My new car can go 410 miles on the energy of one gallon of petrol; unmodified!

[freebeard]

Expand the thinking from the wheel to the wheel/suspension/axle subsystem:


https://press.zf.com/press/en/media/media_2144.html

[aerohead]

I'll take a stab. There might be an overall advantage,minimizing un-sprung weight,by moving the mass of the motor(s) inboard.
The hub-motor would make for a rather large pendulum,with increased stresses imparted to all the suspension components,plus chassis attachment hard-points,requiring more massive parts and adding to overall weight,all mitigated if this mass is re-directed inboard.
Oilpan4's comment about a wash-boarded road evokes visions of a torture chamber for bushings,springs, dampeners,and chassis.
I tore a shock tower off my VW bus on the Kananaskis Trail in Canada.

[RedDevil]

Still I think the problems with hub motors for cars are basically teething problems and once they go into small scale production those will be largely sorted out.

There's lighter magnets and better ways of managing the fields coming these days, so they should be substantially lighter. Doing away with the drive shaft and needing smaller brakes, if at all, also helps. That should reduce the weight issue.

Then the Lightyear team chose relatively small hub motors. 10 seconds to 62 mph is not Tesla territory though adequate for everyday use.
If they can get the motors warranted by their supplier to do the miles then the supplier has a strong incentive to get the hub motors to last. The advantages are immense. Someone needs to sort out the bugs, but then the sky is the limit.

[freebeard]

Putting the motor on a swing-arm allows for a gearing reduction and reduced the unsprung weight. The downside is that it doesn't fit inside the wheel, although it's not as bad as a central motor with driveshafts.

[Xist]

Has anyone made a car, even a prototype, with the motors on swing arms?

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Expand the thinking from the wheel to the wheel/suspension/axle subsystem:


https://press.zf.com/press/en/media/media_2144.html

Originally Posted by freebeard

Putting the motor on a swing-arm allows for a gearing reduction and reduced the unsprung weight. The downside is that it doesn't fit inside the wheel, although it's not as bad as a central motor with driveshafts.

Originally Posted by aerohead

I'll take a stab. There might be an overall advantage,minimizing un-sprung weight,by moving the mass of the motor(s) inboard.
The hub-motor would make for a rather large pendulum,with increased stresses imparted to all the suspension components,plus chassis attachment hard-points,requiring more massive parts and adding to overall weight,all mitigated if this mass is re-directed inboard.
Oilpan4's comment about a wash-boarded road evokes visions of a torture chamber for bushings,springs, dampeners,and chassis.
I tore a shock tower off my VW bus on the Kananaskis Trail in Canada.

Good old circular reasoning.
Then it's not a hub motor.
At that point you might as well use a smaller, higher speed more and a gear box exactly like my Nissan leaf, or 2 or 4 of them.

Originally Posted by RedDevil

Still I think the problems with hub motors for cars are basically teething problems and once they go into small scale production those will be largely sorted out.

There's lighter magnets and better ways of managing the fields coming these days, so they should be substantially lighter. Doing away with the drive shaft and needing smaller brakes, if at all, also helps. That should reduce the weight issue.

Then the Lightyear team chose relatively small hub motors. 10 seconds to 62 mph is not Tesla territory though adequate for everyday use.
If they can get the motors warranted by their supplier to do the miles then the supplier has a strong incentive to get the hub motors to last. The advantages are immense. Someone needs to sort out the bugs, but then the sky is the limit.

They are already mass produced.
All the major car manufacturers that are electric vehicle early producers have had a crack at hub motor and gave up on them.
I think the only ones that didn't go on about hub motors was tesla.

Oh and I timed my 0 to 60 times on my leaf with my tool bag, cords, evse, spare tire, jack, tire iron, 17ah 30cal ammo can LiFePO4 battery was about 10 seconds.

[freebeard]

Possibly combining the hub motor with a Tweel™ would be fruitful.

[pete c]

Originally Posted by teknomage2012

NOPE
There are things in life more important than just money and ROI. Like the ability of my grandchildren to breath in a world not fighting over centralized oil resources!

Bean counters make me sick!

"Bean counters" may make you sick, but the fact remains that the world runs on beans. You can make believe this is not the case and perhaps you have, through fortune and or hard work, gotten to a place where you no longer need to count them. But the vast majority of the planet isn't there. We we continue to count them.

So, I think I speak for most of my fellow bean counters when I say kiss my beans.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I really like that thing. I think that putting the motors at the wheels is the way to go. It does increase unsprung weight and that is a concern, particularly in high performance vehicles.

Where I do have a problem is with the fact that this vehicle makes no economic sense. It will not be available to the masses, so it doesn't solve a damn thing. It is a play toy for the rich, especially those that want to point out to the bean counting masses, that they are doing something to save our grandchildren.

No, you arent.

My guess is that a vehicle with 80% of this one's capability can be built for 40% of the cost. THIS is what will put a dent in our resource use.

Use more aluminum and plastic and a little less CF. Or figure out a way to build with CF economically.

I thought Edison 2 was going to be the company to deliver this. Not sure what happened. Perhaps those that don't want it built jammed enough beans up his ass to make him go away.

[pete c]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

No one is going to care how efficient the light year ones are if they (the hub motors) only last 20,000 miles at speeds above 20mph.

Lets assume they need rebuilds at 20K miles.

Assuming they are easy to remove, and I don't see why this is not the case, and they can be rebuilt economically, maybe that would be part of the equation.

[oil pan 4]

A lot of shops are charging 50 to 100 dollars per hour.
The minimum shop time for something like that will be at least 2 hours per wheel, possibly up to 3 or 4 hours per wheel.
Meanwhile the only maintenance my leaf drive system has had was tires at 60,000 an oil change at 70,000 miles, even then the oil change isn't recommended for 2011.
By 2015 and up they recommend 110,000 miles.