EVs

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,881
Ok, now I'm officially confused ... I thought that the intent of my post was obvious. But this being your thread, the least I can do is have the courtesy of explaining myself.

Although said motors' rpm's are rather low for direct application on moving vehicles, their extremely high efficiency, plus their use of conventional and inexpensive materials make them candidate for adaptation into EVs by simply adding a gearbox to increase their output speed. The decrease in efficiency due to the presence of said gearbox could be justified by their higher power to weight ratio, and their manufacturing cost. Which may result in a better alternative than the PMSMs currently being used in most EVs.
 

Thread Starter

crutschow

Joined Mar 14, 2008
38,930
Ok, now I'm officially confused ... I thought that the intent of my post was obvious. But this being your thread, the least I can do is have the courtesy of explaining myself.

Although said motors' rpm's are rather low for direct application on moving vehicles, their extremely high efficiency, plus their use of conventional and inexpensive materials make them candidate for adaptation into EVs by simply adding a gearbox to increase their output speed. The decrease in efficiency due to the presence of said gearbox could be justified by their higher power to weight ratio, and their manufacturing cost. Which may result in a better alternative than the PMSMs currently being used in most EVs.
Fair enough.
Their website doesn't mention that, but if the motor can be sized to power an EV (in the 100kW range, or more than a hundred horsepower), then adding a step-up gearbox could be an option.
 

Thread Starter

crutschow

Joined Mar 14, 2008
38,930
An update--
Just finished my two year lease on my Hyundai Ioniq 5 and decided to turn it back in, as the economics to buy it were not that good.
I thoroughly enjoyed the car (most fun of any car I've had) and had no problems with it, but only drove it about 15k miles during the two years.
Drove it on a long trip from Denver to LA and back without difficulty.

Planned to lease another one, but our circumstances have changed, and we are moving from our house into a new retirement building apartment soon.
It's smaller of course (about 1k square-feet instead of about 3k for the house), but provides all the amenities including WiFi and food service, so we no longer have to be concerned about maintaining a house, mowing the lawn, shoveling snow, or what's for dinner. Rather like living in a nice resort (with indoor heated pool but no beach :cool:).

Since we won't be driving as much, I'll just be using the 2017 Jeep Cherokee we've had as a second vehicle.
It has only about 80k miles on it, so should last us awhile without problem (hopefully).
Now seems like kind of a crude vehicle compared to the Hyundai, and I'll miss things like automatic lane guidance, adaptive cruise control, and one-pedal driving (had to re-adapt to using the brake pedal), but it'll do.
Cheers--:)
 
Anyone here have any experience with EVs?

I've looking into buying a new vehicle and just determined that my main concern about limited range (Range Anxiety) with a pure EV has been largely mitigated
Many new EVs have a range of at at least 250 miles, which is fine for any local trips (which is the vast majority of my driving).
But if you take a trip longer than that, I knew that you would have to stop an hour or more to get a decent charge (with the older AC chargers) to continue on the journey.
However that's no longer true. They are now many DC fast charging stations available that can provide an 80% charge in as little as 20 minutes with EVs designed for that, which is not much longer than I usually take for a pit-stop for gas, a rest-room break, and to eat a snack, while traveling.

We occasionally visit our kids in Santa Fe, NM, which a little less than 400 miles from where we live in Denver.
So we could go about 200 miles, get a fast charge, and then reach Santa Fe without a further stop (or perhaps a short one for a quick top-off), not much different then when we drive in a gas powered car with a range of perhaps 300 miles.

We're not ones to take long trips off the beaten path into the back country where there may not be chargers, so that's not a concern.
I also think the batteries are sufficiently reliable to not be a factor.

I like EVs because of their high efficiency, quiet and seamless high power (one mid-sized SUV EV I looked at has a 0-60 time of <5s ! ), low or no pollution (depending upon the electrical source), little required maintenance, and great mechanical simplicity as compared to a standard engine or hybrid vehicle (perhaps hundreds of mechanical parts versus thousands).

Any thoughts on this?
That 250 miles comes at a higher cost that the same distance in an vehicle and not just cost of electricity vs Fuel either time is a commodity like any other after driving that 250 odd miles you may as well stop for a meal and some shopping waiting for a full charge. while with an IC vehicle it's maybe 5 minutes and your on your way no meal or shopping required. Something a lot of people don't factor in when thinking EV. Just a thought is all. also if you are driving through cold weather even heated the battery range is reduced. even more so if you start out with a cold battery in the first place. and over time the batteries do lose energy storage capacity.
 
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