10 ms·

Mercedes and Ferrari’s edge in the electric car age: high-end axial motors

96 points by Osiris30 4y ago

it_citizen 4y ago
While I like the technology aspect, I am secretly rooting for expensive cars to become uncool. Small boring self-driving cars, possibly collectively owned instead of big expensive individually owned cars often used as a proof of social status.
- mechanical_bear 4y ago
  Why?
  - it_citizen 4y ago
    Climate change reports are all pretty clear we need to move to smaller, less powerful cars to meet our climate pledges. And produce less of them. I think starting to see cars as a simple mean to go from A to B instead of a symbol of freedom, status or virility would really be a huge win. I also hope that on the long run it would help more city dwellers accept the idea of sharing cars instead of owning one. Collectively owned self driving cars could really help reshape our cities, reclame the insane amount of space we dedicate to roads and parking spots and funnel money into more public transit.
    - mansoorsayed 4y ago
      >Collectively owned self driving cars could really help reshape our cities, reclame the insane amount of space we dedicate to roads and parking spots and funnel money into more public transit. A collectively owned car that you don't have to drive yourself? Isn't that an existing and well known solution: public transportation?
      - discreteevent 4y ago
        There's a difference between time sharing and sharing at the same time.
    - throwawaylinux 4y ago
      I don't have a "climate pledge", nor do I need to move to a smaller or less powerful car or demand that anybody else change their lifestyle. What I will do is keep an eye on what the ultra-rich "experts" who seem to be most concerned about climate change do. When they give up their mansions and yachts and islands and private jets, eat bugs and teleconference to Bilderberg, that's when I might reconsider my lifestyle. Until then the signal from those experts is crystal clear: climate change is a non-issue. And I wouldn't want to risk being an expert-denier.
      - saagarjha 4y ago
        Yes, the best way to respond to a collective problem is wait for everyone else to do their part.
        throwawaylinux 4y ago
        Not everybody else, just a tiny privileged minority. The self-proclaimed experts -- those who allegedly listen to the science, and have their finger on the pulse of the issue, and who are the most flagrantly wasteful polluters on the planet. I mean from their actions it's not even clear that there is a problem at all, is it? Do you deny their knowledge and expertise?
        _carbyau_ 4y ago
        Not as hardcore as throwawaylinux about it but I can understand the idea of: - why am I voluntarily restricting what I can do so that others can have more leeway to do whatever they want? For my part, I ride a motorbike. I enjoy it, it uses less fuel, running costs etc than most cars. But I am not going to give it up while my neighbour's family in their multimillion dollar mansion drives 3x 2 ton+ SUVs around. A work colleague of mine bought a Dodge RAM 2500. To tow his boat and carry his multiple dirt bikes. I ignore people asking me to do more now. I do enough. Go after the worst offenders first.
        ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        > why am I voluntarily restricting what I can do so that others can have more leeway to do whatever they want? Because you refuse to vote for systemic change that would affect everyone positively?
    - threeseed 4y ago
      > Climate change reports are all pretty clear we need to move to smaller, less powerful cars to meet our climate pledges. And produce less of them. Might want to start then with Americans and their SUVs. Few orders of magnitude bigger issue than a few rich people and their supercars.
    - tdesilva 4y ago
      How do self-driving cars funnel money into public transport and and reclaim space? I think they're more likely to do the opposite. Seems silly to rely on self-driving to reduce emissions when we don't know how to build self-driving cars yet, but we do know how to build better public transit and design walkable cities.
- MuffinFlavored 4y ago
  > I am secretly rooting for expensive cars to become uncool. Are you also secretly rooting for yummy foods to uncool while bland foods take their place?
  - tremon 4y ago
    Bland, generic foods have already taken the place of many yummy foods.
  - syzar 4y ago
    Desiring uncoolness in one area does not imply such a desire in other areas and hypocrisy is not the only reason why this might be the case.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    Not OP but I'm generally against Veblen goods and that applies to food and cars. Excellent target for taxation as that only makes them better status signals. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
- nimbius 4y ago
