[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Things I have picked up on along the way are the MIT inwheel motor and Protean Electric's inwheel motor. Its seems to me the 72-100hp Protean motor could be mated to a differential and slotted into the 'tuning-fork' shape of the chassis.

In-wheel motors are a favorite topic of mine. I've read about several - press releases over the years, feature articles - but I have yet to see one up close. Many are announced but none ever appear to hit production except for the bicycle versions. Rumor has it that they don't last as long as the tires do, in the 20,000 to 50,000 km range.

A mechanical engineer that I work with (no experience with wheel motors, but he has more background than I do) tells me that it would be tough to make a wheel motor with one bearing that would maintain the clearances used in a motor - thousandths of an inch - while taking the punishment that a tire on a car does when you hit pot-holes. But that's just an opinion. Some of the suspension-in-a-rim systems look promising.

Using two bearings, one per side, works in many other applications but makes it a bit difficult to change the tire

I like your idea of pulling the motor out of the wheel and putting it somewhere safer, then coupling to the wheel with a differential. Differentials have been used successfully for a long time. The only differentials I have dealt with also do a gear reduction. Something designed as a wheel motor would likely not require the gear reduction, so that may be a bit of a challenge. But that sort of mod is *WAY* above my mechanical skill level ... so I'll just leave it at that.