Quote:
Originally Posted by kach22i
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Last time I looked into it (as deeply as a non-mechanical guy like me can) the issue was having the 'car' hanging off one side of the wheel, not both sides.
The hub motors on scooters, motorcycles, bicycles have the advantage of bearings on both sides of the wheel, connected to support arms on both sides of the wheels. So when the bearing surface wears a bit, the wheel is still level, the clearances still work, etc
On the car wheel, once the bearing(or bearings) start to wear .. just a little bit ... less than when the mechanical guys start to worry about it ... the tight tolerances on the rotor (rotating part) and stator (stationary part) of teh wheel motor ... get tighter. When there is enough wear to let the rotor rub the stator, metal shards come off, plug off the gap between rotor and stator ... and the motor comes to an ABRUPT halt. The wheel LOCKS in place and SKIDS the rubber off.
This sort of catastrophic failure was seen ... rumor only ... since NO ONE in industry wants to talk about things that they try that FAIL ... starting before the first set of tires was worn off to about midway on the second set of tires. 20,000 miles to 60,000 miles.
I have yet to read about a fix for this. If someone does figure it out, it will likely be patented ... so perhaps there are several companies with a magic solution already. But I have seen no evidence so far.
On this topic ... is there a technical reason why car tires and suspension don't use support (and bearings) on both sides of the wheel? Or is it just that it makes the car look goofy?