  call me a skeptic, I've worked in the auto industry as a heavy engine master tech for over 20 years, but the same luxury manufacturers who can't make a v8 that lasts longer than 60k miles without a recall or major defect are not qualified to skip class and start making Ev's. Mercedes rolled out the 250 largely because biturbo has been a loss leading qc dumpster fire for the last decade. Audi can barely handle infotainment that doesn't brick and reboot on a road trip and BMW has turned their technology package into a monthly milk truck that fleeces people for basics you get out the door from Toyota. if Tesla were to hit the ground with a car thats 10k less than the 3 in 2022 it would bury these gilded Lillie's from across the pond faster than the m5pvl gear in a 7 series punches out and seizes a 20k transmission.
  - zeusk 4y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19800220 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19800220 is it a 7 series or some Japanese SUV? Also, if you're as experienced as you claim; You'd probably BMW does not make any transmissions. They've forever outsourced that to ZF or Getrag.
    - Kon-Peki 4y ago
      …and General Motors. Up until the ZF 8-speed, pretty much all the good automatic transmissions in BMWs were built by GM.
      - zeusk 4y ago
        zf6hp28 and getrag GS7 DCT were far better. GM was only better than the older 5 speed autos.
  - alliao 4y ago
    what's a m5pvl gear?
  - BoorishBears 4y ago
    > BMW has turned their technology package into a monthly milk truck that fleeces people for basics you get out the door from Toyota Someone who's so deeply embedded the the industry should know Toyota Connect is the same story, installing hardware in all models but only enabling it for subscribers.
- alliao 4y ago
  expensive cars are already uncool. except amongst oligarchs I don't think many would profess their love of car interiors from like.. Bentley and it's hand stitched unashamed whole piece leather interior? or the busyness of Porsche and it's thousand button centre console. It's all just so excessive, and excess is definitely uncool nowadays
  - tdesilva 4y ago
    I profess that I like nice things, and buttons inside cars. If anything is excessive in modern cars, it's the size and amount of touchscreens, not the amount of buttons.
    - alliao 4y ago
      a touch screen that's not up to automotive grade and cheap... it's anything but excessive; maybe only in the screen size. https://www.thedrive.com/tech/39065/tesla-claims-failing-touchscreens-in-nhtsa-recall-were-only-meant-to-last-5-6-years-anyway https://www.thedrive.com/tech/39065/tesla-claims-failing-tou...
- missjellyfish 4y ago
  > Small boring self-driving cars, possibly collectively owned instead of big expensive individually owned cars often used as a proof of social status. So, a bus?
  - tremon 4y ago
    No, a taxi.
  - djmips 4y ago
    No not a bus, but maybe they could join together like a bus for long movements in the same direction.
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      This is how I see cargo transport going long term. Even if the individual units only self drive enough to rearrange themselves in private areas before being driven on roads by an actual human, it feels like that could be a 'cargo container' type revolution.
      - missjellyfish 4y ago
        I have a few more revolutionary ideas for this. First off, we need to get this environmentally clean. Obviously, this must all be electric. For last mile, battery electric is the obvious choice; however I think for main routes and highways some kind of wire system would be ideal. This could also charge the battery needed for the last mile or at truck stops and stuff. Next, we need to make sure that these self-driving units (SDUs) are always centered under that wire. Software would be an easy choice, but with the power delivery arm attached any failure would result in infrastructure destruction, so I'd propose a system of steel guards that force the wheels such that they can't escape the predefined envelope. Come to think about it, rubber-on-concrete is ridiculously bad when it comes to efficiency, so maybe the SDUs should have two sets of wheels, one for last mile and steel wheels for the much more favourable friction coefficient. Then we should couple these units together, because the combined traction force equalizes loads across the whole chain and makes for better acceleration of the linked units resulting in less traffic. Finally, we should equip these SDUs with a radio like GSM or something such that they can communicate with each other and drive in breaking distance, so we can increase the overall speed limit. Gosh, I wonder why nobody has thought of this before.
senectus1 4y ago
I love this concept. It just makes so much sense in an electric vehicle to have Axial/Hub motors, something I'd expect Tesla to lead on tbh. should have been in the "Make it less dumb" step.
- jonah 4y ago
  One motor her wheel but inboard like Rivian is a good idea. Hub motors on the other hand add a lot of unsprung weight and are not a good idea.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
