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Michelin Develops Revolutionary Active Wheel for Electric Cars
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| posts about #electricmotors more → |
Michelin Develops Revolutionary Active Wheel for Electric Cars |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
11/30/08
As for tires, I don't want anything fancy. I just want every car to use tires that won't go flat. Can we not do that in the 21st century?
11/30/08
11/30/08
Transitive property says electric motors in wheel would be a bad thing.
Also, it's important to remember that electric cars cause absolutely no pollution. Electricity comes from magical electricity fairies.
11/30/08
But if you want to call and ask them I still have their phone number.
11/30/08
If costs of each wheel are low enough to allow all 4 wheels of a car to use such a motor, you've got yourself an AWD system, each able to move at it's own independent speed (or brake independently) which, with the right software, can bring electronic stability control to the masses.
The downside is that in an accident that destroys a wheel you're looking at a costly repair.
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Once this starts to actually hit the road I would be surprised if this doesn't accelerate the adoption rate of hybrid and/or plugin EV cars. Wheel-centric engines will decrease parasitic losses in the drive-train and have an interesting trade-off on maintenance (there will be fewer major parts in the system, but there will be 4x the number of systems that need maintenance), however the modular design may mean that if one of your wheel/motors breaks you can just go to the dealer and swap out for a loaner one on your car until they fix the one that went bad...
Imagine the customization options though if these became standardized across several manufacturers, you could essentially choose the car you wanted, the engines you wanted and the battery/hybrid setup you wanted, and mix&match those three components (unlikely to become that standardized I know, but would be cool to have the option even within the product range of a single manufacturer)...
Also, imagine being able to change the power-delivery of your vehicle depending on driving conditions, AWD, FWD, RWD potentially all at the touch of a button, and you would still get the regenerative breaking charge from all four wheels.
Interesting stuff.
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Heavier unsprung weight makes it harder for the wheel to follow the irregularities in the roads surface, thanks to good ol' inertial. A lighter wheel assembly, including brake discs, bearings and assorted baggage, means the wheel can change direction faster.
That's important because a wheel that isn't on the ground isn't steering or stopping your car. (Well, acceleration is fun, too.)
12/01/08