[MylesJ]

What range of power will your motors take? Will you have braking included? Have you identified the controller to co-ordinate the motors and can it perform the function of providing a differential for turns?

My interest is in promoting electric conversion for older collector cars as the hard parts are no longer available and/or affordable. Most of these cars had engines rated under 100hp. Most of them are not used as everyday drivers. Rotors totaling from 6 to 15KW should work well for these vehicles. Maximum RPMs run about 1000 for 55mph ability. I have a different product that I sell to ato repair shops. I'm trying to get those shops interested in the electric conversion market. Lack of a usable hub motor is one of the major problems. Hardened transmission gears and differentials are very expensive for these cars so eliminating the transmission entirely is a major plus.

[GKnightBC]

Regarding your possible development, are we talking a similar product as the PML Hi-PA drive, when the motor and controller are all in-wheel, and only the battery is in the engine compartment? If so, what gearing-equivalent ratios are you intending to incorporate into the unit? What max speed are you enabling, and what is your expected specifications (weight, torque, regen, etc.)? At what point, based on your speculation of $1,500 per wheel, will you begin to see volume price reductions, ie: once your factory hits 100,000 units, price drops to $1,200 per unit. I am interested because I am in the process for starting a company for EV conversions, and wheelmotors have a great prospect for this. The PML Hi-PA offers 85% regen down to 0 impulse, based upon thier wheelmotors and supercaps to capture the energy, do you see your device having the same (or better!) ?

[WheelMotor]

Hi, Happy with the last 2 reactions !

GKnightBC,
Yes PML is definitively the big example! I am not intent to include the controller in the WM. I don't see an advantage in it and it doesn't really matter where the controller is located. Gearing ? No gearing ! The motor is producing tork directly on the wheel itself. The nature of the BLDC motor is that it will be great for Regenerative Braking. I don't think that 100.000 units/ ??? Month / year is a very realistic perspective.

The real problems that keeps me busy at this moment are:
We came to the conclusion that in order to place the motor in the wheel, the brake has to be removed. This is legally a big problem. Also because I target the conversion market, there is to much diversity of vehicles. In order to make it commercially feasible I need a commercial contact in the US market and a first big volume car that we could target for conversion. Collector Classics are a great target market. Let's assume we take these sort of cars. So we speak about rear driven / drum break cars. It could be possible that we let in that case the drum brake in place. This makes the project already more realistic.

MylesJ
Differential in left right speed is no problem at all because the wheels are totally independent. To limit the slip it is easily possible to read the wheel RPM from the Hall sensors and from there on to limit the current to the slipping wheel, if we want to simulate a limited slip differential.

But !!!
We have to be realistic and set (gradually) the order of priority of the problems. The wheel motor was already used by Ferdinand Porsche in 1896 !!! So technically there is not an insurmountable problem. No problem of enough Tork, efficiency etc etc. Till now the Battery was the problem.
And for our "Affordable Wheel Motor" project the BIG problem is Commercially and Legal in the first place. So before we start a discussion about how much % regenerative energy we can recuperate when braking we should deal with the issues: How must the WM be Legally so that we are allowed to commercialize it in the US. Who is placed to commercialise it ? What car are we targeting ? etc etc.

[Nielmo]

The makers Lightning GT are not planning to include conventional brakes. So they say at least.

Are they really getting away with that?

[Nielmo]

Using an in-wheel motor does not mandate placement in the wheels, does it?
In a conversion you could well keep the original drive train as you do with ordinary motors.
If you get the price low enough people will buy them for regular conversions too.

[WheelMotor]

Originally Posted by Nielmo

Using an in-wheel motor does not mandate placement in the wheels, does it?
In a conversion you could well keep the original drive train as you do with ordinary motors.
If you get the price low enough people will buy them for regular conversions too.

Indeed it could even be used on a front wheel driven hatch back to power the back wheels with an extra 100 Hp as a sort of turbo / nitro replacement for the extra kick during acceleration only.

My intention was to change nothing on the car, but only ad the wheel motors in a configuration around the brakes. But due to to much variables on all sorts of cars, we need first to determine with what car we start.

