[electro wrks]

Kelly has marketed these car hubs for along time: http://kellycontroller.com/car-hub-motor-72v-7kw-p-711.html . Although, I've never heard of anyone using them. They are sized for 15" wheels from a Buick - a very popular brand in China. With ~14kW of power for a pair of them and 1300 RPM they might be good for 35-40 MPH city driving if you played with the wheel sizes. They look like they would be easy to adapt to a simple beam rear axle with welded on tubes with keys and keyways to counter the reaction torque.

A pair of these hub motors with their controllers cost ~$2500 plus shipping. With the cost of a battery and the time and expense of installing everything, you could buy a lot of diesel for your 50MPG VW. Your fuel economy in the ICE mode would suffer somewhat from the slight amount of extra drag from the motors and the extra weight being dragged around. Also, you should check the safe upper RPM limit of the motors when the car is being driven at freeway speeds in ICE mode.

This hybrid stuff is not so easy as you might initially think.


CORRECTION: See Brian's correction, in the next post

 

[electro wrks]

Thanks for the correction, Brian. In writing my late night post, when I was tired, I mixed up the formulas for calculating a circle's circumference and its area to figure the hub motor RPM.

Here's a recent video of someone using slightly more powerful hub motors with maybe better torque characteristics for a school project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ospqKPp4rbo
Still doesn't look very practical. But, it might have some limited applications.