metadat 4y ago
Why do EVs of the current age look so douchie? I wouldn't be caught dead in one. Tesla model S, X, and Y. All Lucid models. Mercedes and Ferraris. Why can't they look neutral? I want low-key, efficient, safe, and functional. And ideally more than 35 American miles of range.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  Look like bog-standard saloon cars. What's your issue?
  - metadat 4y ago
    I saw an E-Mercedes in my neighborhood today. It was half minivan, half future, with a full plastic front, mostly transparent with no ventilation. What the heck, just.. why? I experienced a visceral negative reaction, like seeing a stillborn child. What are the people who make and purchase these physical atrocities thinking? How do they sleep at night?
    - chrisseaton 4y ago
      I don’t know what ‘half future’ means. But they have plastic fronts for pedestrian crash safety and they can be full plastic unlike normal cars because they don’t need radiators. Same for ventilation - they don’t need cooling so no ventilation.
      - metadat 4y ago
        I wish I'd taken a picture. Pretty sure you'd agree and despise what's coming off the line.
- NotYourLawyer 4y ago
  I mean the Ferraris just look like... Ferraris. Tesla Model S looks like a pretty normal car to me, but I agree the Y is goofy looking. I dunno. If it's electric, I guess it's supposed to look futuristic. No accounting for taste.
oxfeed65261 4y ago
https://archive.ph/OMAs9 https://archive.ph/OMAs9
devnulll 4y ago
> Putting a motor on each wheel — or at least one on each axle — could translate into hair-raising EV driving performance. I don't understand this. My Plaid Tesla has a motor on each of the rear axles, and it's direct coupled to the wheel. The already are doing torque vectoring. Like all things in engineering, the trade-off's are critical. This article doesn't go at all into the pros/cons of the approach Tesla (and others) are doing as opposed to this approach. As a general rule, if Tesla isn't doing it already I suspect it's either not economically feasible, difficult to manufacture, or otherwise has drawbacks they've judged signifigant. ... with that said, bring on the competition. The whole world wins with every improvement to transport and electrification!
- bombcar 4y ago
  The idea of a motor on each wheel independent has obviously been considered, but what is often ignored is the sprung vs unsprung weight. You could develop a pretty amazing off-road vehicle with independent electric motors in each wheel, but it would be a relatively bumpy ride.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    > You could develop a pretty amazing off-road vehicle with independent electric motors in each wheel, but it would be a relatively bumpy ride. Military EV prototypes are considering wheels-in-hubs, because they have complex suspension and because of under-armour, but yeah it means the motor is basically un-suspended.
    - _carbyau_ 4y ago
      sprung vs unsprung is a ratio. These vehicles are likely heavy enough that electric motors in the wheels might not change that ratio much. And swap/repair would be convenient!
      - bombcar 4y ago
        And at something like 10k pounds empty, and with army dudes in the cab who nobody cares about getting bumped, it might be the way to go.
sorenjan 4y ago
If you're interested in these things, here's an article about Koenigsegg's electric motor: https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a38940998/koenigsegg-quark-electric-motor/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a38940998/koenigsegg-quark...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
fomine3 4y ago
Current motors are enough for public road non-tow performance. I don't see practical significant advantage.
- jabl 4y ago
  Sure, we all know the big bottleneck for EV's is the batteries. But there's a lot of individually tiny things that can be improved to make that battery last longer. Like high-strength steels, aluminum or even composite construction to save weight, aerodynamic improvements, low rolling resistance tires, and yes, light-weight high-efficiency motors like this article talks about. Could we make do with ye olde three-phase induction motor? Sure, that is an extremely good design, simple and yet pretty high efficiency and with a century-long track record. But if we can make something lighter-weight and with even better efficiency, why shouldn't we do it?
- chorsestudios 4y ago
  The weight reduction seems like a significant advantage
elif 4y ago
The perspective of this piece is a little suspicious: -ferrari still maintain that they will never produce electric cars -the concept of hub motors is a fad that has come and largely gone. Putting the motors inside the wheels leads to reliability concerns -motors with smaller diameter will need more power for the same performance of a larger diameter motor, and the battery is the heavy part Normally each of these i'd let slide as journalist ignorance but the combination makes this read like ICE propaganda to me.
