4 ms·
Could have gone higher. Worth it in copper savings alone. IIRC the cars use AC motors. It needs to go through inverters anyway so there is some flexibility in h
by rational_indian 3y ago
Could have gone higher. Worth it in copper savings alone. IIRC the cars use AC motors. It needs to go through inverters anyway so there is some flexibility in how high you can go.
Edit: of course the motors are "AC" who would want a brush and commutator based motor in their car?
- bryanlarsen 3y agoMost countries have safety rules that apply at 50V, so staying below that reduces regulatory costs significantly.
- rational_indian 3y agoGood point.
- timerol 3y agoThe main motors of an EV are not powered off of the 48V system. EVs generally have 300-400 V main batteries, with discussion of 800 V on the table (someone may have already done it, I haven't been keeping track).
- elihu 3y agoThe terminology can get confusing. I many contexts, a "brushless DC motor" is actually a 3-phase AC motor. The idea is that you can think of the motor and motor controller (often called an inverter) together as a DC motor because the input to the motor controller is DC. Series-wound DC motors used to be fairly common for EV conversions, and they're still a reasonable choice if you want something that's very cheap and very powerful, and don't care about brush maintenance, efficiency, regen, or being able to reverse easily. (The White Zombie for instance uses a pair of SWDC motors.) Normal people just use AC motors these days.