, it's communicating to a d…

You clearly have never used a car like that. You develop muscle memory for where the pedal is - finding that the pedal is not where it used to be does not inspire much confidence.

Every other manufacturer has managed to control regen breaking via throttle modulation - even ICE hybrid cars have been doing that for ages.

Re: Mercedes‑Benz starts large‑scale production of electric axial flux motor

#55

Post by jansan »

Four years ago, when YASA's invention was discussed on HN, it attracted very little interest. Mercedes apparently saw more potential and decided to invest.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31701133 Inside Yasa: how a British firm is revolutionising electric cars (2 points | 0 comments)

Re: Mercedes‑Benz starts large‑scale production of electric axial flux motor

#56

Post by joe_mamba »

interloxia wrote: post #9
AndrewDucker wrote: post #4

It would have been awesome if that article had, at any point, explained what an electric axial flux motor was, and why anyone might want one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_flux_motor

Thanks for posting this. Axial flux motors aren't some new sci-fi invention. We've had them in gadgets for a long time like in the floppy drive example. This is just one of the first industrial scale implementations of high-torque applications.

Re: Mercedes‑Benz starts large‑scale production of electric axial flux motor

#57

Post by swiftcoder »

chinathrow wrote: post #13
AndrewDucker wrote: post #4

It would have been awesome if that article had, at any point, explained what an electric axial flux motor was, and why anyone might want one.

Click "More" and scroll down: "In contrast to conventional radial flux motors, the electromagnetic flux in an axial flux motor runs parallel to the axis of rotation. The key components are arranged in a disc‑shaped layout: two rotors sandwich the stator from the left and right. This design enables an especially compact motor architecture, high power and torque density, and new freedoms in drivetrain packaging. In the…

This is the same design that enables the PCB Stator Motors, right?

Re: Mercedes‑Benz starts large‑scale production of electric axial flux motor

#58

Post by masklinn »

aitchnyu wrote: post #29

Tangential, how much regen can this system support? For example, can a car with 200kW propulsion have a 400kW regen (Tesla has upto 65) and are cost effective like friction brakes?

> can a car with 200kW propulsion have a 400kW regen

At the motor level it should be the same, in propulsion you’re converting current to torque and in regen you’re converting torque to current, with the same hardware. The high voltage wiring is the same and will set the same limit on current regardless of direction.

I believe bidirectional inverters are generally symmetrical as well, so that should not be a factor.

Which I reckon leaves two factors:

1. Battery C rates, afaik pretty much all chemistries have a higher discharge rate than charge rate, especially when trying to maintain them for a long time, so by that account regen power would at most be the same as propulsion (if the entire power train is sized for the battery’s charging rate).

2. Artificial limitations, obviously you could always artificially under-prop, though that seems unlikely outside of niche applications.

tldr: I don’t think so, except on a technicality (that you can artificially hobble propulsion).

Re: Mercedes‑Benz starts large‑scale production of electric axial flux motor

#59

Post by joe_mamba »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #33
mytailorisrich wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK is by far the best country to raise venture capital in Europe, and is the third largest market in the world after the US and China...

> UK is by far the best country to raise venture capital in Europe For late stage? Continental Europe has its banks and industrial policy. America and China have their deep pockets. Scaling out of the UK is incredibly hard, doubly so post Brexit, that’s why they sell early.

>Continental Europe has its banks

UK has City of London that dwarfs the banks of continental Europe. we're talking big banks, Fintech, HFT, etc. When you deal with Austrian banks you realize they're 10-20 years behind the UK.

> and industrial policy

Continental Europe has a large but somewhat inefficient(compared to Asia) and heavily subsidized industrial policy, acting more a a jobs program for politicians chasing votes and state subsidies, that the UK gave up on during Thatcher(for better and worse), and stayed in the niche, low volume but highly important aerospace and defense parts that dwarfs that of continental Europe.

Ofc that also means the labor market in UK is very K-shaped. Highly paid skilled niche jobs in London and the university research centers, and then a wasteland everywhere else.

Re: Mercedes‑Benz starts large‑scale production of electric axial flux motor

#60

Post by dzhiurgis »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #4

It would have been awesome if that article had, at any point, explained what an electric axial flux motor was, and why anyone might want one.

As far as I understand it's so small and lightweight you can put one on each wheel and remove brakes and still save weight (something something unsprung weight bad).
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