Putting motors in wheels lightens vehicles and shrinks batteries
of the motor industry one of its pioneers, Ferdinand Porsche, caused a sensation at the Paris World Fair in 1900 with a vehicle driven by a pair of electric motors incorporated into its front wheels. This arrangement allowed the Lohner-Porsche to dispense with cumbersome belts, chains and gears. It was thus able to nip along at a heady 35kph for up to 50km after its lead-acid batteries had been charged up.
Porsche, like other carmakers of the time, eventually turned to the internal-combustion engine for greater range and flexibility. His eponymous firm went on to build some of the fastest sports cars around. But despite the fact that electric vehicles are now returning to the road with a vengeance, the idea of using “in-wheel” motors of the sort Porsche pioneered has failed to follow suit.
Reduced vehicle weight means also that the propulsive motors do not need to be as powerful as those of conventional electric cars—especially as the task of propulsion is divided four ways between them. Nor are any gears involved, for the motors turn only as fast as the vehicle’s wheels, which is a relatively low speed for an electric motor and further reduces its need to be powerful. That translates to a low voltage because the power of such a motor is a product of voltage and current .
All this frees up space elsewhere in the vehicle, allowing an electric car to be designed from scratch to be more efficient and therefore cheaper to run. Other benefits also come from lightness. A smaller battery can be topped up more effectively by the regenerative braking built into the module, as well as being faster to recharge when plugged into the mains. Indigo has tried the1 out on prototype cars redesigned to be more aerodynamic.
Indigo is talking to carmakers and components firms and hopes, by the end of the year, to land its first production contract. Dr Hemond expects particular interest from firms developing ride-sharing and autonomous vehicles. The sort of small, sleek vehicles or personal-mobility pods which such in-wheel drive systems might inspire would be a world away from the perambulatory Lohner-Porsche. But they would have made Porsche himself wonder what might have been had he stuck with the electric motor.
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