[HN Gopher] Tiny electric motor can produce more than 1,000 hors...
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Tiny electric motor can produce more than 1,000 horsepower
Author : chris_overseas
Score : 505 points
Date : 2025-11-03 09:20 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (supercarblondie.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (supercarblondie.com)
| chris_overseas wrote:
| A link to the press release https://yasa.com/news/yasa-smashes-
| own-unofficial-power-dens...
| defrost wrote:
| A much better link .. and probably not to late to change it via
| [edit] on submission in your view..
|
| The YASA link is primary, links to test data and back story,
| and has more detail substance and authority.
| larodi wrote:
| Much better you should post it and somebody mark the banner
| ridden one for deletion.
| rtaylorgarlock wrote:
| 'Supercarblondie' manages to hit everything I dislike about
| automotive marketing online all at once.
| thenthenthen wrote:
| Yeah wasnt blondie the name of a dog belonging to a certain
| historical figure?
| rtaylorgarlock wrote:
| Ha! I didn't know that. This blondie is definitely,
| definitely the more, um, traditional(?, oof) genus and
| species of American 'blondie' (no offense to blondes, I
| promise, as my disdain is in the direction of protection
| of blondes rather than broad criticism)
| fainpul wrote:
| > 59kW/kg
|
| At this point why don't we get rid of the k prefix and write
| 59W/g?
|
| Edit:
|
| I was half joking, but various answers mention kW being
| standard for motors, kg being the SI unit for mass etc. All
| true, but as used here in a combined unit, which means "power
| density" it still would make sense IMO. It's not like the "59"
| tells you that it's a strong motor and hence you want kW to
| compare it to other motors. You can't, it's just a ratio (power
| to weigth). W/g just reads much nicer in my head. Or we could
| come up with a name, like for other units. Let's call it
| "fainpul" (short fp) for example :)
|
| 59 fp is a new record for electric motors!
| samdjstephens wrote:
| kg is the SI unit for mass, I think that would be why
| kibwen wrote:
| Amusingly, given the other thread in here with people sniping
| each other over the metric system, I'm obliged to point out
| that kg, not g, is the fundamental unit of mass in SI,
| because even metric can't get away without some silliness.
| youngtaff wrote:
| Comparison with other motors
| floo wrote:
| Because kg is the fundamental unit of mass and kW is
| typically used for electric motors.
|
| Same reason you wouldn't use m2/s3 even though that's also
| technically correct.
| VikingCoder wrote:
| If "kg" is the fundamental unit of mass, then honestly, why
| isn't a gram referred to as a "millikilogram"?
| kitku wrote:
| Reminds me of the protest in the Shenanigans and Gimmicks
| part of this project: https://gre-v-
| el.github.io/Dimensional-Calculator/
| fukka42 wrote:
| You're thinking of grams and watts.
|
| Kilo is an SI prefix.
| jmb99 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_base_unit
|
| "The kilogram, symbol kg, is the SI unit of mass. It is
| defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the Planck
| constant h to be 6.62607015x10-34 when expressed in the
| unit J s, which is equal to kg m2 s-1, where the metre
| and the second are defined in terms of c and [?]nCs.[1]"
|
| The base SI unit for power is the watt. The base SI unit
| for mass is the kilogram. Yes, this is dumb, but it's the
| way it is.
|
| [1] https://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si-brochure/SI-
| Brochur...
| margalabargala wrote:
| It gives a sense of the functional size required.
|
| Could the motor in question be shrunk down to 1kg, producing
| 59kW? Probably.
|
| Could it be shrunk down to 1g? No.
| Neywiny wrote:
| Ah like the old MKBHD "screen has an aspect ratio of 18:9. Or
| 2:1 because I know my fractions"
| svl7 wrote:
| Previous discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45675020
| davedx wrote:
| Could lead to significant efficiency gains for EV's, because 1/4
| of the motor weight means better power-to-weight ratio... a lot
| of things will automatically get better.
|
| YASA was founded in 2009, a spin out from Oxford University
| following the PhD of founder and still CTO, Dr Tim Woolmer.
|
| "Over the decades that followed both of these technologies were
| explored. But despite the potential for weight reduction, smaller
| size, shorter axle length and increased torque, it was the
| difficulty in manufacturing the axial flux technology that
| limited its commercial viability, because the motor could not be
| made by stacking laminations, as with radial machines."
|
| "The breakthrough innovation came by segmenting the axial flux
| motor in discrete "pole-pieces", so the motor could be
| manufactured using Soft Magnetic Composite material.
|
| SMC can be pressed at low cost into a wide variety of 3D shapes.
| This removed the need for the complex laminations, overcoming the
| major manufacturing challenge of the axial flux machine."
|
| "In 2025, after a PS12m investment, YASA opened the UK's first
| axial-flux super factory, in Oxfordshire.
|
| The opening of this facility boosts YASA's manufacturing
| capacity, setting new benchmarks in e-motor technology and
| quality, and enabling production to scale beyond 25,000 units per
| year."
|
| This is awesome. Lighter motors also make electric flight more
| viable
| amelius wrote:
| But EVs are already heavy because of the battery. I suppose
| percentage-wise the motors don't make much of a difference (?)
| poniko wrote:
| Yea that's the thing right, the battery is so very much of
| the weight that optimizing the other parts are "meh" at this
| point. What is cool is that the 600Wh/kg solid state
| batteries seems like they are really finally here soon :) i.e
| removing 200-300kg from a car in one go will be a game
| changer.
| bbarnett wrote:
| No wonder electrics don't sell well in the US. People weigh
| more, you're basically saying that leaving grandma at home,
| is a "game changer".
| eru wrote:
| Well, the world's most popular electric car brand (BYD)
| is also virtually banned in the US. That doesn't help
| with adoption.
| mort96 wrote:
| Range being worse with a fully loaded car than with a
| lightly loaded car isn't exactly news, and not exactly
| limited to electric cars. I can clearly feel my old
| diesel struggling more when I'm driving 3 friends and
| with loads of heavy stuff in the back than when I'm
| alone. That makes the gas bill more expensive.
| throw-qqqqq wrote:
| You probably know already, but ICE cars only convert
| about 20-30% of fuel energy into motion, while EVs are
| often +90% efficient. So when an EV has to work harder
| (extra battery weight or colder weather), you notice the
| drop in range more.
|
| In an ICE, the same load is less visible because most
| energy gets wasted as heat. This is also why cold weather
| seems to affect EV range more.
| jq-r wrote:
| The unexpected benefit which I've noticed when switching
| from a small, light car to a heavier, medium EV car is
| that the latter doesn't drive/feel any worse when fully
| loaded. Makes the trips that much more pleasant.
| jabl wrote:
| > You probably know already, but ICE cars only convert
| about 20-30% of fuel energy into motion, while EVs are
| often +90% efficient. So when an EV has to work harder
| (extra battery weight or colder weather), you notice the
| drop in range more.
|
| There's a kernel of truth here in that Otto engines
| suffer lower efficiency at part load, however I suspect
| the real reason is that gas car range is "good enough"
| and refilling is fast, so one doesn't tend to obsess
| about remaining range.
|
| > This is also why cold weather seems to affect EV range
| more.
|
| That's because a) some batteries suffer degraded
| performance at low temperature, and b) ICE cars use the
| plentiful waste heat for cabin heating whereas an EV
| needs a heat pump or even resistive heating of the cabin
| air.
| throw-qqqqq wrote:
| > That's because a) some batteries suffer degraded
| performance at low temperature, and b) ICE cars use the
| plentiful waste heat for cabin heating whereas an EV
| needs a heat pump or even resistive heating of the cabin
| air.
|
| You are making my point here actually. Combustion engines
| suffer from the exact same, but because they waste so
| much energy as heat already, less "extra" energy needs to
| be spent on that.
| mort96 wrote:
| I don't think there's a contradiction here. Electric cars
| suffer degraded range when it's cold (in part) because
| they're so much more efficient that they don't produce
| enough waste heat to heat the cabin. And batteries are so
| much less energy dense than diesel and gasoline that the
| extra power draw reduces their range to a meaningful
| degree.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Part of your point is right, part is wrong.
|
| Yes heating impacts range in an EV, but it's not really
| an efficiency thing, it's because you can't get it
| "free". If an ICE didn't let you harness the heat, you'd
| see a similar percent drop in range.
|
| And for extra weight, it's just not true. Making a motor
| work 10% harder at 90% efficiency, compared to making an
| engine work 10% harder at 20% efficiency, both of these
| are going to reduce your range by 9%.
| throw-qqqqq wrote:
| >> removing 200-300kg from a car in one go will be a game
| changer
|
| > No wonder electrics don't sell well in the US. People
| weigh more, you're basically saying that leaving grandma
| at home, is a "game changer".
|
| Even in the US, your average grandma weighs less than
| 2-300kg :D
| liotier wrote:
| [This post to prevent ulterior posting of "yo mama"
| jokes]
| xandrius wrote:
| That's true only if your very large "grandma" must at all
| cost sit on your batteries at all times.
|
| If we could indeed leave "grandma" home, that would make
| things better.
|
| And they don't sell well in the US because of oil
| lobbying and think tanks whose sole goal is to make you
| buy more oil.
| infogulch wrote:
| True! If only grandma wouldn't insist on bringing 250kg
| of weapons and ammunition with her everywhere I'd get
| much better range in my EV, but alas this is the USA.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| 250kg grandma = ~20 small dogs
|
| 250kg weapons = ~20 small dogs
|
| Instead of technological advancements of EV motors, we
| can immediately use existing pharmaceutical tech
| (Ozempic, GLP-1) to immediately deliver weight reduction
| to cars. However, this will be immediately offset by the
| increase in weight of weapons carried, thanks to Jevons
| Paradox.
| somehnguy wrote:
| Quite frankly I would like to hang out with that grandma.
| Load it up, I'll take the range hit.
| klabb3 wrote:
| Manufacturers may just keep the battery size and market the
| improved range instead? Smaller cars in urban and suburban
| environments have always had lots of benefits, but since
| many of them are collective in nature, it has largely
| fallen on tragedy of the commons, and we got larger cars
| with larger hoods instead.
| DennisP wrote:
| Why not both? For a two-car family, having a good road-
| tripper and a light sporty car can work out pretty
| nicely.
| davedx wrote:
| Not true. Tesla themselves said the way they got the Model
| 3 to be so efficient was by optimising every single part
| exhaustively. It's expensive at design stage but results in
| the most efficiency gains across the fleet - so worth it
| (especially something like the motors)
| nmehner wrote:
| The issue with this type of motor is that it is part of the
| unsprung weight since it is inside the wheel. This is
| probably why savings here matter a lot more (or at least in a
| very different way) than the battery weight.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| See also the Saab Emily GT project. Even with an older,
| heavier gen of these axial flux motors they found
| significant performance gains by controlling each wheel via
| its own motor.
|
| https://electrek.co/2023/04/27/saab-engineers-develop-
| secret...
| nmehner wrote:
| I didn't want to put the usability of the motor into
| question or go into a complete evaluation of
| advantages/disadvantages :) This was just an explanation
| that weight trimming the motor might be very much worth
| the effort - even if it somewhat "insignificant" compared
| with savings that are possible in battery weight.
| close04 wrote:
| YASA doesn't call it a hub motor specifically but that's
| one place where it helps to save as much weight as
| possible. And for the cars most likely to have 1000+HP
| weight matters too. A Tesla motor weighs 100-200lbs, so
| saving that much weight down to 28lbs on a supercar is
| highly desirable.
|
| I think large drones will be another place where a
| downsized version of this motor will make a huge
| difference, assuming the power scales nicely with size.
| rob74 wrote:
| Ok, now I understand why this motor is only used in
| supercars - installing four (or even only two - according
| to https://www.mercedes-
| benz.de/passengercars/technology/concep..., even the AMG
| GT-XX has "only" three of them) hub motors with twice the
| power of a Tesla Model 3 in any other car would be
| ridiculous. So, the actual challenge is to make this motor
| even smaller while keeping the same power to weight ratio,
| so it can also be used for regular cars? That is, if they
| _want_ to build something for the mass market, not only for
| an exclusive clientele?
| eru wrote:
| Well, Tesla also started with the higher end of the
| market. That's where people are willing to pay more.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| But why limit only to cars? Can this be used for
| motorcycles, e-bikes, electric buses, train wheels,
| e-unicycles, electric golf carts, etc?
|
| There are probably a range of application where in-wheel
| makes perfect sense.
| tckk wrote:
| Donut Labs markets a whole suite of axial flux motors.
| Sized from scooters through to large trucks. But no
| public pricing.
| mlhpdx wrote:
| And thrusters for boats as well, IIRC.
| doph wrote:
| I don't think their motors are axial flux, they're just
| large and narrow to fit inside wheels. Or at least all
| the images on their website depict radial flux designs.
| exasperaited wrote:
| Motorcycles I could imagine.
|
| Do e-bikes really need significantly more power than they
| have? They already run arguably dangerously fast for
| their application. Is efficiency not the primary target
| there?
| varispeed wrote:
| If engine can be produced cheaply, can it be limited "in
| software"? It's like saying people shouldn't use Rasberry
| Pi to blink an LED.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, you kind of shouldn't use a Raspberry Pi to blink
| an LED, though. Great "Hello World" project. But there
| are so many ways that are cheaper, lighter, smaller and
| more reliable (and don't require a lengthy boot-up).
| TJSomething wrote:
| While more power may not make sense, less weight is an
| easy way to get more efficiency. And if you can keep the
| same power at a lower weight, that's a win.
| maeln wrote:
| The motor to battery weight ratio on e-bike is much more
| than for cars. Having a lighter motor would improve the
| efficiency.
| gruturo wrote:
| e-bikes don't necessarily need more power but they could
| benefit from a smaller and lighter motor. If it becomes
| small enough to "disappear" in the pedal assembly for
| example, it would allow more design/parts commonality
| with normal bikes and fit more people's aesthetic
| criteria.
|
| The lower weight would be definitely welcome, my ebike is
| comically heavy compared to a normal one and sometimes I
| have to carry it up flights of stairs (some German
| railway overpasses, grr).
|
| Also in scooters it could fit in the wheel (since the
| wheel is tiny and has to spin quite quickly - no
| reduction gear needed vs a bike with 26-28" rims)
| allowing a simpler design and cost savings. But maybe in
| scooters they're already using in-wheel motors, I'm a bit
| ignorant there.
| amluto wrote:
| There are some advantages to hub motors in an e-bike, and
| if the motor and an appropriate gearing system could be
| made light enough the disadvantages would be reduced.
|
| Oddly, a very large majority of current fully suspended
| e-bikes with rear cargo racks have those racks unsprung,
| which suggests that most e-bike manufacturers don't
| actually care about the handling of anything other than
| their pure e-MTBs.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Hmm. I am NOT an expert (though I ride and have owned 3
| traditional motorcycles). IIUC, reducing unsprung weight
| is really crucial for handling -- which is why so-called
| "inverted" forks / front shock absorbers became basically
| the standard.
| kangs wrote:
| bicycle weight ratios are completely different from even
| motorcycles. a bike wheel can quickly become heavier than
| the frame for example.
| state_less wrote:
| Yes, all else equal, we want lighter motors in vehicles.
|
| I'm always interested to hear about the latest in lighter
| and possibly more powerful and torque-y e-bike motors.
| Someone wrote:
| They don't need this motor, but if it can be scaled
| down... at over 10kW/kg sustained, one could wish/hope to
| get 200W at 50g (disclaimer: I have no idea how this
| scales with size). Combine that with 1kg of a 600Wh/kg
| battery (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45797452.
| Again, I have no idea how realistic that is), and you
| have a bicycle that's only a little heavier than a non-
| electric one, but gives you a boost for 3 hours (more if
| you use it sparingly. If you're cycling at leisure, 100W
| already is a lot of power)
| Y_Y wrote:
| For reference, an average commuter cyclist has a power
| output of about 200W, a world-class racer can do about
| 600W.
|
| Ref: https://www.cyclinganalytics.com/blog/2018/06/how-
| does-your-...
| binary132 wrote:
| Yeah, my first thought was racing EUC's, lol....
| acac10 wrote:
| End User Credentials ? Everyone Uses Cars ? Engineered
| Universal Conscience? (Since you seem to assume we all
| share your thoughts & context...)
| jama211 wrote:
| I don't see anything inside the article that says it's
| designed to be inside the wheel. I'm not sure where they
| got that from.
