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Tiny electric motor can produce more than 1,000 horsepower
- chris_overseas 11mo agoA link to the press release https://yasa.com/news/yasa-smashes-own-unofficial-power-density-world-record-pushing-state-of-the-art-electric-motor-to-staggering-new-59kw-kg-benchmark/ https://yasa.com/news/yasa-smashes-own-unofficial-power-dens...
- defrost 11mo agoA 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.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- larodi 11mo agoMuch better you should post it and somebody mark the banner ridden one for deletion.
- rtaylorgarlock 11mo ago'Supercarblondie' manages to hit everything I dislike about automotive marketing online all at once.
- thenthenthen 11mo agoYeah wasnt blondie the name of a dog belonging to a certain historical figure?
- rtaylorgarlock 11mo agoHa! 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 11mo ago> 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 11mo agokg is the SI unit for mass, I think that would be why
- kibwen 11mo agoAmusingly, 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 11mo agoComparison with other motors
- floo 11mo agoBecause 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 11mo agoIf "kg" is the fundamental unit of mass, then honestly, why isn't a gram referred to as a "millikilogram"?
- kitku 11mo ago
- svl7 11mo agoPrevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45675020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45675020
- davedx 11mo agoCould 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 £12m 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 11mo agoBut EVs are already heavy because of the battery. I suppose percentage-wise the motors don't make much of a difference (?)
- poniko 11mo agoYea 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.
- b112 11mo agoNo 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".
- egorfine 11mo agoI wonder whether it is about the same as a small dog
- FabHK 11mo agoOutperformance 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 11mo agoThanks. 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 11mo agoThe 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.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- impossiblefork 11mo agoI 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 11mo agoI'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.
- rapsey 11mo agoEV 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 11mo agoDrone motors are aircooled though, so I think you actually want the radial configuration.
- kakacik 11mo agoSaving 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 11mo agoI 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 11mo agoIt is important if you want to put the motor in the wheelhub. Too much unsprung mass kills vehicle dynamics.
- alex_duf 11mo agoThere was a video on this motor recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4OdH0ibOBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4OdH0ibOBk made by a phd in the field
- tverbeure 11mo agoThat’s an excellent video!
- doingtheiroming 11mo agoYet 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 11mo agoWe'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 11mo agoEverything but the Metric System: “The new YASA axial flux motor weighs just 28 pounds, or about the same as a small dog.” :)
- defrost 11mo agoThe 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-density-world-record-pushing-state-of-the-art-electric-motor-to-staggering-new-59kw-kg-benchmark/ 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 11mo ago> 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 11mo agoThat 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.
- 11mo ago
- varjag 11mo agoThe 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?
- jonplackett 11mo ago123.5 cubic centi-litres
- KingMob 11mo agoAmerican football or international futbol? If American, it's twelfteen furlongs.
- aleph_minus_one 11mo ago> But how many footballs a small dog weighs? Which kind of football: the British or the US-American one? :-)
- eru 11mo agoAustralian rules.
- rob74 11mo agoNot 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) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chihuahua_(dog_breed) )
- IshKebab 11mo agoNot sure about footballs but 28 pounds is about the weight of a child, a bag of rice, or a dumbbell. Hope that helps!
- beAbU 11mo agoHow much rice do you buy at a time?!
- qwertox 11mo agoTesla should buy Mercedes, they'd make a good team together.
- philipwhiuk 11mo agoMercedes should buy Tesla you mean.
- qwertox 11mo agoTesla, Inc. (TSLA) – ~ US$1.50 trillion Mercedes‑Benz Group AG (MBG.DE) – ~ US$62 billion
- philipwhiuk 11mo agoMBG AG: Revenue - €153.2 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 11mo agowhen the hype bubble implodes.. Tesla doesn't exist anymore. None of their perceived future value is based on automobiles.
- SoftTalker 11mo agoMaybe that's why they have never built out a proper service facility network.
- AtlasBarfed 11mo agoOne 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.
