...reinventing the Electric Motor
In designing motors for electric transport, we have all, even axial flux and
brushless motor designers, been thinking inside a very cramped box about what
a motor is or should be, selecting dimensions and proportions that aren't
appropriate for vehicle drives, and then having to gear them down to get
sufficient torque to budge a car, incurring the serious efficiency losses
inherent in gear and transmission systems.
The Electric Weel motor bursts that box in a 15 KW pancake package 28 inches
in diameter and just 5 inches thick, with the force elements arrayed around
the outside rim. This configuration gives it ten times the torque of a typical
high-torque axial flux motor made for vehicles, at a much lower RPM: torque
and speed to directly match a vehicle wheel. It is intended that it be
connected directly via a CV drive shaft to a front wheel.
The design of the Weel calls for the unmodified motive components of three
Electric Hubcap motors: 27 coils, 36 supermagnets, and 3 motor controllers.
Each controller, fed from the same control signals, drives 1/3 of the coils.
The Electric Hubcap motor and matching Turquoise Brushless Motor Controller
have undergone three years of development and these components will impart
the 95% efficiency and reliability of the Electric Hubcap motors to the Weel.
Presently (2011/April), rotors and other parts are being fabricated.
Please see Turquoise Energy Newsletters #37 on for updates.