| tclancy wrote:
| I get your skepticism and I know nothing about the field,
| but if the round thing in the press release picture isn't
| designed to fit in a wheel, I'm confused.
| https://yasa.com/news/yasa-smashes-own-unofficial-power-
| dens...
| Timshel wrote:
| Not necessarily, cf: https://lammotor.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2024/12/YASA-400R.jp...
|
| From https://lammotor.com/yasa-axial-flux-motor/
|
| the shape is due to the change to the motor layout:
| https://www.thedrive.com/news/why-axial-flux-motors-are-
| a-bi...
| jama211 wrote:
| It's currently designed for the axel for now as far as
| I'm aware.
| hylaride wrote:
| I think they misspoke when they said "in" the wheel, but
| supercars can have a separate motor for each wheel, and
| the closer they are to the wheel the better the torque as
| it's not also driving a longer shaft. The smaller the
| motor, the closer you can get.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| I guess if you can make the motor and a suitable
| reduction box lighter than the equivalent bearing and
| driveshaft combination you could make the suspension arms
| mechanically simpler.
|
| By using motors at each wheel you'd eliminate the need
| for a differential, saving a good 40-50kg or so. Of
| course, if you kept the drive shafts and put the motor
| and reduction box in the middle, you'd be able to use
| inboard brakes and save a lot of unsprung weight!
| ehnto wrote:
| I wonder if that would be legal, or if there is a
| regulation about where you can put your brakes?
| amluto wrote:
| I've generally assumed that brakes are in the wheel
| because they're not all that massive, they get decent
| cooling airflow in the wheel, and they can produce
| enormous amounts of torque.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| There are cars with inboard brakes, although not
| recently. From a packaging point of view putting them out
| at the wheel makes sense, since there's a lot of space
| you're not using otherwise.
|
| It's hard to fit inboard brakes to front wheel drive cars
| because there's so little space but Citroen managed it
| with the 2CV and various derivatives, and the
| GS/GSA/Birotor family. They had an inline engine with a
| very compact gearbox behind, with the brake discs (drums,
| on very early 2CVs) right on the side of the gearbox.
|
| You got lower unsprung weight and possibly more usefully
| the kingpin was aligned with the centre of the tyre, so
| when you steered the tyre turned "on the spot" rather
| than rotating through a curve.
|
| Some old Jags and Alfas had inboard discs on the rear
| axle, which was of course rear wheel drive. They were a
| bit of a pain to get at.
| avn2109 wrote:
| Super pro comment, should be much higher.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| it would be really interesting if it became possible to
| do electronic only breaks. I'm sure the regulatory system
| isn't there yet, but it would let you shave a whole bunch
| more parts and complexity
| jama211 wrote:
| Interesting! But yes in axel in this case then
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| From Wikipedia on Axial Flux Motors: >"Mercedes-Benz
| subsidiary YASA (Yokeless and Segmented Armature) makes
| AFMs that have powered various concept (Jaguar C-X75),
| prototype, and racing vehicles. It was also used in the
| Koenigsegg Regera, the Ferrari SF90 Stradale and S96GTB,
| Lamborghini Revuelto hybrid and the Lola-Drayson.[9] The
| company is investigating the potential for placing motors
| inside wheels, given that AFM's low mass does not
| excessively increase a vehicle's unsprung mass.[10] "
| hvb2 wrote:
| The fact that you CAN put it in the wheel doesn't mean it
| MUST to go in the wheel.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| Yes but the wikipedia article is referencing YASA, the
| company in the featured article.
| jama211 wrote:
| They're investigating the potential for them to be placed
| inside wheels, but they aren't at the moment, so my point
| stands.
| bidatzi wrote:
| Why would it have to be unsprung? They are not unsprung in
| the vehicle shown in the article.
| Zanfa wrote:
| I might be wrong, but I don't think these motors are
| intended to be used inside the wheel. That would add a ton
| of additional requirements in terms of physical durability
| as well as constrain optimal torque and RPM of the motor
| design.
| mbfg wrote:
| I believe the Aptera was originally going to have motors
| in the wheels... My understanding is the the first
| version will forego that, as there were challenges i
| guess, but i think they still to eventually do that.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| I believe caring about unsprung weight only matters for
| handling not efficiency
| jama211 wrote:
| Where does it say it's inside the wheel? Not sure about
| that
| scoobytuber wrote:
| He's holding the motor in the picture. That format is in-
| wheel BLDC.
| doph wrote:
| In-wheel application is possible, but it's important to
| understand that the pancake shape is only a consequence
| of the axial flux design and Yasa doesn't make motors in
| other "formats". Yasa motors shaped like this have been
| used in several supercars and all of them have been in-
| board on the axles, not in-wheel.
| imtringued wrote:
| That format is the standard format for axial flux
| motors...
| jama211 wrote:
| I don't believe it is in this case.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > This is probably why savings here matter a lot more (or
| at least in a very different way) than the battery weight.
|
| Wouldn't that make it worse or just ... different. Before
| this the unsprung weight wouldn't have had a motor in there
| and now it does. Increasing the unsprung weight doesn't
| seem a like a good thing.
| jakogut wrote:
| What current mass production EVs use hub motors? It seems a
| lot more sensible to have the motors inboard, mounted to
| the chassis, and drive the wheel(s) with axle shafts. It
| seems in my searching this is how nearly all EVs are
| currently designed and produced.
| DrScientist wrote:
| It compounds. If you have a lighter more efficient motor you
| need a smaller battery for the same range, that combined
| weight loss means you meed lighter brakes etc etc, and
| because the car is now lighter you size of your motor you
| need is less.....
|
| They claim, this compounding effect works out to basically
| double the effective weight saving from battery and motor.
|
| ie if you start with saving 50kg on motor, and 50kg on
| battery, you end up saving 200kg over all. Still only about
| 10% of a typical electric car.
|
| https://youtu.be/3qjB6GnhloY?si=yqlz7Evuyf5VaghO&t=446
| honkostani wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation
| DrScientist wrote:
| What's a bit of a shame is they are no longer an
| independent company ( ie wholly owned owned by Mercedes ) -
| so that might mean we are less likely to see these motors
| combined with solid state batteries any time soon.
| hamdingers wrote:
| > If you have a lighter more efficient motor you need a
| smaller battery for the same range
|
| Nitpick: You can have a lighter motor, but you're never
| going to have a significantly more efficient motor because
| existing EV motor systems are already 95% efficient or
| better. The electric motor is an old and refined
| technology.
| DrScientist wrote:
| I'm not an expert - but the axial flux design while old
| is been largely ignored due to manufacturing problems
| that have now been overcome ( so most of the dev has been
| on the radial flux variety ).
|
| And apparently axial flux motors have shorter magnetic
| flux paths which reduces losses.
|
| ie the efficiency gain is due to the switch from radial
| to axial flux - not some incremental gain on radial flux.
|
| Having said that the efficiency gains are relatively
| small - 1-2%.
|
| However again there is a compounding effect, in that the
| reduction of loss of energy as heat, leads to requiring
| less cooling - and/or the motor is able to operate a full
| efficiency over a wider power output range ( as heating
| the copper increases the electrical resistance ).
|
| https://www.stanfordmagnets.com/advantages-and-
| disadvantages...
| Qwertious wrote:
| Suppose you go from a 95% efficient electric motor to a
| 99% efficient motor. How much more efficient is it? You
| might say 1.04x (or actually 99/95 efficient). Except,
| that's not the whole story - electric motors need
| cooling, and you've just dropped the heat output five-
| fold (going from 5% heat to 1% heat). Lower heat output
| means less venting needed and thus better aerodynamics.
| dinkblam wrote:
| saving 30 kg of weight on a 2000 - 2500 kg car won't lead to
| "significant efficiency gains"
| lukan wrote:
| Depends on your definition if significance, but I think they
| do. Every kg of useless weight you do carry, lowers your
| range. But sure, on its own it is not a magic game changer
| for heavy electric cars.
|
| For light weight vehicles on the other hand, it might be.
| jansan wrote:
| Weight reductions on an electric car are self-reinforcing. If
| you reduce the weight of a component, the battery can become
| (slightly) smaller, which again reduces weight. At a certain
| amount of reduction this will allow you to make the whole
| structure lighter, which will again allow for a smaller
| battery.
|
| So yeah, weight reduction on EVs is great.
| hopelite wrote:
| Also not considered is that the announcement is for 740bhp
| motor. The Tesla model 3 has a vehicle output of about 400
| hp. I'm not sure of all the design specs, but it seems
| clear to me that a smaller version of these motors could
| suffice to drive a 3 equivalent vehicle at 1/2 the output
| and still be more than sufficient. So let's say maybe 15lbs
| each, vs current equivalent 70lbs each. It's not major
| total weight impact, but with battery advancements it will
| compound.
|
| I think people are overlooking that the announcement is for
| a performance motor meant for the performance market at the
| moment because that is what the backers of YASA are most
| interested in because it has the highest margins and
| prestige. Also not mentioned is the efficiency from the
| simpler production line.
|
| My impression from what I know is we are looking at an
| impact equivalent to direct injection engines; not
| revolutionary, but a major advancement of one component
| that has significant and consequential effects.
| throw-qqqqq wrote:
| The e-motor is often "overpowered" in EVs (compared to
| ICEs) to make regenerative braking efficient, i.e.
| capture meaningful energy from braking.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| And because almost everyone is a sucker for the "Stomp on
| the pedal and it goes fast" marketing strategy and
| demonstration.
|
| That's why a modern _Camry_ makes almost 200 HP
| dralley wrote:
| It's also just a lot easier and cheaper to make an
| electric motor "overpowered" by 25% or even 50+% than an
| internal combustion engine.
| otikik wrote:
| If you put several small motors on each wheel you might get
| some extra weight gains in the form of less transmission
| needed. Cables weight less than metal structural bars. But
| yes you are not going to be 500kg lighter.
| hengheng wrote:
| I agree insofar as the motor is not a Big Ticket Item,
| opposed to ICE cars where the engine block is going to be 10%
| or more.
|
| Tesla (I know) claimed a 30kg (?) weight loss on their
| Cybertruck (I know) just from moving their 12V systems to
| 48V, allowing for lighter cables at lower currents. Not all
| such potential is untapped, and my hunch is that there is
| more to be had with structural battery integration, battery
| cooling, and high voltage wiring.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| The Ferrari 296 GTB weighs about 1500kg and the sports
| version 1300kg. For the cars YASA produces motors for it's
| much easier to increase the power to weight ratio by reducing
| weight than increasing power. I imagine an important design
| point for all of its components is to reduce weight.
| dralley wrote:
| Also as mentioned by another comment, Mercedes produces
| Formula 1 power units, and engineers would kill for a
| savings of a few kilograms in Formula 1. Those savings are
| not easy to come by.
| jcims wrote:
| Better for robotics as well.
| taneq wrote:
| The other aspect is that a smaller motor with the same power
| generally has higher efficiency, by necessity, since it has
| less heat dissipation. So higher power and higher efficiency
| and lower size/weight all go together. It's a great synergy.
| roelschroeven wrote:
| Is it always true that a smaller motor with the same power
| has less heat dissipation? It doesn't seem all that obvious
| to me.
| taneq wrote:
| All else held equal, I think so, yeah. If you have the same
| temperature differential, the same manner of heat
| dissipation, and a smaller surface area then that should
| mean smaller heat dissipation, yeah?
|
| Obviously if you go from eg. a large air-cooled motor to a
| smaller water-cooled motor, then the smaller motor could
| potentially dissipate more heat, but that's a different
| scenario.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| > This is awesome. Lighter motors also make electric flight
| more viable
|
| The next innovation we need is Aerial refueling[1] for electric
| planes. High density swappable batteries and high altitude
| wind/solar plants that can swap batteries mid air. Perhaps some
| billionaire will develop a large fleet of these to service all
| flights! If no western billionaires, we just have to wait for
| China to develop this tech.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_refueling
| 7952 wrote:
| Surely it would be easier to recharge rather than swap
| batteries? I wonder if in the future war will be like a turn
| based strategy game as everyone wait for drones to recharge
| before making a move.
| Tostino wrote:
| I don't see it working like that in Ukraine...
| wongarsu wrote:
| Mid-air: yes. A boom with a charging cable or even beamed
| energy would be much easier.
|
| On the ground: swapping batteries is faster, and batteries
| are cheaper than planes or drones. You want the expensive
| part back in the air as soon as possible so you don't need
| as many of them. On the whole this probably also simplifies
| logistics: in civilian aviation airport space is limited,
| in wartime it's easier to transport one hundred drones and
| two hundred battery packs to the frontline than to
| transport two hundred drones
| Zenst wrote:
| That's a future thought when it comes to electric
| aircraft - remote/emergency refuelling. I know they have
| tested lasers, and even sent a megawatt in 30 seconds
| over a distance of a few miles, though current convention
| of the laser back into usable power is around 50%
| efficiency. All gets down to a needed leap in electricity
| production and wished the World would get together on
| fusion reactors and knock it out the park over a mad race
| to be the first and lock down patents.
| iso1631 wrote:
| A typical regional aircraft needs about 3MW of power to
| keep in cruise, and has about 50 square metre area, so
| 60kW per square metre. Even with 50% efficiency you're
| talking over 100kW/m^2
|
| A laser over 10W has safety implications. This is 50,000
| lasers all shining on the same plane.
|
| Given your collectors are only going to be say 50%
| efficient, you're likely going to dumping enough wasted
| energy into the wings to melt the aircraft - not sure
| what dumping 3MW of heat energy into a plane would do
| over an hour, but I suspect it would stat to melt in a
| few seconds if you're lucky (otherwise your passengers
| would start getting very toasty)
|
| At 3MW for an hour that's not a great amount of
| electricity that's needed - at 10c/kWh it's $300 an hour.
| You don't need fancy things like fusion to generate that.
| In the UK alone Solar is currently (in November)
| generating 600 times that - plus domestic installations.
| lazide wrote:
| Difficulty for swapping batteries too - how to
| differentiate between strategic bombings and a refueling
| accident.
| gushie wrote:
| Apologies for the turbulence, we're just flying through a
| thunderstorm to top up the batteries
| SaintGhurka wrote:
| A sufficiently compact electric motor enables mounting it in
| the nose-wheel of commercial aircraft, allowing it to be
| driven around like a golf cart. This means the plane can taxi
| without the use of its engines, just the power from the APU.
| [1]
|
| Also planes would not have to wait for a tug to pull back
| from the gate, which improves turnaround times for the
| airline.
|
| [1] https://www.wheeltug.com/
| wongarsu wrote:
| You could also spin up the landing gear wheels prior to
| landing to massively reduce the amount of rubber
| transferred from tire to runway on touchdown. Rarely done
| today because of the weight and complexity of adding
| motors, but letting the ground spin up the wheel is pretty
| expensive both for tire wear and runway maintenance
| zeristor wrote:
| Or laser power beaming from a satellite, or a ground station.
|
| Not very feasible, but an option that has been thought
| through.
|
| I guess there's a system that's gated to track dependent
| technologies, to track improvements and what they'll enable.
| ajross wrote:
| > Could lead to significant efficiency gains for EV's
|
| Not really. EV's are very heavy from non-motor weight. A Model
| Y weighs ~4300 lbs. A motor that is 75 lbs lighter is a 1.7%
| savings. That's not nothing, but I wouldn't say "significant".
| You can do better by swapping for fancy wheels or eliminating
| some of the glass roof.
|
| And really this is true up and down the electric vehicle world.
| Weight-sensitive applications are always going to be completely
| dominated by battery weight. Making the motor smaller just
| isn't going to move the needle.
|
| Basically this is good tech without an application, which is
| why it's having to tell itself with links like this.
| lazide wrote:
| It's great anywhere you want more power but are limited by
| space and/or weight for performance reasons. Aerospace,
| e-bikes, electric race vehicles, electric motorcycles.
|
| But yeah, EVs seem weird except for racing reasons perhaps.
|
| What I can't figure out is how they dissipate the heat -
| double digits kw per kg is crazy.
| Tostino wrote:
| The first step to dealing with heat at high kw, is to not
| generate the heat you have to dissipate in the first place.
| Which means chasing smaller and smaller efficiency gains,
| because that reduces heat generated.
|
| The more of the energy going into moving the vehicle, the
| less heat the motor has to handle.
| lazide wrote:
| Sure, but at 50kw/kg at 99% efficiency is still 500w/kg,
| which is cray cray. Like 'glowing red hot shortly' type
| of crazy with just passive cooling.
|
| And there is no way this is 99% efficient.