What worries me most: Lets assume you simply remove the back brakes on a front wheel driven Volkswagen Golf/Rabbit for example. And you replace them with a Wheel Motor, but you let all the rest of the suspension in place. We develop a system to control the reg braking in relation to the hydraulic front braking, so that the back wheels don't block due to the weight shift etc. Should work perfect. But now you have to get your car through some technical control to get it licensed for the road ...
In Belgium: No chance ! Can you get accepted in the US ? I have no idea. And how about the car insurance? In Belgium they will refuse you. If you modify your car and tell them nothing (after you have done all the paperwork) and you get an accident ... wow ... then you are in big troubles.

Who has experience with this in the US ?

[EVHound]

Originally Posted by WheelMotor

Indeed it could even be used on a front wheel driven hatch back to power the back wheels with an extra 100 Hp as a sort of turbo / nitro replacement for the extra kick during acceleration only.

My intention was to change nothing on the car, but only ad the wheel motors in a configuration around the brakes. But due to to much variables on all sorts of cars, we need first to determine with what car we start.

What worries me most: Lets assume you simply remove the back brakes on a front wheel driven Volkswagen Golf/Rabbit for example. And you replace them with a Wheel Motor, but you let all the rest of the suspension in place. We develop a system to control the reg braking in relation to the hydraulic front braking, so that the back wheels don't block due to the weight shift etc. Should work perfect. But now you have to get your car through some technical control to get it licensed for the road ...
In Belgium: No chance ! Can you get accepted in the US ? I have no idea. And how about the car insurance? In Belgium they will refuse you. If you modify your car and tell them nothing (after you have done all the paperwork) and you get an accident ... wow ... then you are in big troubles.

Who has experience with this in the US ?

Hello,

I am from the US, but don't know much about the insurance issues related to this. I do know that it would be easy to insure the vehicle. They are not inspected for insurance purposes. It would probably not even be discovered there were no brakes on some of the wheels if the vehicle were involved in an accident, unless it was a catastrophic one. However, I do see issues with only having brakes on one end of the car or the other. If there was a blowout on one or both wheels that had braking capabilities, loss of control would be almost 100 percent. It seems to me conventional drum type brakes could easily be adapted into the housing of the wheel motor. It would have to be outside of the weatherproof "motor" part of the wheel motor, but it seems to me it could be done. It could be designed to use a common brake pad from a very common car (ie. a '57 Chevy).

On another note, what horsepower and torque do these wheel motors you have planned generate? I can think of other applications where they can be used (particularly with large 18 wheeler type vehicles) if the horsepower and torque is enough.

[WheelMotor]

EVHound,

The rear drum brakes will be replaced by the Regenerative Braking of the WheelMotors. For the back wheels, this would be an equal braking power compared to the drums. To put the wheel motor around the drum brake world produce heat and dust inside the wheel motor.

To give an idea of how much power such a wheel can produce read here: PML

[EVHound]

Originally Posted by WheelMotor

EVHound,

The rear drum brakes will be replaced by the regenerative braking of the WheelMotors. For the back wheels, this would be an equal braking power compared to the drums. To put the wheel motor around the drum brake world produce heat and dust inside the wheel motor.

To give an idea of how much power such a wheel can produce read here: PML

Sorry, I missed the part on the reg braking. I don't think there would be any problems getting past regulatory hurdles. I know that PML is using regen brakes as well as Volvo who is using the PML wheel motor. I just saw on the PML site that Ford is showing a new F150 pickup using their HiPa Drive. I would think that if the regen brakes work, they will pass muster here in the US. I did look at a couple of other electric car manufactuers, Phoenix and Tesla. They are capturing power from regen braking, but they are suplementing their braking with disk brakes. They are not using wheel motors on their vehicles, however.

[david85]

WHY THE HELL DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUT THIS THREAD BEFORE!!!???
TX_Dj, have you been holding out on me??

Oh, well better late than never. I'm here now.

WheelMotor, are you serious about selling these for $1500 each? What sort of performance are you planning? torque? max power? max RPM?

I've been looking for a wheel motor builder or supplier for a while now but I basically gave up because all of the sources were too expencive and in one case were offended that I even inquired. How far are you from being able to supply these motors?

Can you show any pictures yet?