- hooloovoo_zoo 4y ago
  Ferrari has no choice. They’ll eventually be banned on noise pollution grounds/ be too low performance to be considered super cars if they stick with internal combustion.
  - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
    Plaid's times around the Nurb show that when weight gets solved with solid state batteries, which is what all the high end cars will use, ICE won't be competitive. And while it's been a bit like fusion power, always a couple years away, enough is happening in solid state that it's probably happening in a couple years. Now, it might now be competitive in the mass market, where I believe sodium ion and LFP/LMFP/etc chemistries will dominate for probably a decade, but it will own the 100k+ car segment.
    - dncornholio 4y ago
      You mean, plaid has terrible Nordsleife performance? Overheating, super bad brakes and they run out of charge after 1 lap. Also, the lap-record of the plaid is not impressive at all compared to ICE. The plaid lap-time was not on a standard car. They had ceramic brakes which you cannot order from Tesla. There were probably more modifications done on the car. Also, a part from the weight, the range of EV vehicles seriously needs to go up to be competitive to ICE. Plaid's Nurb lap only showed how far behind these cars really are still.
      - 4y ago
domtom1 4y ago
Merc's and ferrari's big edge is r&d. F1 provides a lot of research for the batteries for the big companies who want to produce high hp ev's, Ferrari and Merc. Merc holds the world record of 1000km driven on a single charge. Its a concept car but still. They mention specifically that they used merc f1 engineers with also the help of the r&d of the f1 team. In the long run tesla will just be another car company with the big guys back on top because of this r&d from motorsport. Not just merc either eventually NASCAR will use hybrid v8s and companies like toyota, chevy, ford etc. will get all of this research and put it into real cars. This is speculation but its been happening with combustion engines for years. A lot of the reason for good MPG cars is motorsport. Here's the link for the WR EV Merc: https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterlyon/2022/04/13/world-record-mercedes-benz-vision-eqxx-travels-1000-km-on-a-single-charge/?sh=5dbbeea64796 https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterlyon/2022/04/13/world-reco...
numpad0 4y ago
Isn't this more about economically producing low-volume motors, than about designing in-wheel motors? Production process seen in the video looks way simpler, requiring far less jigs and process adjustments compared to more typical EV motors. I don't see Ferrari or performance cars divisions of Mercedes suddenly starting to ship 500hp motors at 10k units/year volume, so the production process would have to adjust according to their volumes, and to me this design seem to do just that.
- gpderetta 4y ago
  Apparently Ferrari shipped ~10k cars a year in last few years. And the lower models have about 500hp (Don't quote me on these numbers, it was just 5s of googling it). Still Ferrari is moving from being a small exotic sports car manufacturer to a more generic luxury car manufacturer.
rob74 4y ago
> All EVs offer the sensation of instant acceleration ...but of course luxury brands will happily charge you ten times more for that little bit of extra acceleration. Which also ensures future noob owners of Ferraris will keep crashing their eye-wateringly expensive cars (hopefully not causing others to get hurt in the process).
2sk21 4y ago
from the manufacturer's viewpoint the main problem with EVs is that there is much less scope for differentiation in the power train. Most manufacturers are going to be using similar battery technology. I think that motor technology will also become commoditized in due course. The only areas where manufacturers can genuinely differentiate themselves will be styling and software.
- texasbigdata 4y ago
  And aero performance? And materials? And reliability? And availability of support (and charging, although that will go away), and resale market depth/liquidity? And branding? And interior layouts (the Lincoln grotesque most recent model car as an example)? With features (the giant tesla glass sunroof)? With new innovation (further soundproofing)? With more efficiency (greater energy recapture on breaking)? I don't know, once there's 20 credible manufacturers in this space I bet they will compete in any way possible. Just like any other industry.
- gregoriol 4y ago
  Combustion engines haven't changed that much in the last 50 years, and most brands use similar designs. Rolls-Royce and Bentley have been using the same engine design for ages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce–Bentley_L-series_V8_engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce–Bentley_L-series_V...). Differentiation is not on one part.
- KaiserPro 4y ago
  Skoda, VW & Seat all use(d) the same base for their hot hatches. Its not uncommon.

