Was this article about the car or about Dupont plastics? I find it hard to believe that we got nothing about the battery or electronics on this car. So many new technologies and all we get is plastics talk.
Motor in wheel is certainly an interesting idea (and an obvious one; it's been done before).
The statement "30 percent farther than other mass-produced EVs" is clearly not true. A cynic might say there isn't any such thing as a mass-produced EV, but if you assume that this means "not a concept car" and "not a limited production hand-built car" (like the Tesla Roadster) but rather something built in to a factory with the hope that it would sell in the thousands (like the Leaf) then clearly the Tesla model S qualifies, and that has a range around 300 miles.
Ann, one of the major drawbacks of any EV is its less mileage. So any innovation, which can increase the mileage, may get more appreciated from both market and customer side. But am not getting how its possible to deploy one- one motor for each wheel
according to Lotus, the unsprung weight consequences of hub electric motors is not as great as one would think. From Vehicle Dynamics International's 2011 Annual Showcase:
Thinking about this, the idea of a plastic body for a car with hundreds of watt of energy flowing through it is very smart. I've shocked myself touching the body of a normal auto when static electricity had built up, and it was not fun. Amplify that by a factor of, oh, maybe 200 to 400, and wow! the advantage of using non-conductive parts begins to sound really intelligent. So I'm all in favor of it.
The unsprung weight of the car due to motors in the wheels would certainly reduce its handling capability. And I'd sure hate to hit a big pothole; you'd be out shopping for a new tire and wheel immediately, as soon as your teeth stopped rattling.
The range sounds almost too good- I wonder if it's anywhere near that far at freeway speeds.
But why do they insist on making these things look dorky? Did someone pass a law against making them look like a Tesla?
Ann, I have a feeling we'll look back at this period as an explosion of innovation in the auto industry. I would guess a lot of the technology that's getting developed to support hybrids and EVs will also be handy when used to meet the higher mpg standards in conventional autos.
abq-engineer, thanks for that link. What fun! It sounds like a very similar design concept to the SIM-WIL. Of course, as the article points out, it weighed a lot because of the 1.8 tonnes (metric tons, or 1.984 US short tons) of batteries needed.
While I would agree that there is indeed some ICE legacy to the single motor design direction there are other considerations.
Placing the motors in the wheels increases the unsprung mass of the vehicle and this has an adverse effect on the performance of the suspension. Typically both ride and handling charateristics deteriorate when the ratio of unsprung to sprung mass increases. For the locomotives in your example, traveling on a smooth rail this is farless of an issue.
One possiblity is placing the motor very near the wheel with a short drive shaft. Yes the complexity of the sytem increases, but it may still be better than the centrally located motor without the drawbacks of placing the mass outboard of the suspension.
I have to say, that I have heard of this design approach before (motors in wheels) but not sure if it was ever on a vehicle intended for production. Makes perfect sense, though. No more drive shaft tunnel or heavy gearbox and differential. I'll bet it's low maintenance as well. Total cost of ownership/operation is probably pretty good when compared to gasoline and hybrid models.
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
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For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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