New activity on electric cars

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    Many people are working very hard to make electric vehicles a viable alternative to the super efficient IC powered cars that we rely on
    Two area's are being targeted one being the motors and controls and these have gone ahead in leaps and bounds and the power out of electric motors today are far distant from motors of twenty years ago

    This is a new design which appears to further improve that sector

    New Atlas
    Equipmake's spoke motor significantly boosts torque and sustained power output while being smaller, lighter and cheaper to manufacture than an equivalent standard IPM motor(Credit: Equipmake)

    It comes in the form of an electric motor that has its magnets arranged like spokes around the central hub, and Foley claims it offers superior torque, power density and cooling capabilities in a package that's smaller and cheaper to manufacture than a standard motor.
    "Most of the radial flux permanent magnet motors that are out there in automotive have the magnets arranged in a very shallow V-shape in laminations around the hub," This was a design that Toyota ran with 20 years ago with the Prius. Effectively, everybody's gone with similar versions of that design


    Hence, electric motors have two power figures: how much they can put out flat out (peak power) and how much they can sustain without eventually overheating and needing to shut down (continuous power)

    The other more important area is that of a reliable light quick recharging power source or generator to replace the existing units which are still relegating the cars to toys for rich boys.

    Most batteries are made up of a cathode on one side and an anode on the other, with a nonconducting separator between them. Now, engineers at Cornell University have developed an unusual new structure that intertwines the components together in a swirling shape, which they say lets the device recharge in a matter of seconds.
    The Cornell team's new battery architecture is based on a complex, porous shape known as a gyroid, which has previously been used to make the most of the 2D wonder material graphene.
    As promising as it seems, the team acknowledges that the new design isn't without its flaws. While the battery is charging and discharging, the sulfur expands but the PEDOT layer doesn't, so the latter will gradually wear away over time.

    New Atlas
    Last edited by kingpins: 23/05/18
 
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