|
| So my question still applies. Even 98% is 1kw/kg, or
| 1kj/sec. or around 3C rise per second assuming the mass
| is 100% nice clean copper (it isn't). Everything else
| will be worse.
|
| Not even counting increasing losses with temperature, it
| will be a molten puddle pretty quick at that rate without
| some major active cooling.
| I_dream_of_Geni wrote:
| I was waiting to see in the comments EXACTLY this
| question: There is no way to dump this heat. 1000hp?
| Yeah, maybe for a few seconds, even with oil coolant
| pumping through there. Then how to dump the heat from the
| oil. And further thinking, if they ever get this to be a
| hub motor, how in the world are they going to pump
| coolant through 2-4 hub motors and then to a radiator
| that can dump that rate of heat rise, especially since
| oil is a lousy coolant (relatively speaking).
| lazide wrote:
| Those could be answered by large radiators or the like -
| when outside the 'has to be dense' path. The issue the
| motor has is exactly that it needs to be dense - and has
| a lot of power going through it.
|
| Liquid cooling at least for now should work - as long as
| it stays below the flash point of the liquid I guess.
| benplumley wrote:
| The YASA axial flux motors benefit from much shorter
| windings and direct oil cooling which gives an unparalleled
| performance proposition. A 200kW peak-
| power radial motor, run continuously, might typically give
| 50% of peak power between 80 and 100kW, as a result of
| thermal limitations. In contrast, a 200kW YASA motor runs
| continuously at 150kW thanks to the improved high-thermal-
| contact cooling that oil offers.
|
| From https://yasa.com/technology/
| ajross wrote:
| Again, no, because the motor needs to be powered and the
| battery is vastly larger than the motor already in any of
| those applications. Even in RC planes, which fly for 5-6
| minutes at a time, the battery is 5x or more the weight of
| the motor, wiring and controller logic.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I'm more excited about light electric vehicles. (Bikes, tuk-
| tuks, what-have-you).
| linsomniac wrote:
| ...with 1,000 horsepower. =:-)
| hedora wrote:
| In fairness, ICE engines have been able to provide too much
| horsepower for those use cases for a long time.
|
| Cutting the motor weight probably matters more for smaller
| vehicles than bigger ones though.
| linsomniac wrote:
| That wasn't so much a criticism of the electric motor,
| which it sounds like they can scale down, as the
| Neanderthal part of my brain lighting up. Mongo like
| power to weight ratio.
| lunias wrote:
| I wish more people on the road realized the extent to which
| weight reduction improves all aspects of the driving
| experience... it really does compound unlike any other change
| that you can make to a vehicle. IMO heavy vehicles are a scam
| and the antithesis of the direction we should be moving.
| rounce wrote:
| Absolutely and on top of that far lower pollution from tyre
| and brake dust, and less damaging to the road top surface.
| rpozarickij wrote:
| Driving Volkswagen e-up for the first time was a very unique
| experience to me. My brain needed to adjust that a car can be
| that nimble and responsive due to its small size/weight and
| instant torque from the electric motor.
| ehnto wrote:
| I agree with you however I believe weight and safety are in a
| complex relationship right now, which has nothing to do with
| performance and handling.
|
| Unfortunately I feel much less safe in a Fiat 500 when a
| significant portion of cars in the road weigh nearly 3 tonnes
| and perhaps can't even see me. I suspect most people are in
| SUVs because they're the pragmatic trade off between safety
| and convenience, not because they were hoping for excellent
| performance.
| ajuc wrote:
| Tax SUVs out of existence.
| gambiting wrote:
| A basic BMW 5 series is over 2 tonnes, with the top spec
| model tipping the scales at 2.5 tonnes. I mean I agree
| with the general sentiment but it's not just SUVs that
| need to go on a diet. Everything is getting heavier and
| heavier and heavier.
| ajuc wrote:
| yeah, the tax should be based on car weight per passanger
| gambiting wrote:
| That will just make the gigantic SUVs with 7 or more
| seats dominate even more.
| ajuc wrote:
| car weight / min(number of seats, number of people in the
| family)
| gameman144 wrote:
| This metric disincentivizes carpooling -- everyone should
| drive a light single-seater to minimize their tax.
|
| (I agree with the spirit, just calling out that there are
| going to be edge cases galore with a scenario like this)
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Do people car pool anymore?
| lunias wrote:
| I see the same trend. My thoughts: 2 tonnes of shit sells
| for more than 1 tonne of shit. 650 HP entices a lot more
| people than 1,200kg. I usually have to dig to find the
| weight of the vehicle. It's a consumer education problem
| more than anything imo.
| parineum wrote:
| Ironically, they've been taxed into existence.
| ponector wrote:
| Not really. Small cars are still on sale in US. SUVs are
| popular in EU as well.
| schiffern wrote:
| Classic prisoner's dilemma.
|
| Everyone who can will naturally choose "defect" unless
| there's some sort of external coordination mechanism.
| Timon3 wrote:
| Not everyone, but far too many.
| testdelacc1 wrote:
| Your intuition is correct.
|
| Americans' Love Affair with Big Cars is Killing Them
| (https://www.economist.com/interactive/united-
| states/2024/08/...) - The Economist.
|
| > In a crash, the fatality rate of the occupants of the
| heavy pickup truck is about half that of the compact car.
| But they are also far more dangerous to the fatality rate
| of people in other cars.
|
| > The fatality rate is roughly seven times higher when
| colliding with a heavy pickup truck than with a compact
| car. As the weight of your car increases, the risk of
| killing others increases dramatically. For every life that
| the heaviest 1% of SUVs and trucks save, there are more
| than a dozen lives lost in other vehicles.
|
| Unfortunately car safety is only evaluated in terms of
| safety for the occupants. Not safety of society.
| hinkley wrote:
| Well, hood and grill shapes are mandated for pedestrian
| safety but everyone else is fucked.
| lunias wrote:
| If a pedestrian gets hit by a tall vehicle, where the
| bumper is at waist level or above, then the pedestrian
| goes under the vehicle. This is what causes most of the
| fatalities these days. Breaking your legs is bad, but
| getting run over is the end.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Then how is the Cybertruck legal on US roads? It's got
| sharp edges both front and rear
| zipy124 wrote:
| There's a reason it isn't legal in basically any other
| countries and this is a big part of it.
| lunias wrote:
| Yup, it's an arms race to see who can buy the biggest
| vehicle so that they can see over the second biggest
| vehicle and survive a collision with it.
|
| But small cars are only unsafe because of that discrepancy
| between the largest and smallest cars, and it's not just
| weight, but height difference. It's possible to survive
| crashes at very extreme speeds in very light cars if they
| are designed to work that way (see: F1 crash g-force). Not
| so much if you literally get run over.
|
| The culture needs to change. A vehicle is not a living
| room. The driver's seat is not a sofa. You don't need a TV
| in the dashboard. You don't need 8 seats when 7 of them are
| unoccupied 90% of the time. You don't need to go into debt
| to buy a land yacht.
|
| So yeah... you're right, but it's a bummer that we've
| arrived at this situation.
| hinkley wrote:
| And that's why any vehicle over 2 tons should require a
| commercial driver's license. Let plumbers and tree
| removal services drive them and not 19 year olds whose
| parents want their child to survive a fatal crash at the
| expense of everyone else in a twenty foot radius of the
| wreck.
| ungreased0675 wrote:
| I wonder if larger/heavy non-commercial vehicles were taxed
| at a very high rate, would more people choose Fiat 500
| sized cars?
| lunias wrote:
| Maybe... I think it would definitely help. I think just
| driving a smaller car that puts you in control might
| cause a lot of people to switch. I know that when I've
| done the opposite; gone from a very performance oriented
| car to a random person's SUV, I've felt extremely unsafe
| comparatively in breaking, merging, changing lanes,
| parking, etc. etc. I think most people just have little
| experience to compare it to anymore.
|
| I also think it's odd that people don't already choose
| other options w/o a tax in place, considering the price
| of a bigger vehicle is almost always just going to be
| higher because of materials and a bunch of other factors.
| mlrtime wrote:
| >I know that when I've done the opposite; gone from a
| very performance oriented car to a random person's SUV,
| I've felt extremely unsafe
|
| Which two cars? I've gone from a 911 to a BMW X5 and the
| X5 was just as fun for what it was. They are completely
| different cars, I'm not sure what you would expect and
| why you judge others.
| lunias wrote:
| That's a totally different comparison. I'm sure the X5 is
| fine for what it is, but most people are driving around
| in ~30k USD SUVs. That's the type of vehicle that I'm
| referencing. I'm comparing it against my 2012 VW GTI w/ a
| lot of mods. Both vehicles cost about the same new. They
| have similar interior cargo space. My GTI is worth less
| than 15k USD. I'm not judging just based on fun, it's
| true that a nimble car can get you into trouble, but in
| my experience it also often gets you out of trouble.
| hinkley wrote:
| It's going to have to be sorted at the DMV.
|
| You take a defensive driving course, I'll let you drive a
| tank down the road. But my neighbor's kids should not be
| behind the wheel of a death dealer. Those vehicles were
| meant for skilled laborers, not Sally who is on her phone
| while driving.
| pwg wrote:
| In reality, any 'vehicle' which does not meet both
| passenger car safety _and_ passenger car fuel economy
| standards [1] should only be allowed to be licensed as a
| "commercial" vehicle and should pay "commercial" rate
| (higher) taxes (and maybe even require a "commercial"
| stamp on one's drivers license to operate). If the states
| had done this when SUV's first appeared on the scene, we
| might not have nearly every car on the road being a
| hulking monster SUV today.
|
| [1] which no SUV's nor trucks used as passenger cars, do
| because they are classed as 'utility vehicles' and have
| lower safety/fuel economy standards -- which is why the
| auto-makers went whole-hog on making/selling them, it got
| their CAFE averages down artificially.
| rockostrich wrote:
| Weight is not the only thing that matters though. You also
| need to consider center of gravity and wheel base. A YJ Jeep
| Wrangler and a Honda Fit both weigh around 2700 lbs and they
| even have similar wheel bases but the driving experience
| between those 2 is night and day. A Honda Fit can take a turn
| at speed without feeling like you're going to go flying.
| You'll feel like you're able to flip making a turn going 20
| mph in a YJ.
|
| This is why the first performance mod that most people put on
| their cars is an adjustable coil over suspension. Dropping
| the car down by an inch or 2 changes has just as much of an
| impact as shedding some weight.
|
| Ironically, most people put lift kits on Jeeps but that also
| usually comes with widening the wheel base and putting on
| larger wheels/tires.
| jakogut wrote:
| Lifting an off road vehicle isn't ironic at all, nearly
| every characteristic that makes a vehicle good on road
| makes it bad off road and vise versa.
|
| Increased height makes for increased ground clearance and
| improved break over angle. Sway bars are another suspension
| component that's great for reducing body roll on road at
| speed, but reduces articulation and ground contact off
| road. Differential lockers also negatively impact turning
| radius, and cause tire chirp, wear, and oversteer under
| throttle on road, while increasing traction off road.
|
| What's silly is daily driving an off road vehicle on road,
| especially if you never take it off road.
| hvb2 wrote:
| > Ironically, most people put lift kits on Jeeps but that
| also usually comes with widening the wheel base and putting
| on larger wheels/tires.
|
| That's not ironic. That's just caring more about the looks
| and you like that look. And looks > handling for that
| person
| jakogut wrote:
| It's not at all about looks, it's about a _different
| kind_ of handling, for off road, that 's mutually
| exclusive with on road handling.
|
| Yes, some people choose to emulate off road appearances,
| such as with fake bead locks and then only ever drive
| their vehicle on road. That doesn't discount the fact
| that there are a great many explicit choices you can make
| in designing and building a vehicle that sacrifice on
| road performance for off road performance.
| lunias wrote:
| You are correct, ideally you would do both. My car is
| lowered on coilovers, I also have front and rear sway bars,
| but weight reduction is so much more than just handling.
|
| I didn't realize that Jeep was so light... pretty nice
| actually, but yeah, that's just an application mismatch.
| People buy Jeeps that will never see even a dirt road in
| their lives. Then they get on a dirt road once or twice and
| say, "Look what it can do!" Sure... a rally car would be
| much better. In order for the Jeep to come into its own you
| need to be doing something that requires ground
| clearance... that's basically their singular purpose: rock
| crawling (which almost no one does).
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| The Jeep YJ he is talking about is an 80s design, and
| some models topped 3200lb by the end of the run. So he is
| comparing the weight and handling of a car from the 80s
| to a car from the 2000s at the earliest (although the
| curb weight he cites means that the fit he is talking
| about would have to be a later model, from 2015 or
| later).
|
| The modern Jeep Wrangler, and the one that would be
| contemporary to the Honda Fit weighs in at 4,000 lbs in
| the 2-door base model or significantly more depending on
| options.
|
| If you compare a YJ to a Honda Civic of the same era, you
| see that the 1986 civic was 1800 lbs up against a 1986 YJ
| at 2800 lbs.
| lunias wrote:
| Good catch. I didn't even realize... I was shocked
| because I assumed it was a modern Jeep. Your data is much
| more in line with what I would expect.
| neya wrote:
| > I wish more people on the road realized the extent to which
| weight reduction improves all aspects of the driving
| experience
|
| This is a blanket statement and completely untrue. Good
| driving experience is directly correlated to TRACTION, not
| just weight. And traction isn't just a function of weight -
| it also is affected by center of gravity, friction between
| the wheels and the road. Traction is what gives you the
| perception of being in control of the car.
|
| I used to own two cars of the exact same model - one petrol
| and one diesel. The petrol is lighter in weight, about 100+
| kgs lighter than the diesel variant. And the driving
| experience on that is slightly scary especially on roads with
| strong winds. In fact, it is so light that if you drive over
| tiny puddles or rumbles strips, the car will sway sideways.
| The diesel always feels more planted because it is front-
| heavy, thus adding more traction to the front wheels (both
| are FWDs). I always prefer the diesel for longer drives
| because of the heft and confidence it provides.
| lunias wrote:
| I get what you're saying, but tire technology has improved
| traction so greatly in the last decade that we can
| definitely take the slight loss in maximum theoretical
| traction for the massive benefits in other areas. There is
| also the question of what "maximum traction" is... what
| scenario are we talking about? Straight line acceleration
| from a dig or skidpad turning at a high speed? If we're
| turning at all then the momentum (which increases w/ mass)
| of the vehicle is what pulls it off course and causes the
| tires to break traction.
|
| I also drive a FWD (a quite spicy one) and I break traction
| all the time, not because of weight, but because of torque.
| You can modulate torque, not weight. The biggest traction
| increases that I made on my FWD were when I put on sticky
| summer tires, the second was subtly changing front control
| arm geometry and bushings, and the third was adding stiffer
| engine mounts.
|
| Agreed on getting tossed around in a light car though, not
| much can be done about that... other than making the roads
| better and lowering the center of gravity.
| gogusrl wrote:
| I went from a 2021 Opel Mokka (4.2m long, 1350kg) to a 2024
| Volvo EX30 (4.2m long, 2000kg).
|
| It was an absolute shock the first time I braked in the
| Volvo, not to mention trying to take a corner.
| cesaref wrote:
| I don't see the weight reduction being very significant.
|
| If we take a Tesla model 3, I believe it weighs 1611kg, and the
| motor shows up at 80kg if you google it (no idea if this is
| correct). This YASA motor by comparison weighs 14kg. So, this
| would drop the vehicle weight by 66kg out of 1611, so that's a
| 4% saving.
| linsomniac wrote:
| I assume that means it would be more like an 8% savings on
| the dual motor variants? At what point does it become
| significant?
| robotresearcher wrote:
| This motor is well more than twice as powerful as the Model 3
| motor, so it could eliminate the entire weight of the second
| motor in the higher performance models. That's 146kg, the
| weight of two adults, an 11% reduction.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| As pointed out elsewhere, this neglects AWD which is an
| important part of the dual motor models' value proposition.
| thesz wrote:
| Tesla Model Y's battery is 771 kg. The motor in Model Y weights
| about 45 kg, about three times as much as the motor in the
| article. By reducing dual motor configuration weight from 90 kg
| to 28 kg, we reduce total powertrain weight by 7%.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| The new motor is also much more than double the power output
| of the Model Y motor, so the second motor and its wiring
| could be eliminated completely.
| hvb2 wrote:
| No, because that second motor gives you AWD. Sure that's a
| feature you could go without...
|
| But torque and power were never the limiting factor for an
| EV. You would only benefit on a track, and if you're taking
| a model Y there...