96 points by Osiris30 4y ago

While I like the technology aspect, I am secretly rooting for expensive cars to become uncool. Small boring self-driving cars, possibly collectively owned instead of big expensive individually owned cars often used as a proof of social status.

mechanical_bear 4y ago
Why?
- it_citizen 4y ago
  Climate change reports are all pretty clear we need to move to smaller, less powerful cars to meet our climate pledges. And produce less of them. I think starting to see cars as a simple mean to go from A to B instead of a symbol of freedom, status or virility would really be a huge win. I also hope that on the long run it would help more city dwellers accept the idea of sharing cars instead of owning one. Collectively owned self driving cars could really help reshape our cities, reclame the insane amount of space we dedicate to roads and parking spots and funnel money into more public transit.
  - mansoorsayed 4y ago
    >Collectively owned self driving cars could really help reshape our cities, reclame the insane amount of space we dedicate to roads and parking spots and funnel money into more public transit. A collectively owned car that you don't have to drive yourself? Isn't that an existing and well known solution: public transportation?
    - discreteevent 4y ago
      There's a difference between time sharing and sharing at the same time.
  - throwawaylinux 4y ago
    I don't have a "climate pledge", nor do I need to move to a smaller or less powerful car or demand that anybody else change their lifestyle. What I will do is keep an eye on what the ultra-rich "experts" who seem to be most concerned about climate change do. When they give up their mansions and yachts and islands and private jets, eat bugs and teleconference to Bilderberg, that's when I might reconsider my lifestyle. Until then the signal from those experts is crystal clear: climate change is a non-issue. And I wouldn't want to risk being an expert-denier.
    - saagarjha 4y ago
      Yes, the best way to respond to a collective problem is wait for everyone else to do their part.
      - throwawaylinux 4y ago
        Not everybody else, just a tiny privileged minority. The self-proclaimed experts -- those who allegedly listen to the science, and have their finger on the pulse of the issue, and who are the most flagrantly wasteful polluters on the planet. I mean from their actions it's not even clear that there is a problem at all, is it? Do you deny their knowledge and expertise?
      - _carbyau_ 4y ago
        Not as hardcore as throwawaylinux about it but I can understand the idea of: - why am I voluntarily restricting what I can do so that others can have more leeway to do whatever they want? For my part, I ride a motorbike. I enjoy it, it uses less fuel, running costs etc than most cars. But I am not going to give it up while my neighbour's family in their multimillion dollar mansion drives 3x 2 ton+ SUVs around. A work colleague of mine bought a Dodge RAM 2500. To tow his boat and carry his multiple dirt bikes. I ignore people asking me to do more now. I do enough. Go after the worst offenders first.
        ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        > why am I voluntarily restricting what I can do so that others can have more leeway to do whatever they want? Because you refuse to vote for systemic change that would affect everyone positively?
  - threeseed 4y ago
    > Climate change reports are all pretty clear we need to move to smaller, less powerful cars to meet our climate pledges. And produce less of them. Might want to start then with Americans and their SUVs. Few orders of magnitude bigger issue than a few rich people and their supercars.
  - tdesilva 4y ago
    How do self-driving cars funnel money into public transport and and reclaim space? I think they're more likely to do the opposite. Seems silly to rely on self-driving to reduce emissions when we don't know how to build self-driving cars yet, but we do know how to build better public transit and design walkable cities.
MuffinFlavored 4y ago
> I am secretly rooting for expensive cars to become uncool. Are you also secretly rooting for yummy foods to uncool while bland foods take their place?
- tremon 4y ago
  Bland, generic foods have already taken the place of many yummy foods.
- syzar 4y ago
  Desiring uncoolness in one area does not imply such a desire in other areas and hypocrisy is not the only reason why this might be the case.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Not OP but I'm generally against Veblen goods and that applies to food and cars. Excellent target for taxation as that only makes them better status signals. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
