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Tiny electric motor can produce more than 1,000 horsepower

supercarblondie.com

41–50 of 616 posts

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

#41
post #8

Outperformance metric is basically power density. The model described is some 13 kg and delivers 750 kW peak, 350+ kW sustained. (That's 28 pounds, 1000 hp peak, 470+ hp sustained.) The 40% improvement is actually 36% and is versus the previous model of the same company.

Thanks. Do you also happen to know the power density of the motors in the average EV car? Because the article uses "nr of Tesla Model 3" as a unit, which is meaningless without further details about it power density.

The power density doesn't really matter unless you want to put the motor in the wheel. You need to keep the unsprung mass low.

Basically all EVs have small and light motors compared to ICEs or compared to the battery. Shaving off ten pounds there is irrelevant.

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

#42
It is great that Mercedes-Benz now owns a highly performant electric engine. But is this just an impressive lab breakthrough, or can it work in the real world for their cars? Which means enduring from freezing to high temps, hours of sustained driving, and years of that (or equivalent endurance testing).

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

#43
post #10

EV motors are not that heavy. Ok it is 1/4 of a tesla motor but would that make much of a difference compared to the rest of the car since the weight of an EV motor is in single % of the entire weight. Sounds like it could be more important for drones?

It is important if you want to put the motor in the wheelhub. Too much unsprung mass kills vehicle dynamics.

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

#45
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

saving 30 kg of weight on a 2000 - 2500 kg car won't lead to "significant efficiency gains"

Weight reductions on an electric car are self-reinforcing. If you reduce the weight of a component, the battery can become (slightly) smaller, which again reduces weight. At a certain amount of reduction this will allow you to make the whole structure lighter, which will again allow for a smaller battery. So yeah, weight reduction on EVs is great.

Also not considered is that the announcement is for 740bhp motor. The Tesla model 3 has a vehicle output of about 400 hp. I’m not sure of all the design specs, but it seems clear to me that a smaller version of these motors could suffice to drive a 3 equivalent vehicle at 1/2 the output and still be more than sufficient. So let’s say maybe 15lbs each, vs current equivalent 70lbs each. It’s not major total weight impact, but with battery advancements it will compound.

I think people are overlooking that the announcement is for a performance motor meant for the performance market at the moment because that is what the backers of YASA are most interested in because it has the highest margins and prestige. Also not mentioned is the efficiency from the simpler production line.

My impression from what I know is we are looking at an impact equivalent to direct injection engines; not revolutionary, but a major advancement of one component that has significant and consequential effects.

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

#46
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…

Better for robotics as well.

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

#47
The questions I have mostly centre around how much precision of power delivery it has - it is an all or nothing proposition, can it deliver 0.1% smoothly for real world use, and what is the MTBF / duty cycle / failure mode? I would imagine the last thing anyone would want is a locked wheel, or only one wheel delivering that much power. I know this is unlikely, but as someone with a 22-year-old ICE vehicle I do tend to take the long view on these things and want to know how they will fail as much as how they work. Same applies to the Tesla motors - is there much information on failure modes publicly available?

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

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. Do you also happen to know the power density of the motors in the average EV car? Because the article uses "nr of Tesla Model 3" as a unit, which is meaningless without further details about it power density.

The power density doesn't really matter unless you want to put the motor in the wheel. You need to keep the unsprung mass low. Basically all EVs have small and light motors compared to ICEs or compared to the battery. Shaving off ten pounds there is irrelevant.

[deleted]

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

#49

It is great that Mercedes-Benz now owns a highly performant electric engine. But is this just an impressive lab breakthrough, or can it work in the real world for their cars? Which means enduring from freezing to high temps, hours of sustained driving, and years of that (or equivalent endurance testing).

It's not a lab model (according to the article), but it's likely aimed at performance cars. For consumer cars, 150 KW / 200 HP is enough and efficiency is more important than weight.

Of course, when consumer car efficiency increases, they won't necessarily get higher ranges because the manufacturers will instead try to downsize the battery.

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

#50
post #18

Everything but the Metric System: “The new YASA axial flux motor weighs just 28 pounds, or about the same as a small dog.” :)

I wonder if Americans don't have a mental image for measurement units so that they alway use some physical object as a reference. Sure, its useful to use a common object as a reference but I don't see that much often in other places.

Most people usually understand what it means something to be 20 meters, 5kg or 2 liters intuitively. Like, when I hear that something is 60m tall I intuitively think if it as 20 story apartment building and don't benefit from the extra info about how this is like 18 elephants stacked on each other.

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