| robotresearcher wrote:
| That's a great point I neglected, thanks. I bought a M3
| with dual motor option mainly for the AWD.
| hedora wrote:
| You'd need to add back in an all wheel drive powertrain. A
| typical drive shaft is 20 to 50 pounds (9 to 23 kilograms)
|
| The motor is high torque, so I'd expect the drive shaft to
| be on the heavier end of that.
|
| I'm not including the other power train components, but
| it's easy to imagine it all adding to more than the weight
| of a second engine + wiring.
|
| Also, having one more complicated power train is probably
| less efficient than two simpler ones, which implies a
| bigger battery.
| UnserMannInK wrote:
| And shouldn't it be possible to make the battery smaller with
| a more efficient motor?
| thesz wrote:
| It is not indicated anywhere that this particular motor is
| more efficient than older ones in terms of the electric
| force conversion.
|
| This new motor is more powerful, that's it.
|
| Nothing was said about cooling or voltage requirements. The
| latter is important because higher voltage is more
| dangerous to work with or be near.
| UnserMannInK wrote:
| Ah ok, that makes sense
| mulmen wrote:
| The battery could be made smaller by whatever amount is
| needed to carry the marginal motor weight the advertised
| distance.
| electrograv wrote:
| _> In 2025, after a PS12m investment, YASA opened the UK 's
| first axial-flux super factory, in Oxfordshire._
|
| It's a little sad to me that fundamental innovations in
| electromechanical engineering like this get just a few million
| in investment, yet if this had been yet another derivative
| software startup with "AI" in the pitch, they'd probably have
| 10x+ or more investments being thrown at them.
| DrBazza wrote:
| Welcome to the UK and its innovation hostile environment. We
| don't have the US culture of throwing VC money at things and
| seeing what sticks.
| FabHK wrote:
| This is less UK vs US, more hardware vs software.
| FabHK wrote:
| Seems to me everyone wants to invest, instead, into something
| that can be "web scale" with low marginal cost, that is,
| natural monopolies. There is not enough anti-trust
| enforcement.
| bobsmooth wrote:
| Factories take time to build. "Investors" want a get rich
| quick scheme.
| mlmonkey wrote:
| They should have named their company "YASAI" (pronounced as
| "Yes AI") and just watched the investments roll in ...
| coryrc wrote:
| Or maybe it's not as important as they make it sound.
| jayanmn wrote:
| > According to YASA, this is achieved without using exotic or
| expensive materials, so the design could actually be scalable
| once the demand kicks in.
|
| That is ever more special
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Could lead to significant efficiency gains for EV's, because
| 1/4 of the motor weight means better power-to-weight ratio... a
| lot of things will automatically get better.
|
| EV motors are already lightweight. The electric motor in a
| vehicle like a Tesla Model 3 already weighs less than you do.
| Reducing that one component by 75% would be a weight savings
| equivalent to about a half of a passenger.
|
| Not a significant efficiency improvement for vehicles that
| weigh over 3000lbs (or double that for many EVs).
|
| Every little bit helps, but this isn't a game changer.
| catapart wrote:
| It drops a buck fifty _per motor_. That IS a game changer.
|
| It can make cars cheaper, or longer range, or faster, or any
| number of other designs based on what the manufacturer is
| looking for.
|
| But to OP's point about flight - stacking 6 Tesla motors is
| not an option. Stacking 6 of these YASA motors? Much less
| weight.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > It drops a buck fifty per motor. That IS a game changer.
|
| You're reading their marketing material. You have to think
| of this like all of those PR releases you've seen over the
| years about new battery technology that is 4X smaller or
| new hard drive tech that is 10X more efficient. The real
| world improvements aren't going to be as big as their one
| lab test.
|
| A Model 3 motor is already well under 150lbs, unless you
| start including ancillaries like the inverter and power
| transmission parts.
|
| They're not dropping "a buck fifty" from typical EV motors.
| catapart wrote:
| I'm not reading anyone's marketing material. If you want
| to dispute the shipping weight, feel free to correct this
| website whom I assume charges for shipping based on
| weight [0]. I'm sure they'd love to know they have it
| wrong.
|
| According to purchasable equipment, the Model 3 engines
| weight ~175 lbs. If that's wrong, that's on them for
| claiming it. Subtract 28 lbs from that and you're at 147
| lbs. That is very close to 150 lbs.
|
| [0] https://evshop.eu/en/electric-motors/295-tesla-
| model-3-drive...
| Aurornis wrote:
| That's a _drive unit_ , which is more than the motor.
| Read the description:
|
| > This kit includes the Tesla motor, inverter, gear box,
| power cables and drive shafts.
|
| Drive shafts, gearbox, power cables, inverter. Also
| includes the mounts, which is likely not factored into
| the lab calculations for this marketing material.
|
| You cannot drop 150lbs from the Model 3 _motor_ because
| it doesn't even weigh 150lbs.
| catapart wrote:
| You're missing the forest for the trees. Dropping 10 lbs
| per motor is HUGE. Dropping 30 is amazing. Whatever is
| dropped, it's significant. Pretend that it isn't all you
| want, but anyone doing production work knows how
| important this is.
|
| I'm happy to compare apples to apples when we can do
| that, and if you want me to say I was wrong about the
| Tesla motor size I'm happy to say that I was just going
| by what was available on the internet and skipped the
| details. But I did so in service of a point which you
| still haven't actually engaged with beyond "Nu uh!".
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Dropping 10 lbs per motor is HUGE.
|
| Auto makers could drop 10lbs, 100lbs or even more from
| every EV right now by choosing more expensive materials,
| more expensive manufacturing processes, or simply cutting
| back on amenities.
|
| 10lbs is not significant in the grand scheme of things.
| The real question is how much it costs, what are the
| tradeoffs, and how practical is it.
|
| > But I did so in service of a point which you still
| haven't actually engaged with beyond "Nu uh!".
|
| That's not a fair take on what I've been posting at all.
| I said every little bit helps, but pointed out that motor
| sizes are already small.l
| catapart wrote:
| 10 lbs _per motor_ in an aircraft is huge. And the fact
| that they can do it WITHOUT having to use more expensive
| materials or manufacturing or amenities _is the thing
| that is huge about it_.
|
| It's a fair take on your responses because talking about
| a SINGLE motor is missing the point. You're not engaging
| with the actual point that OP made, you're trying to
| dispute OP by engaging in your own point about what
| difference this would make in single-motor cars, instead
| of what difference it will make in general.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > 10 lbs per motor in an aircraft is huge.
|
| That's cool but the conversation was about cars. It's a
| welcome but tiny improvement for cars. Even after you
| multiply by 2 or 4, especially because the more motors a
| car has the smaller they are.
| hinkley wrote:
| Smaller motor can be one per wheel which means a shorter
| drive shaft, less rotating weight which means more torque
| to the road under acceleration and deceleration.
|
| Tesla still doing a gearbox? Their marketing has been
| telling me they got rid of those. Typical.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| Range in EVs is impacted very little by weight
| gogusrl wrote:
| Exactly. I was very surprised to find out a fully loaded
| 40 ton electric truck only uses ~100kw / 100km (
| https://www.youtube.com/@electrictrucker ) when my 2 ton
| Volvo averages 20-22kw/100km on road trips.
| hinkley wrote:
| Superfastmatt did a test recently where he proved to
| himself that the front area of the vehicle and trailer is
| the dominant factor on mileage, not the weight towed or
| friction.
|
| For a guy trying to drive 300 mph though maybe he should
| have been able to do that with math instead of sketchy
| road tests.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| kWh not kW.
| hinkley wrote:
| Looks like it's about 45 kg for a Tesla and 13 kg for this
| one. It at twice the horsepower. So maybe 8-10kg for a down
| rated model. IIRC, axial motors need their diameter to
| retain their efficiency advantage so a down rated one would
| likely be lighter but close to the same external
| dimensions.
|
| But that's still a lot less rotating mass, and might make
| multiple motors attractive again.
| Lio wrote:
| Not a game changer but I wonder if ligher motors allow you to
| do things like have one motor per drive wheel, removing the
| need for differential gearboxes?
|
| Then you can do clever things with traction control without
| having to use the ABS system to brake the drive wheels.
|
| Or dramatically change the turning circle on big cars and
| vans. Maybe even reduce the size and weight of the braking
| system by taking on some of that role.
|
| All for the same weight budget.
| GenerWork wrote:
| I believe that some EVs already have 1 motor per wheel such
| as the top of the line Rivians that are advertised as quad
| motor.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| https://www.mbusa.com/en/vehicles/model/g-class/suv/g580w4e
| #...
|
| has four electric motors
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Putting the motors in the wheel is bad for a separate
| reason: Unsprung weight.
|
| Every ounce you have in the hubs that don't float on the
| suspension reduces certain suspension attributes. You end
| up with a crappier ride and poor performance.
| duskwuff wrote:
| If the motors are light enough, though, that might be
| acceptable... especially if they can make an even smaller
| version for that application. (You probably don't need
| 750 kW on each wheel - even for a supercar that'd be
| excessive.)
| Lio wrote:
| Yes, I agree. I was careful about how I worded this to
| avoid saying anything about the motors actually being in
| the wheels for this reason.
|
| Although, I guess at some point in the future if we can
| get the weight down low enough and the strength of the
| motor high enough we could replace the existing braking
| system with a motor for the same weight penalty we
| already pay.
|
| In an ideal world all the energy from breaking would be
| used for regen anyway.
|
| I'm not sure how close we are to that but it's an
| interesting thought experiment thinking about the trade
| offs we might be able to make in future.
| hawk_ wrote:
| Deceleration requirements are going to be harder than
| acceleration, one would think so how would you apply full
| brakes with the same motor?
| DontBreakAlex wrote:
| I mean if your have a 750kw motor for each wheel, then
| they're probably always spinning when you floor it, so
| you also have enough torque to fully use your tires for
| stopping purposes
|
| EDIT: Quick maths show that decelerating at 1g (basically
| what the best sport tires can do) in a 2000kg car at
| 300kph requires absorbing ~1500kw, so conveniently two of
| these motors.
| toss1 wrote:
| Exactly this, which is why I'd expect automakers to use
| the short axles and CV (constant-velocity) joints which
| are already well-developed technologies for 4-wheel
| independent suspensions
|
| I see no reason the small motors can't be mounted inboard
| from the wheels on the underside of the chassis, as are a
| rear differential or front transaxle in an ICE car.
|
| Having such a small and lightweight power package opens
| up serious design and performance opportunities. Plus,
| even without major redesign to take full advantage, every
| reduction in weight rolls through the system, providing
| immediate improved acceleration, cornering, & braking or
| similar performance using smaller tires, brakes etc..
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Maybe fine for non-performance vehicles, especially
| considering you can remove driveshafts and brakes.
| lucisferre wrote:
| I would expect that lighter motor components would
| potentially allow weight reduction in load bearing
| components. Not an advantage for SUV-type cars, but for light
| and ultralight vehicles it could add up to more weight saving
| and longer ranges.
| hinkley wrote:
| You still have to handle the torque of the smaller motor.
| 30kg is maybe 2% of the vehicle weight.
| baxuz wrote:
| The difference is when you take into consideration rotating
| mass, and the distribution between the stator and rotor.
| Empact wrote:
| This, or a miniaturized version thereof could change the game
| for light electric vehicles - imagine an electric motorcycle
| that weighs substantially more like an electric bicycle.
|
| Right now it takes about 10-15lbs of motor to produce a 3KW
| motor for an electric bike, this motor is about 10 times that
| in power density afaict.
|
| The Livewire electric motorcycles use something like 100-200
| lbs of motor to produce 1/4 as much power, 75kw, so that's an
| improvement of 8-16x.
| mperham wrote:
| There's no area in the world that allows e-bikes with more
| than 750w motors. A 3kw motor is illegal (cf Surron),
| unless you are talking about an e-moped requiring
| registration.
| rconti wrote:
| Okay, but is it difficult to extrapolate the weight
| saving benefits of a "legal" power e-bike motor?
| MadnessASAP wrote:
| Listen, your world may not allow you to sell an e-bike
| with a 1000hp motor on it. But my world allows me to put
| a 1000hp motor on an e-bike and not tell anyone.
|
| Now hold my beer...
| doubled112 wrote:
| There's a difference.
|
| I've noticed that people seem to believe as long as they
| bought something it should be safe. If you're smart
| enough to build something, I have to hope you're at least
| smart enough to realize that there might be consequences.
|
| Take your beer back, I'm going for a rip next.
| usrusr wrote:
| So that you can flip over in an uncontrolled wheelie at
| an even lower fraction of the throttle? Even if there was
| infinite energy throughput (aka power) at zero mass, the
| main limiter for power per total system mass would still
| be the battery. In any practical setup, even in super
| short runtime designs, getting, say, twice the power
| would not all that dramatic a runtime hit if it was
| achieved by scaling the same motor technology and paying
| for the extra mass with a little battery capacity. Unless
| of course you want to actually use that power increase
| for any meaningful fraction of the runtime, then you'll
| obviously drain the battery fast. But a zero-mass power
| increase would not change that a lot either.
|
| Increasing power density (of the motor) just isn't worth
| much when it does not happen to coincide with an increase
| in efficiency (and then the battery mass saved for
| achieving the same range will quite literally outweigh
| the mass saved by a smaller engine for achieving the same
| power)
|
| The good news is that those striving for power density
| aren't really at liberty to completely ignore efficiency
| in the process because cooling is a key issue for them.
| bhhaskin wrote:
| There is a big issue in the US currently with people
| buying electric motorcycles that look like e-bikes.
| eikenberry wrote:
| What is the issue? I've seen people on those bikes and
| they look fun to ride.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I see kids blasting around at high speeds without
| helmets.
|
| Kids treat them like fast bikes you do not have to pedal.
| Wiping out on a bike at 13mph is a very different
| proposition to wiping out on a bike at higher speeds.
|
| I saw just a couple nights ago some kid doing what
| appeared to be about 40mph on an eBike. Wind in his hair,
| not pedaling, just blasting it. I am sure new regulations
| will come to speed limit them, but at the cost of dead
| and disabled young people.
|
| ETA: I went to go look up laws requiring speed limiters
| on bikes, and the top hit was about how you can disable
| them:
|
| https://goebikelife.com/how-to-remove-ebike-speed-
| limiter/
|
| Article states typical eBike speed limiters are 20-28mph.
| That is the kind of sustained speed Olympic cyclists can
| maintain for some period of time, and much faster than
| kid's toys need to be capable of. And these are the
| mandated limiters!
| bhhaskin wrote:
| And here is the problem. They are already supposed to be
| speed limited if it's an e-bike. It's easy to tell the
| difference between a bicycle and a motorcycle, but the
| difference between an e-bike and electric motorcycle is
| far more subtle. And most electric motorcycles lie and
| market themselves as e-bikes.
| RajT88 wrote:
| > And most electric motorcycles lie and market themselves
| as e-bikes.
|
| Because they have pedals which nobody uses. In theory,
| it's pedal assist, but kids aren't really pedaling
| eBikes, they are using them like electric motorcycles.
|
| You might think: Hey, how can you tell the difference
| between somebody using an eBike with pedal assist if so
| many of them look just like regular bikes?
|
| I don't really see young people pedaling bikes at all of
| any kind. It's adults who don't have cars, or adults who
| are exercising pedaling bikes.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>I don't really see young people pedaling bikes at all
| of any kind. It's adults who don't have cars, or adults
| who are exercising pedaling bikes.
|
| Where do you live - over here(North of England) most kids
| ride bikes, especially to school. And not ebikes either -
| actual regular pedal bikes.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Kids these days
| fukka42 wrote:
| I just want to point out that your country sells guns in
| the supermarket.
| dafelst wrote:
| And believe it or not, a good proportion of us are not
| happy about that either.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Not really...
