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Domain: tech-m4.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to tech-m4.com.

Comments · 6

  1. Re:chewbacca's flux capacitor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Toshiba's One-Minute-Recharge Li-ion Batteries

    Wheel motors: ~97% efficient. http://www.tech-m4.com/eng/tm4transport/moto_wheel motor/

  2. Re:chewbacca's flux capacitor by gnuman99 · · Score: 4, Informative · on Toshiba's One-Minute-Recharge Li-ion Batteries
    Drive train? What? Electic cars have motors in the wheels. Well, at least true electric cars. The motors and bearings are sealed. The maintenance is virtually nothing.

    Electric motors bring true 4x4 power to cars. Don't know how that can be done? Look here about Variable Speed Drives http://www.psnh.com/Business/SmallBusiness/Motor.a sp

    Now about recharging, well, true, it will be hell of a lot of current on the battery cells. But that does NOT mean a lot of current in the input. If you want to recharge a 100Ah 24V battery, that's about 24*100=2.4kWh and recharge in 1 minute, you need to provide

    • 6000A @ 24V
    • 1200A @ 120V
    • 300A @ 480V
    • 30A @ 5kV

    ASIDE: Motor effiency is >>95%, not some 70% crap. Even if you have have physical gears, you get >90% efficiency for the entire drive train. http://www.tech-m4.com/eng/tm4transport/moto_centr almotor/

    The answer is high voltage input and it can be done. Especially in the US/Canada where power is distributed at high votage (ie. no need to worry about melting transmission lines).

    Anyway, the battery cannot be recharged this way because the wires feeding the battery would melt, although more research in superconductors could fix this problem.

  3. Re:Oh puLEASe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Dutch Invention Uses Electric Engines For Wheels

    And more recently, companies like tm4 are developping these since the early nineties.

  4. Re:indeed by pfournier · · Score: 1 · on Dutch Invention Uses Electric Engines For Wheels

    You can find more information about Hydro-Quebec's motor-wheel from their subsidiary's site: http://www.tech-m4.com/index_en.html

  5. It was already invented by HydroQuebec in the 90s by hyperman.biz · · Score: 1 · on Dutch Invention Uses Electric Engines For Wheels

    We even saw a demonstration on tv with the minister of energy trying a car retrofit with 4 motor wheel.

    The invention was almost forgoten because the main inventor left the lab over a dispute with Hydro and his team disolved.
    But it's now commercialized by a division of Hydro Quebec called tm4. You can see it here: http://www.tech-m4.com/eng/tm4transport/moto_wheel motor/

  6. Re:Hydro Quebec had worked on that long ago by madumas · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Dutch Invention Uses Electric Engines For Wheels

    They are selling the motor-wheel, you can find more information about it on the web site of a Hydro-Quebec subsidary M4.

    The project of building a complete car from scratch was abandonned because it needs massive investments. They figured it would be easier to find partners and license this technology. GM bought a license.

    Another reason why they prefer licensing the technology is that is may be not a great idea to put all this weight in the wheel. Taking a bump could easily destroy the suspension.