nimbius 4y ago
call me a skeptic, I've worked in the auto industry as a heavy engine master tech for over 20 years, but the same luxury manufacturers who can't make a v8 that lasts longer than 60k miles without a recall or major defect are not qualified to skip class and start making Ev's. Mercedes rolled out the 250 largely because biturbo has been a loss leading qc dumpster fire for the last decade. Audi can barely handle infotainment that doesn't brick and reboot on a road trip and BMW has turned their technology package into a monthly milk truck that fleeces people for basics you get out the door from Toyota. if Tesla were to hit the ground with a car thats 10k less than the 3 in 2022 it would bury these gilded Lillie's from across the pond faster than the m5pvl gear in a 7 series punches out and seizes a 20k transmission.
- zeusk 4y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19800220 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19800220 is it a 7 series or some Japanese SUV? Also, if you're as experienced as you claim; You'd probably BMW does not make any transmissions. They've forever outsourced that to ZF or Getrag.
  - Kon-Peki 4y ago
    …and General Motors. Up until the ZF 8-speed, pretty much all the good automatic transmissions in BMWs were built by GM.
    - zeusk 4y ago
      zf6hp28 and getrag GS7 DCT were far better. GM was only better than the older 5 speed autos.
- alliao 4y ago
  what's a m5pvl gear?
- BoorishBears 4y ago
  > BMW has turned their technology package into a monthly milk truck that fleeces people for basics you get out the door from Toyota Someone who's so deeply embedded the the industry should know Toyota Connect is the same story, installing hardware in all models but only enabling it for subscribers.
alliao 4y ago
expensive cars are already uncool. except amongst oligarchs I don't think many would profess their love of car interiors from like.. Bentley and it's hand stitched unashamed whole piece leather interior? or the busyness of Porsche and it's thousand button centre console. It's all just so excessive, and excess is definitely uncool nowadays
- tdesilva 4y ago
  I profess that I like nice things, and buttons inside cars. If anything is excessive in modern cars, it's the size and amount of touchscreens, not the amount of buttons.
  - alliao 4y ago
    a touch screen that's not up to automotive grade and cheap... it's anything but excessive; maybe only in the screen size. https://www.thedrive.com/tech/39065/tesla-claims-failing-touchscreens-in-nhtsa-recall-were-only-meant-to-last-5-6-years-anyway https://www.thedrive.com/tech/39065/tesla-claims-failing-tou...
missjellyfish 4y ago
> Small boring self-driving cars, possibly collectively owned instead of big expensive individually owned cars often used as a proof of social status. So, a bus?
- tremon 4y ago
  No, a taxi.
- djmips 4y ago
  No not a bus, but maybe they could join together like a bus for long movements in the same direction.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    This is how I see cargo transport going long term. Even if the individual units only self drive enough to rearrange themselves in private areas before being driven on roads by an actual human, it feels like that could be a 'cargo container' type revolution.
    - missjellyfish 4y ago
      I have a few more revolutionary ideas for this. First off, we need to get this environmentally clean. Obviously, this must all be electric. For last mile, battery electric is the obvious choice; however I think for main routes and highways some kind of wire system would be ideal. This could also charge the battery needed for the last mile or at truck stops and stuff. Next, we need to make sure that these self-driving units (SDUs) are always centered under that wire. Software would be an easy choice, but with the power delivery arm attached any failure would result in infrastructure destruction, so I'd propose a system of steel guards that force the wheels such that they can't escape the predefined envelope. Come to think about it, rubber-on-concrete is ridiculously bad when it comes to efficiency, so maybe the SDUs should have two sets of wheels, one for last mile and steel wheels for the much more favourable friction coefficient. Then we should couple these units together, because the combined traction force equalizes loads across the whole chain and makes for better acceleration of the linked units resulting in less traffic. Finally, we should equip these SDUs with a radio like GSM or something such that they can communicate with each other and drive in breaking distance, so we can increase the overall speed limit. Gosh, I wonder why nobody has thought of this before.