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAmericans/comments/184oag8/ca
| n_y...
|
| That assertion seems to be a disconnect of language. But
| - Selling firearms in Wal-Mart is bad enough, but it
| _does_ tend to be more rural Wal-Marts than suburban (and
| not at all urban).
|
| Said firearms are under lock and key in the same way they
| would be at gun stores. There are many gun shops in the
| same areas where Wal-Mart sells firearms. At least -
| where I live, which is a blue state. All bets are off for
| Texas.
| conductr wrote:
| > All bets are off for Texas.
|
| We have everything locked up too just as you describe. We
| just have a lot of places to buy them, it's not like Wal-
| Mart here has a bin in the middle of the isle full of
| AR's next to the bin of Pokemon stuffies. Only pellet and
| BB guns are found on the shelf.
|
| I don't know why I'm being pedantic, guns here are insane
| for many reasons but not because of this one. What
| bothers me is once you do buy it, you can just carry it
| anywhere you want now. Like random guys in MAGA hats
| holding what looks like a machine gun on a street corner
| is no longer an unusual sighting. It's weird, when I was
| a kid, my dad had rifles mounted to his truck rear window
| and it was common. Then, there was what seemed like a
| zero tolerance decade or two when guns were only on the
| news (gang violence) or in a gun safe (for hunting only).
| Then the pendulum swung to the wacky side of guns
| everywhere.
|
| My kids school recently hosted a "gun recycling day"
| recently, with good intentions I think, but obviously
| once it occurred the parents were riled up with "you
| seriously invited people to bring their guns to the
| school! Where are the guns? Did they get moved off
| campus? etc" It's technically a private school and the
| event was hosted by the affiliated church, but still,
| pretty tone deaf to have that kind of event on the same
| property as a couple hundred elementary students
| RajT88 wrote:
| I live on the edge of the suburbs in a Blue state, at
| least where I live (and further on towards the city) open
| carry gets you the attention you're looking for from the
| police. People don't tend to do it.
|
| I am not sure about further out. I know people in
| Michigan who keep a piece in their glovebox. I've seen in
| the movies what you talk about - the gun rack in the
| truck cabin. None of my rural relatives ever did that,
| not even in Michigan which is pretty gun-friendly away
| from cities.
|
| > I don't know why I'm being pedantic, guns here are
| insane for many reasons but not because of this one.
|
| Yeah, I mean. In Illinois at least, the guns get into the
| hands of the bad guys overwhelmingly because of straw
| buyers. Not because of "the gun show loophole". A small
| number of guns are obtained through theft. Mostly it's
| straw buyers, at least when it comes to guns used in
| crimes.
|
| My family is filled with outdoorsy people (myself
| included), and although the numbers don't paint a picture
| of legal CCR owners being problematic, the wide array of
| people I've known who do carry makes me wonder how the
| hell it isn't a bigger problem. All manner of unhinged
| weirdos, some of whom pretty openly muse about the
| opportunity to shoot the kind of person they don't like.
| (Lots of normal people too - but plenty of weirdos)
| drnick1 wrote:
| So what? Not everyone wants to live in a communist
| hellscape where everything is regulated to death.
| neuralRiot wrote:
| Yeah! We want V8s and powder, we want diesel fumes and
| school shootings in our land of the freee just as God
| intended it to be.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Yeah! Like the NRA says, "From my cold dead hands!"
|
| And like the NRA also says, "Unless you're attending an
| NRA convention, in which case please leave your firearms
| at home or use one of our provided lockers, because gun-
| free zones are a communist hellscape except here, and
| please pass through this metal detector too."
| cwmoore wrote:
| Electric bikes offer new opportunities for built-in
| cigarette lighters in the space. These kids...
| eikenberry wrote:
| On a decent hill you can get a regular bike going >60mph.
| A dirt bike will let you ride off road at nice speeds
| over random terrain (no licensing required when not on
| public roads). In the realm of bikes, these are not an
| outlier. Limiters are easily overcome and speed limits
| are barely enforced on cars, let alone bikes. When you
| get a bike like this you deal with the danger and wear
| protective gear just like you would with any other bike
| (motorized or not).
| ghostpepper wrote:
| > On a decent hill you can get a regular bike going
| >60mph.
|
| This is not the same as being able to go > 60 mph
| anywhere, at any time, simply by pressing a button.
|
| > When you get a bike like this you deal with the danger
| and wear protective gear just like you would with any
| other bike (motorized or not).
|
| This only deals with the danger to the rider - it doesn't
| address the danger to pedestrians.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>On a decent hill you can get a regular bike going
| >60mph.
|
| Yes, I've done this before by riding all the way up a
| local mountain on a road bike, clad in lycra, then on the
| way down I went over 60mph. It was terrifying and the
| physical fitness required to get up there in the first
| place required months of riding to actually do it.
| Meanwhile literal kids ride these on pavements, in
| between people, in cities where pedestrians walk - it's
| simply not acceptable. And I do own and ride an
| ebike(limited to 15.5mph) legally.
| jacquesm wrote:
| A kid died right in front of my door on one of those.
| They call them fatbikes around here and they're super
| dangerous to operate. Way too much torque and speed for
| kids (and, fairly, most adults) to handle responsibly.
| Animats wrote:
| > I saw just a couple nights ago some kid doing what
| appeared to be about 40mph on an eBike. Wind in his hair,
| not pedaling, just blasting it.
|
| Saw an ebike zip past me at about 40 MPH in a wheelie,
| little motor screaming, splitting a lane in traffic. (El
| Camino Real, Silicon Valley). If anything happens ahead
| of them, they're toast. Can't stop and can't evade.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| My neighborhood is full of kids on these things. The
| safety dynamics of driving around have changed
| completely. Small children flying on and off road at high
| speeds. It's crazy.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| He said motorcycle. That's a market of hundreds of
| millions to one billion customers.
| SR2Z wrote:
| They are not allowed, but still commonly owned and used.
|
| The law needs to catch up. There are clearly good reasons
| for people to want extremely powerful e-bikes and they
| should be allowed to. They can't be treated like bicycles
| because they're too fast but aren't nearly as dangerous
| as motorcycles. We need a new category for light
| motorcycles.
|
| The real problem, IMO, is that the law is generally not
| deferential enough to cyclists and already forces them
| off sidewalks, onto the street, and to follow traffic
| laws designed for cars. There's not much else to take
| away, and the rules right now are unreasonable enough
| that cyclists always break them.
|
| I think what I would like to see are explicit
| requirements for insurance and licensing for powerful
| e-bikes, but made significantly cheaper so that people
| will actually bother. Requiring helmets for the insurance
| would also make it much more straightforward. We can
| require them to take the street or a dedicated bike lane
| and fully mandate that they have to be walked on
| sidewalks.
| bootlooped wrote:
| > The law needs to catch up. There are clearly good
| reasons for people to want extremely powerful e-bikes and
| they should be allowed to.
|
| I'm not so sure about that.
|
| I don't want a 6000kw Sur Ron riding in the bike lane
| with me. The whole point of the bike lane was to make a
| safe space for riding a bicycle. I want the bike lanes to
| be safe enough for children to ride their bikes in, and
| having something that powerful in it is not conducive to
| that goal. They are by and large too fast and too unlike
| a bicycle for bike lanes. Having things that powerful
| there is going to dissuade a lot of potential (non
| electric) cyclists. My girlfriend already gets too
| freaked out by how fast some of the legal e-bikes in the
| bike lane go.
|
| Certainly they shouldn't be on the sidewalk. But what
| does that leave? Just the road. If that's the case they
| probably need to just adhere to whatever standards the
| state has for scooters or mopeds. Which probably means
| some kind of license, maybe registration, and possibly
| insurance.
|
| But that type of e-bike manufacturer doesn't want to make
| a light electric scooter that's road legal, they want to
| make a thing that skirts regulations by being "for off
| road use only".
|
| And the buyers by and large don't want to deal with
| license and registration, and certainly not insurance.
|
| Just because people are doing an illegal thing a lot
| doesn't mean that the law needs to find a way to make it
| legal.
| icedrift wrote:
| I think what they mean is these e-bikes pushing 60mph
| should be legal but reclassified as something closer to a
| motorcycle. The problem with keeping them illegal is
| people tend to treat them like bikes when they should be
| on the road.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| > They can't be treated like bicycles because they're too
| fast but aren't nearly as dangerous as motorcycles.
|
| Why would an extremely powerful ebike be any less
| dangerous than extremely powerful gas motorcycle?
| oblio wrote:
| Any ebike that goes faster than 25kmph in Europe and
| whatever it is in NA should not be allowed anywhere were
| pedestrians can go.
|
| The real solution people don't want to accept is that ALL
| non arterial roads in ANY urban/suburban/rural
| environment should be limited to 30kpmh (and equivalent
| in NA). And by limited I mean traffic calmed: 1 lane per
| direction, narrow lanes, raised street crossing, raised
| intersections, European style roundabouts, the works
| (Dutch style) - so that people actually respect the speed
| limit because they don't want to bang their car.
|
| Once that happens, bike stay in bike lanes (or multi use
| paths with pedestrians) and everything else can go on the
| regular non arterial roads and stuff that's registered
| (mopeds and up) and go on any road.
|
| But my "solution" requires major political adoption and
| probably decades of sustained vision in investment. In
| places with good governance it will happen naturally and
| everywhere else will slowly be left behind.
| ashirviskas wrote:
| > Any bike that goes faster than 25kmph in Europe and
| whatever it is in NA should not be allowed anywhere were
| pedestrians can go.
|
| So, literally any bicycle?
| oblio wrote:
| Fixed.
| consp wrote:
| > There are clearly good reasons for people to want
| extremely powerful e-bikes and they should be allowed to.
|
| They are called motorcycles. At > 4kw they are that
| (here). So either you get them registered a such, get a
| license and insure them, or downgrade them to under 4kw,
| get a license and insure them as a moped, or downgrade
| them to 2kw and pedal assist only and register them as a
| pedelec. All other options is 250w continuous (you can
| get away with about 500w peak) and pedal assist only.
|
| You are also not insured if you drive an illegal bike on
| the road.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > aren't nearly as dangerous as motorcycles.
|
| Opinions differ. I have seen far more accidents with
| powerful e-bikes than I have seen with motorcycles, and
| yet there are many more motorcycles.
| ericd wrote:
| >They can't be treated like bicycles because they're too
| fast but aren't nearly as dangerous as motorcycles.
|
| As a former rider, why? Cars were the most dangerous
| part, in my experience.
|
| Something that stuck with me from my motorcycle safety
| course, the speed at which hitting a wall is 50% fatal is
| 30 mph. Doesn't take highway speeds.
| jlarocco wrote:
| > but aren't nearly as dangerous as motorcycles.
|
| What a ridiculous statement.
|
| In what way is a "powerful ebike" safer than a
| motorcycle?
|
| I would say the opposite. A motorcyclist has to get a
| license, pass a driving test, and follow the rules of the
| road. None of which are true for e-bikes.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Does this motor design scale down? It's not clear from the
| article - the article focuses more on the relative
| efficiency gains over the previous model.
|
| A 30lb 1000hp motor doesn't necessarily mean that they can
| also produce a 3lb, 100hp motor. It would be cool if it
| did, but I doubt that it does because usually component
| strength doesn't scale linearly.
|
| That being said, these are still valuable for traditional
| EVs. Even if they are only a modest weight savings in the
| grand scheme of modern vehicle weight, their ability to
| improve packaging options will be a boon. One thing the
| industry has dicovered is that the generic "skateboard"
| platform doesn't make for the best vehicles, in terms of
| packaging.
| NathanKP wrote:
| I'm more fascinated by the question of whether it scales
| up... imagine much smaller and more efficient electric
| engines for cruise liners and cargo ships.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| Your average cruiseship already has an electric engine,
| they just have massive generators onboard to power it.
| huijzer wrote:
| Exactly. Main problem is battery energy density. Cars can
| drive about 20 kilometers on 1 liter of gasoline. In
| comparison, Tesla's 4680 cells are at about 272-296 Wh/kg and
| CATL's Kirin Battery at about 255 Wh/kg. A bit efficient EV
| often uses 200 Wh/km, so for 1 kg of battery the electric
| vehicle can only reach 1-2 km. An order of magnitude
| difference. Theoretically, batteries could go to 1000 Wh/kg
| some day, which would mean about 5 km per 1 kg of battery
| assuming all else remains equal.
| cwmoore wrote:
| Oranges to apples so long as electron mass is fixed and
| reserve currencies fluctuate.
| mattlutze wrote:
| https://ev-database.org/cheatsheet/energy-consumption-
| electr...
|
| The Model 3 manages < 140 Wh/km, and many seem to be under
| 150/160/170.
| murkt wrote:
| That's still around 2 km per kg of batteries.
| mattlutze wrote:
| If you're putting motors in wheels, lower weight means
| reducing the weight/capacity of adjacent systems.
|
| Lighter motors for mobile robots could also be cool.
| icedrift wrote:
| For EVs no but it's huge for flight if it could be scaled
| down. Paramotors and ultralight planes are on the verge of
| being competitive with gas they just need a bit more energy
| density per pound in the system.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Then for drones ?
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > The electric motor in a vehicle like a Tesla Model 3
| already weighs less than you do. Reducing that one component
| by 75% would be a weight savings equivalent to about a half
| of a passenger.
|
| Of which there can be two, or even three.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Batteries are the bottleneck.
|
| Even if motors were literally weightless and mass-less, EVs
| would weigh more than ICE cars.
|
| It's like making a more efficient CPU for your phone when all
| the power is eaten up by the cell-modem, screen and RAM. People
| wonder where the practical battery life gains are and theyre
| miniscule in practice
| iwontberude wrote:
| It will probably lead to cars that fail sooner and are cheaper
| to build
| iwontberude wrote:
| Okay cool downvote me but it's true, most of the weight is
| batteries and asking a smaller device to do more work will
| create more heat and wear components faster. It's not a new
| phenomenon.
| kazinator wrote:
| Only the absolute weight of a motor counts, because consumers
| of passenger vehicles do not require 1000 hp.
|
| How far does YASA's tech allow the motor weight to scale down,
| for applications where you don't need the power?
|
| Can you make it 2.8 pounds instead of 28, if all you need is
| 100 hp? Likely not.
| mapt wrote:
| This is a negligible improvement to most things about an EV.
| Motors are already extremely power-dense.
|
| There is a single exception, and it's a big one. Direct-drive,
| wheel-hub motors are not well-regarded right now, specifically
| because they increase unsprung weight (the part of the car more
| closely coupled to the road surface than the passenger) and
| this impacts handling substantially. So instead we backport a
| bunch of the mechanical infrastructure that transfers power
| from a traditional ICE engine to the four wheels. We're paying
| that bill already, on almost all production EVs. Quadruple the
| power density and simple, 1-moving-part wheel hub motors look
| like a lot better case versus central driveshafts and
| mechanical linkages.
| coryrc wrote:
| > Direct-drive, wheel-hub motors are not well-regarded right
| now, specifically because they increase unsprung weight
|
| It will always be lighter to not have the motor in the wheel.
|
| > So instead we backport a bunch of the mechanical
| infrastructure that transfers power from a traditional ICE
| engine to the four wheels.
|
| No, we do it because it's smart and efficient _for freeway-
| capable vehicles_.
|
| Wheels get banged up in use. They're easy to replace for
| different applications. They're exposed to 200 kph salt spray
| at hundreds of RPM. They are not a great place for motors.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > because 1/4 of the motor weight means better power-to-weight
| ratio...
|
| 1/4 of something that is a small fraction of the total weight
| of a car means very little improvement in overall power to
| weight ratio.
|
| I suspect that gaining 40% of car seat weight would be much
| more beneficial even if way less sexy.
| trhway wrote:
| >In 2025, after a PS12m investment, YASA opened the UK's first
| axial-flux super factory, in Oxfordshire.
|
| In Bay Area that is small investment in a startup which would
| be able to lease a small office
|
| >Could lead to significant efficiency gains for EV's, because
| 1/4 of the motor weight means better power-to-weight ratio...
|
| that would help VTOL a lot. Unfortunately YASA motors are
| priced for supercars and availability seems to be low. Until
| some factory in China starts making similar ones, there are not
| much chances on getting hands on such a motors.
| hinkley wrote:
| Hub motors are problematic because they increase the sprung
| weight of the wheel, which loses more traction when hitting
| bumps. Dangerous while cornering or braking. Scale down a motor
| like this to 300 HP and you could have an amazing AWD vehicle.
|
| This video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WU9Ptibu2WQ&t=179s
| claims that SMC materials have much higher losses at low
| frequencies than laminated materials, up to around 400 HZ when
| they very rapidly pull ahead.
|
| So as the core of a step down transformer for consumer
| electronics, SMCs would be worse than a laminated core (stack
| of sheet metal pieces punched with a press, stacked and wound
| with the windings). But in a motor operating at 100s of rpms,
| no problem. And as I understand it, in high torque motors the
| magnetic fields pulse far more often than once per revolution
| because the windings are many and small, so that several can
| pull on the armature at any orientation.
| FabHK wrote:
| Outperformance metric is basically power density. The model
| described is some 13 kg and delivers 750 kW peak, 350+ kW
| sustained.
|
| (That's 28 pounds, 1000 hp peak, 470+ hp sustained.)
|
| The 40% improvement is actually 36% and is versus the previous
| model of the same company.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| Thanks. Do you also happen to know the power density of the
| motors in the average EV car? Because the article uses "nr of
| Tesla Model 3" as a unit, which is meaningless without further
| details about it power density.