- kristo 11mo agoCan I get one for my bicycle
- nomel 11mo agoYes: https://goldenmotor.bike/products/gmx-170-series-hypertorque?srsltid=AfmBOoohoTVQRMrEx9wP_nePlPMoo2CzNcnDzcviOe7GHfOYCox5CmOG https://goldenmotor.bike/products/gmx-170-series-hypertorque...
- jalk 11mo ago28 pounds - that's gigantic compared to this https://now.tufts.edu/2011/09/05/worlds-smallest-electric-motor-made-single-molecule https://now.tufts.edu/2011/09/05/worlds-smallest-electric-mo...
- thelastgallon 11mo ago> "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 11mo agoIt 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_ 11mo agoIt'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.
- zipy124 11mo agoThey've used their previous motors in production Ferraris and koensiggs and also in aircraft. They have the capability to make 100,000 motors a year so this is definitely not just lab stuff!
- antonyh 11mo agoThe 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 11mo agoAxial 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 11mo agoCoils 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCO633KE7RA&t=510s
- reactordev 11mo agoNegative, 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 11mo agoInfinitum?
- reactordev 11mo agoSimilar design I suppose. Air-gapped stators with printed coils on separate layers for each phase.
- nomel 11mo agoA coil is a shape, not a method of making the shape. But of course, there are alternatives to hand winding.
- jacquesm 11mo agoThis was already on HN a short while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45675020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45675020
- thelastgallon 11mo ago> 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 11mo agoRare-earth magnets do not fall under “exotic”.
- IshKebab 11mo agoThey are expensive.
- littlestymaar 11mo agoEspecially when China refuses to export them…
- hedora 11mo agoThey’ll happily export them in car form, but the US can’t have nice things anymore.
- f1shy 11mo agoYou 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-motors/ https://newatlas.com/technology/conifer-iron-magnet-electric... So maybe?
- NeroVanbierv 11mo agoA similar company is based in Munich: https://www.deepdrive.tech/ https://www.deepdrive.tech/ They have cool testing facilities applying CI/CD practices to testing hardware!
- tckk 11mo agoIt'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.
- scotty79 11mo agoCars are probably fine without that engine. But for drones and robot actuators it should be a huge boon.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- ChrisMarshallNY 11mo agoI'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 11mo agoExactly 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 11mo agoIt 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 11mo agoLooking 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).
- gcanyon 11mo agoThat almost seems like cheating. Like the very very old joke where the guy is standing on the train station with two large briefcases beside him, talking on an impossibly small cell phone (this was a joke around 1995). Another man walks up to him as the guy ends his call and says, "That cell phone is amazing! So small!" "And it only weighs four ounces" the man replies proudly. "I sell them, if you're interested. They're $500, but you can talk for over 8 hours." "I'll take it!" the other replies, and hands over the cash. The man pulls a small box out of his jacket and says, "Here's your phone and cable," then picks up one of the briefcases, struggling with the weight, "And here's your battery." All to say, claiming the lightest most powerful electric motor without at least mentioning how big/heavy the cooling system is seems wrong.
- boringg 11mo agoOk 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 11mo agoAxial 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-gEwgBs4gBs.jpg 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 11mo ago>> 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.
- tim333 11mo agoJust stick four on a car with fans on and there's your flying car. Not much range though probably.
- xnx 11mo ago12 days ago | 59 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45675020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45675020
- idiotsecant 11mo agoIt'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.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- BeaverGoose 11mo agoBut what does this mean for AI...
- lazide 11mo agoHow the heck are they dealing with the heat produced? Water cooling?
- alexshendi 11mo agoOil 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-density-world-record-pushing-state-of-the-art-electric-motor-to-staggering-new-59kw-kg-benchmark/ https://yasa.com/news/yasa-smashes-own-unofficial-power-dens... and https://yasa.com/technology/ https://yasa.com/technology/)
- calrain 11mo agoIf used in power generation, would they open new options? e.g. high RPM, or high torque options over existing generators?
- VikingCoder 11mo agoI had the same question - would this make, I dunno, super efficient wind turbines?