senectus1 4y ago

I love this concept. It just makes so much sense in an electric vehicle to have Axial/Hub motors, something I'd expect Tesla to lead on tbh. should have been in the "Make it less dumb" step.

jonah 4y ago
One motor her wheel but inboard like Rivian is a good idea. Hub motors on the other hand add a lot of unsprung weight and are not a good idea.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

metadat 4y ago

Why do EVs of the current age look so douchie? I wouldn't be caught dead in one. Tesla model S, X, and Y. All Lucid models. Mercedes and Ferraris. Why can't they look neutral? I want low-key, efficient, safe, and functional. And ideally more than 35 American miles of range.

chrisseaton 4y ago
Look like bog-standard saloon cars. What's your issue?
- metadat 4y ago
  I saw an E-Mercedes in my neighborhood today. It was half minivan, half future, with a full plastic front, mostly transparent with no ventilation. What the heck, just.. why? I experienced a visceral negative reaction, like seeing a stillborn child. What are the people who make and purchase these physical atrocities thinking? How do they sleep at night?
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    I don’t know what ‘half future’ means. But they have plastic fronts for pedestrian crash safety and they can be full plastic unlike normal cars because they don’t need radiators. Same for ventilation - they don’t need cooling so no ventilation.
    - metadat 4y ago
      I wish I'd taken a picture. Pretty sure you'd agree and despise what's coming off the line.
NotYourLawyer 4y ago
I mean the Ferraris just look like... Ferraris. Tesla Model S looks like a pretty normal car to me, but I agree the Y is goofy looking. I dunno. If it's electric, I guess it's supposed to look futuristic. No accounting for taste.

oxfeed65261 4y ago

https://archive.ph/OMAs9 https://archive.ph/OMAs9

devnulll 4y ago

> Putting a motor on each wheel — or at least one on each axle — could translate into hair-raising EV driving performance. I don't understand this. My Plaid Tesla has a motor on each of the rear axles, and it's direct coupled to the wheel. The already are doing torque vectoring. Like all things in engineering, the trade-off's are critical. This article doesn't go at all into the pros/cons of the approach Tesla (and others) are doing as opposed to this approach. As a general rule, if Tesla isn't doing it already I suspect it's either not economically feasible, difficult to manufacture, or otherwise has drawbacks they've judged signifigant. ... with that said, bring on the competition. The whole world wins with every improvement to transport and electrification!

bombcar 4y ago
The idea of a motor on each wheel independent has obviously been considered, but what is often ignored is the sprung vs unsprung weight. You could develop a pretty amazing off-road vehicle with independent electric motors in each wheel, but it would be a relatively bumpy ride.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  > You could develop a pretty amazing off-road vehicle with independent electric motors in each wheel, but it would be a relatively bumpy ride. Military EV prototypes are considering wheels-in-hubs, because they have complex suspension and because of under-armour, but yeah it means the motor is basically un-suspended.
  - _carbyau_ 4y ago
    sprung vs unsprung is a ratio. These vehicles are likely heavy enough that electric motors in the wheels might not change that ratio much. And swap/repair would be convenient!
    - bombcar 4y ago
      And at something like 10k pounds empty, and with army dudes in the cab who nobody cares about getting bumped, it might be the way to go.

sorenjan 4y ago

If you're interested in these things, here's an article about Koenigsegg's electric motor: https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a38940998/koenigsegg-quark-electric-motor/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a38940998/koenigsegg-quark...

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fomine3 4y ago

Current motors are enough for public road non-tow performance. I don't see practical significant advantage.

jabl 4y ago
Sure, we all know the big bottleneck for EV's is the batteries. But there's a lot of individually tiny things that can be improved to make that battery last longer. Like high-strength steels, aluminum or even composite construction to save weight, aerodynamic improvements, low rolling resistance tires, and yes, light-weight high-efficiency motors like this article talks about. Could we make do with ye olde three-phase induction motor? Sure, that is an extremely good design, simple and yet pretty high efficiency and with a century-long track record. But if we can make something lighter-weight and with even better efficiency, why shouldn't we do it?
chorsestudios 4y ago
The weight reduction seems like a significant advantage

elif 4y ago

The perspective of this piece is a little suspicious: -ferrari still maintain that they will never produce electric cars -the concept of hub motors is a fad that has come and largely gone. Putting the motors inside the wheels leads to reliability concerns -motors with smaller diameter will need more power for the same performance of a larger diameter motor, and the battery is the heavy part Normally each of these i'd let slide as journalist ignorance but the combination makes this read like ICE propaganda to me.