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| The power density doesn't really matter unless you want to
| put the motor in the wheel. You need to keep the unsprung
| mass low.
|
| Basically all EVs have small and light motors compared to
| ICEs or compared to the battery. Shaving off ten pounds there
| is irrelevant.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| I sort of wonder how well these things can be scaled down.
|
| Wheel hub motors are obviously bad, for harshness reasons, but
| if you could have a motor like this weighing 1-2 kg, and put
| one on each wheel, that'd be okay.
|
| Power-wise this would be okay if things are linear. 26 kW per
| wheel sustained power output is more than enough for a light
| car. The question is what torque a scaled-down machine can be
| expected to have.
| ants_a wrote:
| I'm wondering if it would make sense to integrate the rim,
| motor and wheel bearing into a single assembly to save weight
| and cost. That combined with the weight and packaging
| benefits of not having half shafts and differentials might
| make it worth it. Plus there can be additional benefits, like
| the extra maneuverability that ZF Easy Turn and Hyundai's
| e-Corner have demonstrated.
|
| 30kW sustained/60 kW per wheel peak power is easily enough
| even for large passenger vehicles. Sustained could take 3 ton
| vehicle up a 10% grade at 120 km/h.
| egorfine wrote:
| > That's 28 pounds
|
| or about the same as a small dog
| superxpro12 wrote:
| Peak power is a number that can be manipulated. You just dump
| short circuit current into a winding. Even if that peak lasts
| for 1 microsecond, you can "claim" eye-watering horsepower
| numbers.
|
| I wonder if we defined peak as sustained peak over 100
| milliseconds, or some more meaningful number, what that would
| do to the claims. You aren't really generating meaningful
| torque over 1 microsecond.
| hshdhdhehd wrote:
| Surely they measure output not input?
| rapsey wrote:
| EV motors are not that heavy. Ok it is 1/4 of a tesla motor but
| would that make much of a difference compared to the rest of the
| car since the weight of an EV motor is in single % of the entire
| weight.
|
| Sounds like it could be more important for drones?
| impossiblefork wrote:
| Drone motors are aircooled though, so I think you actually want
| the radial configuration.
| kakacik wrote:
| Saving up even few % of weight while not compromising on
| comfort/safety is a holy grail for any decent car manufacturer.
|
| Not sure why the negatives in this thread (maybe too many folks
| hold TSLA stock?), this is properly awesome (r)evolution.
| oaiey wrote:
| I do not know why people still think Tesla is a unique
| company. They are a regular car company now. Nothing more,
| nothing less. Yes, they disrupted the market and the reward
| is a standalone, viable car company. That is a huge
| achievement. But their disruption and uniqueness is gone. The
| rest of the car industry woke up and all are producing many
| more EV variants and EV cars in total.
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| It is important if you want to put the motor in the wheelhub.
| Too much unsprung mass kills vehicle dynamics.
| alex_duf wrote:
| There was a video on this motor recently:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4OdH0ibOBk made by a phd in the
| field
| tverbeure wrote:
| That's an excellent video!
| doingtheiroming wrote:
| Yet Another Sale Abroad. Not a criticism of the YASA team. It's
| hard to scale a company in the UK and foreign investment is a
| good thing in general. But still frustrating that the UK was
| unable to offer the kind of investment that Mercedes could to
| keep a company British.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| We're a country who even sold our water to the highest
| international bidder ...
|
| What would make you think we wouldn't sell our tech crown
| jewels also? (throwing in our grandparents and children to
| sweeten the deal).
| agys wrote:
| Everything but the Metric System: "The new YASA axial flux motor
| weighs just 28 pounds, or about the same as a small dog." :)
| defrost wrote:
| The link you're quoting, the one posted, is a second hand US
| report.
|
| The primary company link is from a UK subsidiary of Mercedes-
| Benz and is (almost) fully metric (the fundemental units US
| weights are officially defined with respect to (for more than a
| century now)).
|
| See: https://yasa.com/news/yasa-smashes-own-unofficial-power-
| dens... Earlier in the summer YASA achieved
| 550kW (738bhp) from a 13.1kg version of its new axial flux
| prototype motor, equating to an unofficial power density world
| record of 42kW/kg Now latest testing of an even
| lighter 12.7kg version on a more powerful dynamometer has
| shattered this record, with a staggering 750kW (>1000bhp)
| short-term peak rating, resulting in a new unofficial power
| density record of 59kW/kg
|
| Just those pesky trad bhp units left hanging like a chad in a
| Florida election . . .
| eru wrote:
| > The link you're quoting, the one posted, is a second hand
| US report.
|
| You can tell, because a proper Brit would have given it as 2
| stone, not 28 pound.
| defrost wrote:
| That seems unlikely, a proper Brit would know that a stone
| is defined for body weight (14 avoirdupois pounds), Wool
| (14, 15, or 24 pounds depending on wool class), Wax (12
| pounds), Sugar and spice (8 pounds), or for Beef and mutton
| (8 pounds).
|
| ( Of course Scottish Britains used 16 Scottish pounds for a
| Scottish stone ).
|
| The point being that 'precious' metals used a different
| weight measure altogether .. (common lead often used a 12
| pound stone).
|
| Such a fun system.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Prior to the Revolution, in France alone there were
| allegedly 250 thousand various units in use! (All sorts
| of units, not just length.)
|
| It didn't help that pre-Revolutionary France was a
| political Frankenstein stitched together from dozens of
| regions with completely different history (Celtic
| Brittany, Flemish Dunkirk, Germanic Alsace, Provencal
| South, Catalan Roussillon, Italian Nice) and thus very
| different local standards of everything, including
| measurements and law.
|
| Unification of units removed a massive constraint on
| international trade and engineering. Except the US and
| Myanmar, of course... it is so frustrating to order
| anything from Myanmar e-shops, I must say. But Myanmar is
| at least promising to move on.
| throw-the-towel wrote:
| Nitpicking: Nice wasn't part of pre-Revolution France, it
| joined in the 19th century during the Italian
| unification.
| rkomorn wrote:
| Is that nicepicking, then?
| mrtksn wrote:
| I wonder if Americans don't have a mental image for measurement
| units so that they alway use some physical object as a
| reference. Sure, its useful to use a common object as a
| reference but I don't see that much often in other places.
|
| Most people usually understand what it means something to be 20
| meters, 5kg or 2 liters intuitively. Like, when I hear that
| something is 60m tall I intuitively think if it as 20 story
| apartment building and don't benefit from the extra info about
| how this is like 18 elephants stacked on each other.
| reactordev wrote:
| Americans do not do metric. Americans can't even balance a
| checkbook. Hence the small dog reference for mental
| "clarity". We're dumb. Just look at the news...
| dist-epoch wrote:
| Europeans don't even know what it means to "balance a
| checkbook", so they must be dumber.
| reactordev wrote:
| Yeah but ya'll have estates...
| mrtksn wrote:
| Sure but don't they have a mental image for 80 feet for
| example? Why articles will almost always include something
| like "that like 50 chairs put next to each other" when
| length is mentioned.
| reactordev wrote:
| If you were to say 100 yards, we could. That's a football
| field (American football played with your... hands).
|
| Because people in the south don't even know the imperial
| system... it's bad. They say things like "Take the road
| there yonder and when you see the white church, turn
| right, go a ways until you get to the dirt road..."
|
| Anything outside of what they have with them, they don't
| have a clue or can't imagine it accurately. Small dog
| reference, there's millions of Americans with a small dog
| so most just looked to their pooch when this came up.
| Same as if you were to say something like 50 cars. They
| would look outside to their Toyota Corolla and imagine 50
| of them. It's like talking to grown toddlers sometimes
| but that have full grown emotional states not under
| control. Not everyone is like this but a good 50-60% of
| Americans are. Just look for the Lululemon.
| xandrius wrote:
| I don't think it's fair to insult all US citizens because
| of your personal shortcomings.
| reactordev wrote:
| Statistics my man, statistics. I'm not saying there
| aren't smart Americans that can grok a 10kg bag, but that
| the vast majority can not.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| I'm Canadian. I don't know what 10kg feels like until I
| convert it to pounds.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| I think it may be fair? This guy[1] explains how surplus
| of corporate profits are a mirror image of household/govt
| debt. Which is a direct transfer of wealth from everyone
| to the super-super-rich (not the 1%, but the 0.1 - 0.01%)
|
| [1] The chart below shows how this works. The blue line
| at the top shows the "surplus" of corporations: corporate
| income minus expenses and net investment. We know this as
| corporate "free cash flow." The red line shows combined
| "surplus" of other sectors: government, households, and
| foreign trading partners - in excess of their consumption
| and net investment. It's negative, so in aggregate,
| they're running a deficit. That deficit is the mirror
| image of the corporate surplus. This isn't an accident.
| It's just accounting (I've excluded a few tiny items for
| clarity): https://www.hussmanfunds.com/comment/mc251028/
| dicknuckle wrote:
| Do you not have personal experience with people under 40
| in America? I would bet $20 over 95% of them don't know
| how to balance a check book.
| CivBase wrote:
| I would bet $20 over 95% of them have never needed to
| balance a check book, and probably never will.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| Why are you going on about "balancing a check book?"
|
| I'm in my 40s. Never did it, never going to.
| pennomi wrote:
| 95% of them can't turn a block of flint into a spearhead
| either. Without skills like these, how will the younger
| generation hunt mammoths?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Who still uses a checkbook?
|
| And with your bank balance instantly available on the
| computer in your pocket, and transactions posted in near-
| real-time, why would you need to worry about balancing
| it?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| No, Americans are numerically illiterate.
|
| Which is why all the dumbest Americans insist that "Why
| didn't they teach us how to balance a check book?",
| while, well, _they were taught that_ , and _every single
| check book comes with clear and simple instructions for
| its use_
|
| They were also taught how to calculate loan details and
| the extreme power of how interest grows, but they were
| too busy crying "Oh this is lame, when am I ever going to
| use this?"
|
| There's a cult of proud ignorance in the US. People will
| brag about being uneducated, illiterate, or unable to
| follow simple instructions.
| xandrius wrote:
| Sorry for the ignorance, what what does "balancing a
| check book" mean? Is that an euphemism or an actual
| activity?
|
| I can of course look up but interested in continuing the
| conversation.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| "Balancing the check book" refers to the process of
| running your own log of check transactions using
| something like https://cdn.wallethub.com/wallethub/images
| /posts/14483/check... and ensuring that it matches the
| occasional official balance statement from your bank
| occasionally.
|
| Don't want to make assumptions about what you know so
| forgive any overexplanation...
|
| It is about ensuring that you manage your account
| balance, so as to not write checks that your account
| balance cannot actually fulfill. Writing a check that you
| can't actually pay because your checking account is too
| low is called "Bouncing" a check, and generally costs you
| money at your bank and the place that you wrote the
| check, and will often result in those places being less
| likely to accept a check from you.
|
| A secondary purpose was to ensure that your bank did not
| pay out a check that you have no record of writing. The
| check system has almost no protection, so anyone who had
| ever gotten a check from you could theoretically attempt
| to create fraudulent and forged checks against your
| account. You would check your record against the banks to
| check for this.
|
| You would do this constantly, as in writing down every
| check you write, and once a month or so, actually doing
| the math, comparing your record of checks against the
| bank's record of checks.
|
| I would also consider it a euphemism for "Financial
| literacy" in plenty of people's heads.
|
| It is without a doubt the simplest possible mathematical
| task you can have as an adult. It is literally addition
| and subtraction, and logging every check. Every single
| American who attends public school until 4th grade has
| been taught the required knowledge for this task:
| Addition, subtraction, and the concept of negative
| numbers.
|
| People say "Schools should teach balancing a check book"
| as some sort of cry that they think schools should focus
| on "practical" skills rather than, say, persuasive essay
| writing or reading literature or learning art.
|
| Those people are demonstrating that they are _too stupid
| to even understand what they have been taught_. These
| same people will sit in math class and argue about how
| they "will never use this", in reference to things like
| calculating interest. They will often also say "Schools
| don't teach critical thinking", openly and proudly
| ignorant of the hilarity of someone who can't follow very
| basic instructions that anyone can find in five seconds
| and often _come with the checkbook_ complaining about not
| being taught how to think.
|
| Similarly, Americans will complain that school didn't
| teach them how to "do their taxes", which is hilarious,
| because for 95% of Americans, your federal taxes are a
| couple of pages and about 14 lines of numbers you have to
| fill in, most of them are numbers you _copy from another
| piece of paper_ , and the rest have _literal worksheets_
| to follow.
|
| Most people joke about how VCRs used to constantly have
| the "12:00" blinking clock because nobody would set them
| because it's "too hard". As a literal child who fixed
| this exact issue, it was a single page of instructions,
| and they were trivial. But for the majority of Americans
| who like to speak up, it seems like they are totally
| incapable of following even the most basic of
| instruction.
|
| Frankly, stupidity is not a moral failing. Nobody chose
| to be born stupid. But ignorance, especially fixable
| ignorance, IS. America has a serious problem of people
| being openly ignorant and thinking their ignorance should
| be anything other than an opportunity to improve. I think
| the biggest problem in the USA is how much respect and
| attention people who demonstrably refuse to learn and are
| ignorant of pretty much everything get. That's why, for
| example, you have people insisting that rail transport is
| impossible in the US because it's too big, despite the
| fact that _we literally built a cross country rail
| network using public funds when the country was
| dramatically less populated than now_ , or how government
| inherently mismanages healthcare despite about 100
| examples of government mismanagement producing better
| outcomes than we get.
| reactordev wrote:
| This is about as thorough as it can be. Thank you. I was
| definitely referring to financial literacy. Man,
| Americans...
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I know that 1kg is about 2.2lbs but that still doesn't give
| me the "mental clarity" of what 20kg is unless I do the
| conversion.
|
| At the gym I use the pound plates and not the kilo ones. I
| intuitively know what the difference between 135 and 225
| lbs feels like, and I don't have that same intution for kg.
|
| All that said, I don't find the "small dog" types of
| analogies for weight very useful. Why not just use the same
| number of characters (or less) to give the weight in the
| other popular unit?
| zufallsheld wrote:
| I guess you're in the minority here. In Germany, everything
| Remotely large will be measured in football fields or
| "Saarlands".
| martin_a wrote:
| Don't forget to mention the inofficial units for fluid
| volumes being "Badewannen" and "Schubkarren".
| TheTxT wrote:
| Can't forget the Olympic sized swimming pools!
| thelastgallon wrote:
| Whats the speed of light in football field terms?
| lloeki wrote:
| Approximately 7 708 937 142 soccer fields per half time.
| rkomorn wrote:
| Are we including stoppage time?
| tzs wrote:
| When using football fields as a unit of length you should
| use American football fields rather than soccer fields
| because American football field sizes are more
| standardized.
|
| For American football professional, college, and high
| school games are all played on the same sized field,
| which is 100 years long.
|
| Compare to soccer, where they can even have different
| sized fields in the same professional league. The English
| Premier League _wants_ to standardize on 105 m x 68 m but
| several clubs are still using other sizes: Brentford (105
| x 65), Chelsea (103 x 67), Crystal Palace (100 x 67),
| Everton (103 x 70), Fullham (100 x 65), Liverpool (101 x
| 68), and Nottingham Forest (105 x 70).
|
| For international play FIFA has a standard, but it is a
| range: 100-110 m x 64-70 m.
|
| There are parts of a soccer field that are precisely
| specified and so could be used as a standard of length.
|
| Some examples are the radius of the circle around the
| center mark (9.144 m), the penalty area (40.23 x 16.46
| m), distance from penalty mark to goal (10.97 m), goal
| area (18.29 m x 5.47 m), distance between goal posts
| (7.32 m), and the height of the crossbar (2.44 m).
|
| The reason none of them are nice integers is that they
| were actually originally standardized in Imperial units.
| In those the aforementioned measurements are 10 yards, 44
| yards x 18 yards, 12 yards, 20 yards x 6 yards, 8 yards,
| and 8 feet, respectively.