- hireshbrem 11mo agoFeels 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 11mo agoCar 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 11mo agoEvery 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 11mo agoYeah, 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).
- AngryData 11mo agoPeople only stopped caring about horsepower recently because it became so cheap that everyone has more than they can utilize. HP use to be an important metric in a car because it was the main limiting factor in speed and capacity. Today engine power is rarely the top limiting factor, the tires, suspension, transmission, and driver ability are far more important, but far harder to quantify for marketting bulletpoints.
- luizcdc 11mo agoI 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 11mo agoThere 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 11mo agoGreat! When can I order one packaged in the form of a drop-in limited-slip NA MX5 differential?
- zaoui_amine 11mo agoThat's wild! Tiny motors packing that much power? Sign me up for the future of racing!
- taegee 11mo agoCan we build an electric scooter with it?
- gwbas1c 11mo agoIt'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 11mo agoIs it really easy to forget?
- sollewitt 11mo agoReally easy, I've just forgotten again.
- gwbas1c 11mo agoPeople 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.
- neuroelectron 11mo agoI switch between manual and automatic cars pretty easily and I would definitely notice that my car weighs two and a half tons while driving it.
- eightysixfour 11mo agoFirst, 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.
- moffkalast 11mo agoI 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 11mo agoSo can I jet ski from NY to London in a few hours?
- amluto 11mo agoThis 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 11mo agoThere's indeed a huge number of applications where lower weight electric motors could be useful.
- eightysixfour 11mo agoThe 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 11mo agoWhat 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 11mo agoI'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.
- rkagerer 11mo agoHow much torque can it generate?
- SkyPuncher 11mo agoTheir 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/ https://yasa.com/technology/
- kazinator 11mo ago> 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 11mo agoPretty much any modern car battery out there. Many of those allow 350 kW charging, discharging that quickly is even easier.
- kazinator 11mo agokW measures output power, not capacity. What battery can output that power 'all day' as they claim?
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- Johnny555 11mo agoI wanna know how they keep it cool, even if it's 95% efficient, that's 15,000 watts of power to dissipate.
- MrBuddyCasino 11mo ago> 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 11mo agoFirst 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 11mo agotitanium has a low tensile strength compared to steel. I wouldnt recommend it even on a bike handlebar
- hinkley 11mo agoOh 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 11mo agoI 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 11mo agoJust what we need, more powerful automobiles. I would appreciate a 1 oz motor that can put out 1 hp on an ebike.
- hshdhdhehd 11mo agoOr e roller skates in that case
- iwontberude 11mo agoWhy 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 11mo agoWith 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.
- iwontberude 11mo agoGreat Points!
- zackmorris 11mo agoAxial 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.
- benlivengood 11mo agoYou could almost replace the disc brakes with these and have hub motors for free (in terms of unsprung weight). Depends on the torque and safety margin on the 700KW level of performance. For emergency safety you could have a mechanical short to let the motors dump energy into a big heating element as a last resort (risking wheel lockup) but this would truly be drive-by-wire braking.
- jesse__ 11mo ago> For emergency safety you could have a mechanical short to let the motors dump energy into a big heating element as a last resort That would be craaaazyyyy!! I'm imagining drag cars literally blowing liquid metal out the back when they brake hard..
- tiotempestade 11mo agoJeez! The amount of ads this page has is ridiculous
- sergiogjr 11mo agoHaving that on a e-bike would be wild.
- fred_klatt 11mo agoSo-called lighter or smaller electric motors with today's technology limited by a "passive-rotor" is the result of legacy packaging geometry, which will have the same result if equally applied to contestants. Only SYNCHRO-SYM has an active-rotor in the same package geometry that eliminates the geopolitical harm of rare-earth magnets but delivers 2x the performance in the same legacy package geometry.
- rurban 11mo agoNot better than a Kessler dyno. The best Formula 1 teams still use Kessler. You need the long axle to apply the power to. You never heard of them as they are only producing 30 a year.