hooloovoo_zoo 4y ago
Ferrari has no choice. They’ll eventually be banned on noise pollution grounds/ be too low performance to be considered super cars if they stick with internal combustion.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  Plaid's times around the Nurb show that when weight gets solved with solid state batteries, which is what all the high end cars will use, ICE won't be competitive. And while it's been a bit like fusion power, always a couple years away, enough is happening in solid state that it's probably happening in a couple years. Now, it might now be competitive in the mass market, where I believe sodium ion and LFP/LMFP/etc chemistries will dominate for probably a decade, but it will own the 100k+ car segment.
  - dncornholio 4y ago
    You mean, plaid has terrible Nordsleife performance? Overheating, super bad brakes and they run out of charge after 1 lap. Also, the lap-record of the plaid is not impressive at all compared to ICE. The plaid lap-time was not on a standard car. They had ceramic brakes which you cannot order from Tesla. There were probably more modifications done on the car. Also, a part from the weight, the range of EV vehicles seriously needs to go up to be competitive to ICE. Plaid's Nurb lap only showed how far behind these cars really are still.
    - 4y ago

domtom1 4y ago

Merc's and ferrari's big edge is r&d. F1 provides a lot of research for the batteries for the big companies who want to produce high hp ev's, Ferrari and Merc. Merc holds the world record of 1000km driven on a single charge. Its a concept car but still. They mention specifically that they used merc f1 engineers with also the help of the r&d of the f1 team. In the long run tesla will just be another car company with the big guys back on top because of this r&d from motorsport. Not just merc either eventually NASCAR will use hybrid v8s and companies like toyota, chevy, ford etc. will get all of this research and put it into real cars. This is speculation but its been happening with combustion engines for years. A lot of the reason for good MPG cars is motorsport. Here's the link for the WR EV Merc: https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterlyon/2022/04/13/world-record-mercedes-benz-vision-eqxx-travels-1000-km-on-a-single-charge/?sh=5dbbeea64796 https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterlyon/2022/04/13/world-reco...

numpad0 4y ago

Isn't this more about economically producing low-volume motors, than about designing in-wheel motors? Production process seen in the video looks way simpler, requiring far less jigs and process adjustments compared to more typical EV motors. I don't see Ferrari or performance cars divisions of Mercedes suddenly starting to ship 500hp motors at 10k units/year volume, so the production process would have to adjust according to their volumes, and to me this design seem to do just that.

gpderetta 4y ago
Apparently Ferrari shipped ~10k cars a year in last few years. And the lower models have about 500hp (Don't quote me on these numbers, it was just 5s of googling it). Still Ferrari is moving from being a small exotic sports car manufacturer to a more generic luxury car manufacturer.

rob74 4y ago

> All EVs offer the sensation of instant acceleration ...but of course luxury brands will happily charge you ten times more for that little bit of extra acceleration. Which also ensures future noob owners of Ferraris will keep crashing their eye-wateringly expensive cars (hopefully not causing others to get hurt in the process).

2sk21 4y ago

from the manufacturer's viewpoint the main problem with EVs is that there is much less scope for differentiation in the power train. Most manufacturers are going to be using similar battery technology. I think that motor technology will also become commoditized in due course. The only areas where manufacturers can genuinely differentiate themselves will be styling and software.

texasbigdata 4y ago
And aero performance? And materials? And reliability? And availability of support (and charging, although that will go away), and resale market depth/liquidity? And branding? And interior layouts (the Lincoln grotesque most recent model car as an example)? With features (the giant tesla glass sunroof)? With new innovation (further soundproofing)? With more efficiency (greater energy recapture on breaking)? I don't know, once there's 20 credible manufacturers in this space I bet they will compete in any way possible. Just like any other industry.
gregoriol 4y ago
Combustion engines haven't changed that much in the last 50 years, and most brands use similar designs. Rolls-Royce and Bentley have been using the same engine design for ages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce–Bentley_L-series_V8_engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce–Bentley_L-series_V...). Differentiation is not on one part.
KaiserPro 4y ago
Skoda, VW & Seat all use(d) the same base for their hot hatches. Its not uncommon.