| lloeki wrote:
| I don't know the first thing about football, only that it
| has the words "foot" and "ball", none of which apply to
| the American variant who is played with hands and a
| (geometric) lemon[1] :p
|
| I figured FIFA/UEFA who both standardised on 105m,
| sensibly factored +-5m to account for Heisenberg
| uncertainty when approaching relativistic speeds. This is
| very well depicted - complete with curvature of space,
| train paradox, spooky action at a distance, time
| dilation, and other relativistic oddities - in a
| documentary I watched when I was young; if only I could
| recall the original name...
|
| EDIT: I think it was kiyaputenYi .[2]
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_(geometry)
|
| [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke5AZhJCPSg
| jve wrote:
| I'm also European and don't get these olympic swimming pool
| or whatever comparisons. I'd have to look up how many m3 of
| water they contain or what's the length/depth in meters are
| to make sense of it.
|
| Newspapers in my country don't make these silly
| comparisons.
|
| But yeah, to be fair, when hearing about Starship I had to
| look up our TV tower height to identify whether Starship is
| taller or not. It disappointed me that it's not.
|
| Yeah, height is easier to grasp when correlating in terms
| of x story apartment buildings.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| It helps to understand that the only freedom Americans only
| cared for (and the only freedom they have left from the looks
| of it) is the freedom to choose standards of measurement and
| vocabulary. This will provide historical context:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYqfVE-fykk (Washington's
| Dream - SNL)
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Huh? Britons get locked up for social media posts. Most of
| the world doesn't have guns. And among the first world
| we're the only ones free to go bankrupt from medical bills!
|
| Our problems don't stem from lack of freedom, they stem
| from too much of it.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| > Most of the world doesn't have guns.
|
| No guns, but they have solar panels, batteries, EVs, etc.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| You have the sort of view of America that I can only
| imagine comes from somebody who has never been here. I
| don't know what you mean by batteries, I'm not aware of
| any we don't have available.
|
| We have the second most electric vehicles after China,
| and nearly all new power generation being built here is
| renewable. I'm not sure how you managed to turn this into
| some anti-American rant, but at least do a better job of
| it, it's very easy.
| OvervCW wrote:
| Which is strange, since one of their measurement units is
| literally based on a body part.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| What's the difference between 18 elephants stacked versus a
| building with 20 stories? They are just different analogies.
| seec wrote:
| Yes I'm always a bit dumbfounded by this behavior as well.
| They always use weird stuff and I never have the intuition of
| the actual size, especially since the definition can vary
| depending on context.
|
| In this case, what is actually considered to be a small dog?
| To me it would be something that is close to the size of a
| cat but since it's about 13kg, it can't be that small, so
| that's more like a medium dog (I'm not certain, but I have a
| feeling that if you lay out things statistically this is what
| you would end up with). On the other hand, 13kg is very easy
| to get, that's just 13 liters of water, and it's quite easy
| to make a mental image for both volume and weight "feeling"
| that way.
|
| American units feel so impressive and random, it is the
| reason they always add those weird comparisons but often they
| make it even worse.
| BatteryMountain wrote:
| Bag of potatoes?
| beAbU wrote:
| If you mean a 13kg bag of potatoes, then I'll allow it.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Sometimes leads to humorous effect
| https://x.com/SheriffAlert/status/1221881862244749315
|
| > Large boulder the size of a small boulder is completely
| blocking east-bound lane Highway 145 mm78 at Silverpick Rd
| thelastgallon wrote:
| If I were a self-respecting journalist, I would've used 3.26
| gallon milk jugs. Small dog automatically goes to which breed?
| Chihuahua (fits in a toddlers purse) or Border Collie or Golden
| Retriever or Saint Bernard (needs an SUV/minivan)? 4 different
| classifications based on size!
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Is even a 13 kg dog "small"? It certainly does not feel small
| if you are carrying it upstairs.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| While there's no formal definition, I think it isn't. It
| would be considered medium sized. I live with a 4 lb dog.
|
| I'd say 25-50 lbs would be medium, small below that and large
| above.
| Scarblac wrote:
| It's American small.
| bigtones wrote:
| Americans are very weird when it comes to metric. They often
| quote mobile phones as having something like "a six inch screen
| size but now only 12mm thick" - pick a measurement system
| people !
| port3000 wrote:
| The inch thing is because it's a screen: all screens are
| measured in inches pretty much everywhere, even in the EU
| jve wrote:
| Yep, inches won for screen sizes.
|
| Aaaand for various fittings for plumbers.
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| And I hate that. Wish screen sizes were measured in
| centimeters.
| fnord77 wrote:
| the author and the company are British
| huhtenberg wrote:
| Canada is even weirder.
|
| After switching to the metric system ('70-80s) some things
| are still measures in imperial units. If you slice some ham
| at a counter in a grocery store, it's in grams. You then turn
| around and get a pound of apples and a gallon of milk. Nuts
| are in grams, and soda is in liters. Also the body weight
| tends to be in pounds. Tools are both metric and imperial.
| Speeds and distances though, thank god, are metric.
|
| All this is just kinda there and everyone's OK with it, but
| it _is_ an epic mess if you think about it.
| kitd wrote:
| Imperial dog or metric dogge?
| varjag wrote:
| _The new YASA axial flux motor weighs just 28 pounds, or about
| the same as a small dog._
|
| But how many footballs a small dog weighs?
| KingMob wrote:
| American football or international futbol? If American, it's
| twelfteen furlongs.
| jonplackett wrote:
| 123.5 cubic centi-litres
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > But how many footballs a small dog weighs?
|
| Which kind of football: the British or the US-American one? :-)
| eru wrote:
| Australian rules.
| rob74 wrote:
| Not sure about that, but if you ask me, a _really_ small dog
| only weighs up to 7 pounds - or otherwise said, this motor
| weight as much as four fat Chihuahuas (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chihuahua_(dog_breed) )
| IshKebab wrote:
| Not sure about footballs but 28 pounds is about the weight of a
| child, a bag of rice, or a dumbbell. Hope that helps!
| beAbU wrote:
| How much rice do you buy at a time?!
| iambateman wrote:
| Asian grocery stores carry 25 pound bags of rice and we use
| about 2 each year. If you eat rice regularly, it's the way
| to go.
| emil-lp wrote:
| Ah, the weight of a dumbbell, so between 1 and 40 kg.
| xandrius wrote:
| A dumbbell with 28 pounds written on it?
| neilv wrote:
| New performance ratio: horsepower:dogweight.
| ordu wrote:
| Lol. I was confused by it also. I have no idea how much is 28
| pounds, and I could imagine how a small dog can be anything
| from 1 kg to 10 kg. It happens that the motor weight is ~13kg,
| but I'm still not sure that 13kg dog counts as "small".
| hshdhdhehd wrote:
| A small dog e.g. toy poodle is about 7-9lb anyway.
| egorfine wrote:
| I wonder whether it is about the same as a small dog
| qwertox wrote:
| Tesla should buy Mercedes, they'd make a good team together.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| Mercedes should buy Tesla you mean.
| qwertox wrote:
| Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) - ~ US$1.50 trillion
|
| Mercedes-Benz Group AG (MBG.DE) - ~ US$62 billion
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| MBG AG:
|
| Revenue - EUR153.2 billion (2023)
|
| Production output - 2,491,600
|
| --
|
| Tesla:
|
| Production output - 1,773,443 vehicles (2024)
|
| Revenue - US$97.7 billion (2024)
|
| --
|
| Maybe Tesla is just hillariously overvalued and MBG AG can
| afford them once the hype bubble implodes.
| iamtheworstdev wrote:
| when the hype bubble implodes.. Tesla doesn't exist
| anymore. None of their perceived future value is based on
| automobiles.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Maybe that's why they have never built out a proper
| service facility network.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| One of my fundamental criticisms of Elon musk performance as
| a CEO. The vast stock market price and valuation should
| enable these sorts of transactions.
|
| It would enable Tesla to diversify operations move into
| applying its technology on a mass-market basis to hybrids
| without "damaging" the "purity" of the Tesla brand.
|
| It would enable more marques to target specific economic
| bands, international markets, etc.
|
| But no we basically have a car company that makes two cars.
| kibwen wrote:
| Elon Musk has completely lost interest in being CEO of a
| car company. Tesla is a whatever's-on-his-mind-today
| company.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| They started working on autonomy around when Google
| started (2013 or so?). And fully focused on it for half a
| decade now. It's not that hard to understand, he's been
| repeating the mission statement forever. Same with
| SpaceX.
| RegW wrote:
| Surely there is still some merit in having competition in the
| market place?
| fnord77 wrote:
| Tesla is getting out of the car business
| kristo wrote:
| Can I get one for my bicycle
| nomel wrote:
| Yes: https://goldenmotor.bike/products/gmx-170-series-
| hypertorque...
| jalk wrote:
| 28 pounds - that's gigantic compared to this
| https://now.tufts.edu/2011/09/05/worlds-smallest-electric-mo...
| thelastgallon wrote:
| > "There has been significant progress in the construction of
| molecular motors powered by light and by chemical reactions,
| but this is the first time that electrically-driven molecular
| motors have been demonstrated, despite a few theoretical
| proposals," says Sykes. "We have been able to show that you can
| provide electricity to a single molecule and get it to do
| something that is not just random."
|
| "something that is not just random" ==> Probably a long way
| away from something in production. I wouldn't hold off on any
| urgent transportation needs waiting on this tech.
| molticrystal wrote:
| It is great that Mercedes-Benz now owns a highly performant
| electric engine. But is this just an impressive lab breakthrough,
| or can it work in the real world for their cars? Which means
| enduring from freezing to high temps, hours of sustained driving,
| and years of that (or equivalent endurance testing).
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's not a lab model (according to the article), but it's
| likely aimed at performance cars. For consumer cars, 150 KW /
| 200 HP is enough and efficiency is more important than weight.
|
| Of course, when consumer car efficiency increases, they won't
| necessarily get higher ranges because the manufacturers will
| instead try to downsize the battery.
| antonyh wrote:
| The questions I have mostly centre around how much precision of
| power delivery it has - it is an all or nothing proposition, can
| it deliver 0.1% smoothly for real world use, and what is the MTBF
| / duty cycle / failure mode? I would imagine the last thing
| anyone would want is a locked wheel, or only one wheel delivering
| that much power. I know this is unlikely, but as someone with a
| 22-year-old ICE vehicle I do tend to take the long view on these
| things and want to know how they will fail as much as how they
| work. Same applies to the Tesla motors - is there much
| information on failure modes publicly available?
| reactordev wrote:
| Axial flux motors are so next level. Very little power needed per
| rpm. I've built a few tiny ones for FPV and they are a joy to
| work with. I'll die a happy man if I never have to coil again.
| nomel wrote:
| Coils are still required for axial flux motors, they're just in
| a different orientation [1].
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCO633KE7RA&t=510s
| reactordev wrote:
| Negative, mine do not. I use an air core stator where my
| "coils" are etched into the PCB. I don't have to wind
| anything.
| mkoubaa wrote:
| Infinitum?
| jacquesm wrote:
| This was already on HN a short while ago:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45675020
| thelastgallon wrote:
| > According to YASA, this is achieved without using exotic or
| expensive materials, so the design could actually be scalable
| once the demand kicks in.
|
| So, no rare-earth magnets? And it will be cheaper than existing
| motors?
| heeton wrote:
| Rare-earth magnets do not fall under "exotic".
| IshKebab wrote:
| They are expensive.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| Especially when China refuses to export them...
| hedora wrote:
| They'll happily export them in car form, but the US can't
| have nice things anymore.
| f1shy wrote:
| You sent me down a rabbit hole.
|
| I have no idea, but:
|
| I searched axial flow motor in wikipedia, and the last link is:
|
| https://newatlas.com/technology/conifer-iron-magnet-electric...
|
| So maybe?
| NeroVanbierv wrote:
| A similar company is based in Munich: https://www.deepdrive.tech/
| They have cool testing facilities applying CI/CD practices to
| testing hardware!
| tckk wrote:
| It's very hard to find any supplier who will sell an axial flux
| motor to the public.
|
| I see lots of press from Yasa & Donut motors, but afaik no public
| pricing & relationships with select partners only.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I'm curious as to the efficiency of the motor (basically, how
| much of the input electric power is converted to motive power).
|
| If it isn't very good, then it might be excellent for drag races,
| but maybe not so many others.
|
| Also, any power that doesn't turn into torque, is likely to be
| expressed as heat.
| nabakin wrote:
| Exactly my thought as well. You can have all the horsepower you
| want but if it doesn't convert the electricity efficiently,
| it's not going to be useful for normal consumer cars.
| gcanyon wrote:
| It would almost have to be very efficient -- they're saying it
| can do something like 500HP continuous, and it doesn't have
| enormous fins all over it for cooling.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Looking at the picture, it looks like there may be a liquid
| input (cooling). Even a very efficient motor is going to need
| cooling (and lubricant).
| boringg wrote:
| Ok so whats the catch with the technology? Its more powerful,
| smaller, all readily available materials. Some kind of strange
| shape, longevity challenge? Difficult to make so costs are tough
| to bring down?
|
| Just noticed that they are owned by mercedes benz- they will kill
| it accidentally. Corporate wont be able to roll it out. They will
| try and capture all the value and kill its potential
| hwillis wrote:
| Axial flux motors are difficult and expensive to make.
|
| Motors need to be made of laminated steel sheets to reduce
| parasitic eddy currents. The laminations need to be thin in the
| direction of the direction of the flux. For radial flux motors
| you just punch out a shape and stack a bunch of sheets up. For
| axial flux you have to wind a strip:
| https://15658757.s21i.faiusr.com/2/ABUIABACGAAgmviFqAYozvPw-...
|
| Each layer of that strip has a different cut in it, so its much
| more complicated to make. The shape and manufacturing method
| typically impacts efficiency; YASA avoids that by spending more
| money. Efficiency is an unavoidable requirement of high power
| density- heat is the limiting factor, and going from 98% to 96%
| efficient means double the heat.
|
| The mechanical demands on the motor are also much higher-
| radial flux is balanced since the magnetic force pulls the
| rotor from opposite sides. Axial flux motors are usually one-
| sided, so the magnets are trying to pull the rotor and stator
| together with incredible force. That also makes vibrations
| worse. Extremely strong, expensive bearings are required to
| handle it. With permanent magnet rotors you need a jig to lower
| the rotor into place; they can't be assembled by hand. That
| also makes maintenance more difficult and expensive.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Each layer of that strip has a different cut in it, so its
| much more complicated to make.
|
| You can roll a spool of that material and then machine the
| shape out of it. I've seen this done for axial flux motors.
| There are other approaches as well, and the cost differences
| get even smaller if you throw automation at the production
| process. I used to believe axial flux motors were one of
| those oddities that won't win in the end, but now that I work
| with them I'm not so sure. They are at least competitive with
| radial flux machines.
| imtringued wrote:
| I was wondering where the seam is supposed to be in that
| picture and then it turns there is no seam. It's just one
| continuous roll.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZVQWgk6tRc
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Can you (or anyone) explain where the power density
| improvement comes from with axial flux? When I work through
| the first-order math it seems like it should come out the
| same as radial flux. Is it just that the geometry allows
| better cooling from the coils? Or the use of grain oriented
| steel?
| scotty79 wrote:
| Cars are probably fine without that engine. But for drones and
| robot actuators it should be a huge boon.
| tim333 wrote:
| Just stick four on a car with fans on and there's your flying
| car. Not much range though probably.
| kobalsky wrote:
| the first thing I thought was building a robot dog with these,
| they probably already built an evangelion with these they
| aren't showing us
| mizzao wrote:
| Current motors seem to suffice just fine:
|
| https://youtu.be/ysE8FMhAPH0
| xnx wrote:
| 12 days ago | 59 comments:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45675020
| idiotsecant wrote:
| It's cool, but I think deploying motors without rare earth
| materials will be more impactful. The Nissan Ariya was ill-fated
| for other reasons, but it had a EESM motor that is easier to
| cool, more efficient at speed, and cheaper. That's where motor
| tech is headed. Power density just isn't terribly important in
| current applications, at least not past current sota.
| BeaverGoose wrote:
| But what does this mean for AI...
| lazide wrote:
| How the heck are they dealing with the heat produced? Water
| cooling?
| alexshendi wrote:
| Oil cooling. Besides this is a peak power value, so thermal
| constraints don't matter. Continous power is given around
| 350-400 kW.
|
| (Sources: https://yasa.com/news/yasa-smashes-own-unofficial-
| power-dens... and https://yasa.com/technology/)
| calrain wrote:
| If used in power generation, would they open new options?
|
| e.g. high RPM, or high torque options over existing generators?
