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

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

#331

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This is silly, but I've also wondered if you could make a boat that can anchor and recharge batteries from ambient current, sort of like stationary regenerative braking. I'm sure it would take way too long to be worth it, but it was a fun idle thought.

Perhaps the paddle wheel[0] will interest you, the spinning is used to calculate the velocity of the boat. Probably some other propeller or similar would be more practical - like a kicker motor that's easily lowered over the side. Just spitballing. I don't think it'd be worth it considering solar options. Even wind generators are not "super efficient" in comparison but I don't have data. [0] https://www.westmarine.co…

I'm sure it wouldn't be worth it, because otherwise people would be doing it, it just seemed like a cool way to supplement solar or even to allow for indefinite underwater drones. Like, imagine a deep-sea research drone that could spit out an anchor and recharge whenever the battery got low. Almost certainly a case of "Cool, wouldn't really work well"

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

#332
post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also found it fascinating, although on the discussion about brakes I thought about how regen braking turns off in my EV when the battery is full, because there is no where to put the power. So you either keep some of the battery always available to soak up braking energy (and hope people never charge to full at the top of a mountain and exhaust the buffer) or you include a set of normal brakes for when regen is not p…

Or you could dump the power into a realllly loud horn

Or really bright break lights

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

#333
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, car batteries are much heavier than most ICE’s. The curb weight on teslas’s are crazy high. BYD can be lighter because they skip on safety gear and proper structural elements - in my experience.

Top-of-the-line NMC cells have energy density around 250Wh/kg at the pack level. The newer solid-state batteries can reportedly increase this to 400Wh/kg. So a reasonable 75kWh battery pack is going to weigh around 300kg and in future around 200kg. This is... not a lot, actually. To a point where shaving off 20-30 kg from the electric motor weight is going to result in a noticeable performance/price difference. Tesla…

If you stop cherry picking the lightest Tesla, you’ll see what I mean.

400 kg == 881 lbs, and that is their lightest model with lowest range.

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

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. There is still no good answer for air transport, trans-oceanic shipping, long-haul trucking, and long-distance rail. ICE will be used there for a good while longer.

With mandatory breaks you have to take while trucking in a lot of countries, is it really that far out? I would imagine you could charge while you sleep.

I don't think we have the battery power density to power an 80,000 lb (~36,200 kg) truck at 65mph for 11 hours as allowed by the DOT Hours of Service Rules and Regulations (though I believe a 30 minute break is required after 8 hours, and the 11 hours of driving has to be within a 14 hour window, so some recharging stops may still work within those limits).

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

#335
post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top-of-the-line NMC cells have energy density around 250Wh/kg at the pack level. The newer solid-state batteries can reportedly increase this to 400Wh/kg. So a reasonable 75kWh battery pack is going to weigh around 300kg and in future around 200kg. This is... not a lot, actually. To a point where shaving off 20-30 kg from the electric motor weight is going to result in a noticeable performance/price difference. Tesla…

If you stop cherry picking the lightest Tesla, you’ll see what I mean. 400 kg == 881 lbs, and that is their lightest model with lowest range.

Model 3 LR with 360 miles of range is 1820 kg. Still nothing crazy.

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

#336
post #99

Mercedes acquired Yasa (UK) couple of years ago and now getting up to the speed in the production. Here is a nice video that explains axial flux motors with a factory visit https://youtu.be/B2Hl4c1iZK0?si=VfDYARyuaPVj1nKm They are so, so, small.

I was curious how this thing works and asked Claude to visualize it -- mostly to see how good Fable is and I have to say, what it made was good enough for me to get a gist of it. Posted it here https://azimi.me/axial-flux-motor-explainer/

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

#338
post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you stop cherry picking the lightest Tesla, you’ll see what I mean. 400 kg == 881 lbs, and that is their lightest model with lowest range.

Model 3 LR with 360 miles of range is 1820 kg. Still nothing crazy.

That is over 4K lbs, and more than an older model full sized Toyota Tundra.

Newer model Tundras are over 5k lbs, but that is also crazy.

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

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made it live and editable here: https://hallway.com/workspaces/f7cfb27c-0a0b-4ca3-9b28-cc7eb...

I asked mythos to make a "The Way Things Work"-inspired version. Published: https://banagale.com/the-way-the-motor-works/ Source: https://github.com/banagale/the-way-the-motor-works It lacks cave people but has the woolys.

fig 4 timing looks wrong --- electromagnetic field from the windings is supposed to be 90 degrees ahead, on average, of the permanent magnet field.

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

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve long wondered why we don’t ditch the friction brakes. Just have the battery stop charging and report 100% full when it’s only 98% (or whatever) so there is enough capacity for some solid emergency stops in the first few minutes of driving. Even if you have to resort to the resistor, who cares? It’s not like this is a common scenario

That's fine, until someone charges their cabin up in Truckee and decides to drive down 80 to the central valley (a hour or so drive you can do in neutral). Regenerative braking also loses a lot of its stopping power at slow speeds. Going from "slowly rolling forward" to "full stopped" takes a lot longer than the instantaneous it is with friction brakes.

You also need some sort of parking brake, and friction brakes do the job nicely.
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