| VikingCoder wrote:
| I had the same question - would this make, I dunno, super
| efficient wind turbines?
| hireshbrem wrote:
| Feels like a vanity metric, electric car companies don't boast
| about their cars having X horsepower. Not many people care about
| horsepower because either way there are speed limits on the road.
|
| I think electric motors should focus on other vectors.
| aaronbeekay wrote:
| Car companies, both electric and non-electric, frequently
| advertise rated horsepower of their vehicles, even non-
| performance vehicles. In the US, horsepower is one of the key
| metrics for a vehicle overall.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Every car listing, review and so on mentions either the bhp or
| kW, along with the 0-100km/h or 0-60mph which is functionally
| the same as listing the horsepower to weight ratio.
| hedora wrote:
| Yeah, but 0-60 doesn't really matter much for EVs at this
| point. Even big suv/trucks are hitting supercar numbers from
| a few decades ago.
|
| Cornering / handling matters. So does tire wear, and how
| powerful the regenerative braking is / how many motors there
| are. (ABS and traction control via electric powertrains is
| much more responsive than via brake pads).
| luizcdc wrote:
| I wonder if this tech is already being used in F1, or if it makes
| sense to do so. The weight savings alone could easily make a
| championship winner.
| dralley wrote:
| There have been rumors for quite some time that Mercedes has
| the best power unit for the upcoming 2026 regulation set. It's
| entirely possible that this is part of that picture.
|
| "Sustained power output between 350 and 400 kilowatts" is also
| a bit interesting since that is basically right in line with
| what people expect out of the 2026 electrical component of the
| power unit.
| pengaru wrote:
| Great! When can I order one packaged in the form of a drop-in
| limited-slip NA MX5 differential?
| zaoui_amine wrote:
| That's wild! Tiny motors packing that much power? Sign me up for
| the future of racing!
| taegee wrote:
| Can we build an electric scooter with it?
| gwbas1c wrote:
| It's easy to forget that most of the weight in an electric car is
| the _battery_. It 's ICE cars where a lot of the weight is in the
| motor.
|
| That being said, could this be adapted so that a 2.8lb motor
| produces 100 hp? That would allow putting a small motor in each
| wheel, thus completely eliminating axels, driveshafts, and allow
| recapturing the space they used to occupy. It also wouldn't
| significantly impact unsprung weight.
| neuroelectron wrote:
| Is it really easy to forget?
| sollewitt wrote:
| Really easy, I've just forgotten again.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| People used to say they would only get a Tesla if it was
| offered with a manual transmission.
|
| It's easy to laugh at, but there are still many people who
| haven't shifted, in their mind, to the differences.
|
| Even after driving EVs for over a decade, I still need to
| shift. My habit is to turn the car off and close the garage
| inside the car. My new EV only controls the garage if it's
| on, so I had to get used to closing the garage with the car
| on. There's still a part of my brain that screams "but carbon
| monoxide" every time I do it.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| First, no, it won't scale like that.
|
| Second, don't forget that you're trading one complexity for
| another. Eliminate a drive shaft and you still have to get
| power to the wheel somehow, which means now you're running high
| power electrical cable in a very dynamic environment with
| exposure to the elements. On top of that, you need to cool the
| electric motor, so you're probably running some kind of fluid
| out to it. Not that it isn't a solvable problem, but it
| probably doesn't reduce the weight much, if at all, when the
| system is all added up. You'll find that while you eliminate an
| axle, you still need to mechanically connect the two wheels
| together (look at the rear subframe on an FWD car) for
| strength, which also reduces the weight loss. Then the steering
| on the front... etc.
|
| Until a more significant change than this motor (where maybe a
| 2.8lb motor could produce 100hp without needing active
| cooling), we're better off with "inboard" motors still.
| pfdietz wrote:
| So, this could be better in hybrid cars?
| moffkalast wrote:
| I am heavy motors guy, and this is my EV. She weighs one hundred
| fifty tons and drives four custom-tooled motors at one thousand
| horsepower per wheel.
|
| It costs 10,000 Wh to power this car.. for 12 seconds.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| So can I jet ski from NY to London in a few hours?
| amluto wrote:
| This discussion is all about vehicles with large batteries, but
| how about hybrids? With light enough and efficient enough motors,
| all kinds of designs might become practical:
|
| - Toyota-style hybrid drives could be a lot lighter, and they
| don't need large batteries.
|
| - e-bikes with tiny batteries?
|
| - Hybrid aircraft? What if there was a battery large enough for
| takeoff and landing, a small motor (or pair for redundancy) for
| cruising and to recharge the battery, and motors and fans or
| propellers wherever is best from an aerodynamic perspective.
|
| - Power tools.
| jabl wrote:
| There's indeed a huge number of applications where lower weight
| electric motors could be useful.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| The size of this motor is moderately interesting, but the power
| density doesn't really matter for most of the things you just
| mentioned. Almost every one of them is limited by the amount of
| batteries you can put in for both weight and power output
| reasons.
| amluto wrote:
| What do you mean? Modern LFP cells have quite high power
| density. LTO is even higher.
|
| An e-bike with a 100Wh battery and a 300W motor would be
| extremely useful if it were light enough: you could carry it
| up stairs, onto trains, etc easily, and it would give plenty
| of boost to navigate traffic for short distances and make it
| easier to go up hills. The idea would be that most of the
| energy would come from the rider. 100Wh of modern LFP cells
| doesn't weight very much, but you still need to carry around
| the motor and the structure to support the motor.
|
| In an airplane, you need a _lot_ of power to take off, and
| weight is a big deal.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| I'm super excited to fly an electric plane, but a
| lightweight motor isn't what's gonna make that possible. My
| current plane carries 561 kwh of energy in a 100 pound/
| 17gal gas tank.
|
| Even if you say the engine is only 30% efficient, I am
| still carrying an absolute shitload of energy compared to
| what I could get out of 100 lbs of lithium batteries.
|
| The actual motor only weighs 84 lbs.
|
| So I have a weight budget of 184 lbs (call it 200 just to
| be safe), and current capability is a peak output of 50hp
| (37 kw) and a cruise endurance of 3 hours at 40 hp / 30 kw.
| So just to math it out, lets say I will need about 90kwh of
| battery to come close to my current gas capabilities. At an
| extremely generous 5 kg per kwh, I need a battery that
| weighs more than my entire airplane's max gross takeoff
| weight. The weight of the engine is completely irrelevant
| when the battery weighs 450kg.
| amluto wrote:
| Quoting myself:
|
| > Hybrid aircraft? What if there was a battery large
| enough for takeoff and landing, a small motor (or pair
| for redundancy) for cruising and to recharge the battery,
| and motors and fans or propellers wherever is best from
| an aerodynamic perspective.
|
| Would this be better than a conventional design? I don't
| know, but availability of very high power-to-weight
| motors would help.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Possibly in some designs. It comes down to a weight
| issue. The entire weight of the hybrid system needs to be
| less than the weight saved by installing a smaller ICE
| engine.
|
| Take a modern small aero engine like the Rotax 912. It
| comes in an 80hp version that weighs 122 pounds and a 100
| hp version that weighs 144 lbs. Hard to beat that kind of
| power/weight.
| danjermaus wrote:
| Very curious about this because there are electric planes
| in testing, so how do they do it?
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| They are designed for drastically shorter flight times.
| Of the airframes I am aware of that are actually flying
| right now (pipistrel and the beaver) both of them have a
| range of approximately 1/5 that of the same airframe with
| a gas engine.
|
| The Pipistrel is probably the best example since it is
| actually available for sale in both ICE and electric. The
| ICE version of the airframe has 5.5 hours of cruise fuel
| good for 650 NM. The electric version has a payload that
| is 60% less, a ceiling of 12k feet compared to 18k feet,
| and an endurance of 56 minutes.
|
| Basically, they are sacrificing range and payload. It
| isn't that electric planes can't possibly fly, its that
| ICE powered planes have a pretty hard to overcome
| advantage until battery power density increases by an
| order of magnitude. There are already mass market
| brushless motors that could replace most aircraft engines
| at a lower weight.
|
| The problem is that gasoline holds 30x or more energy
| than a battery by weight. It doesn't matter if I can get
| replace 100 lbs of ICE engine with 1 lb of electric
| engine, because the real issue is that I would need a
| literal ton of batteries to replace less than 100 lbs of
| gas.
| danjermaus wrote:
| I have a trek ebike and it's fairly light if I take the
| battery off. Could easily carry it up stairs. I don't think
| the motor is the problem
| eightysixfour wrote:
| As the other poster mentioned, they're not even on the same
| planet as the current power density of the combined engine
| + fuel in an aircraft.
|
| There are two things you are missing in these examples:
|
| 1. The motor won't scale down to a 2lbs and a few hundred
| watts. That's just not how it works.
|
| 2. The weight of the battery pack is partially about energy
| density, but it is also about the ability to discharge,
| which takes more batteries to make up for it. Let's say you
| wanted one of the motors in the article giving your device
| a "boost" of 500hp (sure, we can scale it back, but roll
| with me), your battery needs to output 400kW
| instantaneously. If it was a 48v pack, which is 13 cells in
| series, they would need to deliver 8,333 amps. Most cells
| are rated for something like 20a, so you need to put more
| in series to get the voltage high enough to get that to a
| reasonable number. A 400v car architecture is 112 lithium
| cells in series for example.
|
| This is before packaging considerations, the increase in
| complexity of the base system, etc. When you look at the
| overall system, you're just not gaining that much. Cars are
| actually uniquely good for hybridization and
| electrification.
| randerson wrote:
| My first thought too.
|
| While I see Toyota-style hybrids as designed for efficiency,
| there's also the performance hybrids like the new Porsche 911
| T-hybrid where an electric motor spins up the turbocharger to
| eliminate lag while another integrated into the gearbox adds
| power. There is no "EV mode" so it doesn't need a large
| battery.
|
| Arguably the most important characteristic of a sports car is
| light weight, so lighter motors would be immediately useful
| there.
| Merad wrote:
| > Toyota-style hybrid drives could be a lot lighter
|
| The hybrid electric motor in a Toyota is already pretty
| comparable in weight to the motor in TFA, but obviously much
| less powerful. You can see the main hybrid motor of a RAV4 at
| [0]. If memory serves both the Camry and RAV4 hybrid models are
| only 2-300 lbs heavier than their gas counterparts.
|
| 0: https://youtu.be/O61WihMRdjM?t=120
| rkagerer wrote:
| How much torque can it generate?
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Their website claims "4 X more torque and double the power
| densities of current technologies".
|
| A bit handwavy, but given the inherent torque advantage of
| electric, I doubt torque is an issue. If anything, a lot of EVs
| would probably do better with a touch less torque.
|
| Source: https://yasa.com/technology/
| kazinator wrote:
| > _It can also sustain between 350 and 400 kilowatts (469-536
| horsepower) continuously, meaning it's not just built for short
| bursts, as it can deliver massive power all day long._
|
| On what battery?
| pbmonster wrote:
| Pretty much any modern car battery out there. Many of those
| allow 350 kW _charging_ , discharging that quickly is even
| easier.
| kazinator wrote:
| kW measures output power, not capacity. What battery can
| output that power 'all day' as they claim?
| Johnny555 wrote:
| I wanna know how they keep it cool, even if it's 95% efficient,
| that's 15,000 watts of power to dissipate.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| > _YASA, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz,
| already produces motors that power some of the world's fastest
| and most expensive cars._
|
| Never underestimate the swabians.
| hinkley wrote:
| First motor I saw in this category was much larger because it had
| massive mount points to attach it to the car so the torque would
| go to the wheels and not to destroying the motor.
|
| This one has a narrow ring meant for 3/8" bolts? I guess if
| you're buying a 1000 hp motor you can afford titanium carriage
| bolts.
| arewethereyeta wrote:
| titanium has a low tensile strength compared to steel. I
| wouldnt recommend it even on a bike handlebar
| hinkley wrote:
| Oh but they do. People have been making titanium replacement
| bolt kits for bicycles since at least 1993.
|
| Doesn't change the fact that those are tiny bolt holes for
| holding a 750 kw motor. How are they affixing it to a
| vehicle?
| dralley wrote:
| I suspect this may end up in Mercedes Formula 1 power units, so
| that may not be off-base. Use whatever ridiculous materials you
| can to keep the weight and size down.
| joshuahaglund wrote:
| Just what we need, more powerful automobiles.
|
| I would appreciate a 1 oz motor that can put out 1 hp on an
| ebike.
| hshdhdhehd wrote:
| Or e roller skates in that case
| iwontberude wrote:
| Why do we even need to drive cars, why dont we all just have
| trailers and then an automated robot could pull it around.
| Decouple the drive train from the cabin.
| nomel wrote:
| With all the extra coupling hardware and surface area required,
| the reason is performance and weight. Modern cars are all about
| material minimization. It's easier to add a bump to the cabin
| and put a motor in that volume than it is to make another mini
| car.
|
| I think it would only make financial sense if it were like
| swappable batteries: you rent it all.
| zackmorris wrote:
| Axial flux motors are such an obvious and simple to build design
| that I don't understand why they aren't used more commercially.
| I've mainly seen do-it-yourself projects to build them for home
| windmills etc.
|
| - divergence -
|
| This is perhaps my greatest frustration with wealth inequality.
| Billionaires like Elon Musk (not to single him out of the
| thousand others) sometimes fund innovative projects initially,
| but seem to get lost in the weeds doubling down on evolutionary
| tech, while missing obvious opportunities in fringe tech and old
| ideas that were suppressed.
|
| For example, the Tesla turbine could have been used for an
| onboard generator, and what better opportunity than to build a
| hybrid Tesla car using it? Its main drawback is that it gets
| fouled by combustion products (with secondary drawbacks in low
| torque, noise, etc). So why not use natural gas, propane or
| hydrogen? Why not use an external combustion system that heats
| air and runs it through the turbine in place of using a larger
| (due to low compression) Stirling engine? Why not mount the
| turbine in sound dampening material or a vacuum? These are all
| trivially overcome engineering challenges. Yet we can't buy a
| cost-effective mass-produced Tesla turbine or even a Stirling
| engine of any appreciable power online.
|
| As we see more and more of these missed or suppressed innovations
| by moneyed interests, I can't help but come to the conclusion
| that wealth inequality is the largest force stopping widespread
| prosperity, especially the kind brought by automation to provide
| basic resources. We can claim that so much progress has been made
| possible by crony capitalism, for example the computers we are
| writing and reading this comment on, but I believe that they
| exist despite concentrated wealth, not because of it.
|
| And I'm worried that access to fee-based AI will widen the wealth
| gap even further. Because people with money will be able to pay
| AI to do their jobs and get paid, while people without money may
| be forced to do those jobs by hand performatively under ever-
| increasing pressure as the cost of AI only decreases due to
| economies of scale and Moore's law. So that the main goal for
| moneyed interests could become to deny access to capital to the
| working class so that they can be exploited. Even though it would
| be far easier and more beneficial to more people to distribute
| the costs of some minimal level of AI to everyone in the world.
|
| I dunno, the more I see these exciting innovations that could
| practically be built for cost of materials (28 pounds of copper
| costs less than $150 and is the most expensive component) yet
| never reach widespread adoption - while other inferior products
| that use more material flourish - it makes me question if our
| market-based economy even works anymore. I'm not saying that
| older (antiquated?) alternatives like socialism/communism would
| work better today, just that there may be a post-scarcity 21st
| century economy where patents that could increase equivalent
| personal wealth by orders of magnitude are put into the public
| domain. Not for money, but as automated and open source
| goods/services/resources having equivalent value to what money
| would have provided. The closest I can get is stuff like
| solarpunk, which still hasn't caught on for reasons I don't
| understand.
|
| Edit: before I get flamed too badly for this comment, I should
| add that neodymium magnets could perhaps cost more than copper,
| and/or be a scarcer resource. If I were working on this type of
| motor, I would try to get similar performance from non-rare-earth
| magnets and aluminum wire, as well as explore hybrid motors that
| achieve say 80% of the power and efficiency using only 20% of the
| rare stuff. On that note, we are long overdue for mass-produced
| graphene and carbon nanotube wire. We need a definitive answer as
| to whether they are safe enough to use commercially, or if they
| are a dead end like asbestos. I don't understand why billionaires
| don't put more money into getting this sort of first-principles
| "real work" done. If I won the internet lottery, I would set up a
| foundation with an endowment to tackle these pressing problems
| and invite hackers through grants, sort of like what MacKenzie
| Scott is doing.
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