This is the future of electric cars...

[Spittybug]

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2013/12/24/protean-electric-in-wheel-motors-rolling-toward-production/?intcmp=HPBucket

Finally, someone that has figured out that a rotating wheel can be altered to be the actual motor..... keeping everything clean will be one issue as will the additional unsprung weight being tough on the handling. The simplicity that this brings to electric cars however is a good thing and should lead to easier retrofits. And the HP is impressive.

Keep you eye on this....

[Bitsyncmaster]

I love the idea. You can even get all four wheels to drive if needed.

[Citizen]

This in-wheel electric motor technology is an unbelievably good idea. Weight reduction is important for any car, but more so for electric ones. There would be other benifits too, like traction control, and all-wheel drive. And I didn't read this in the article, but I believe this idea could be capitalized on, by incorporating reduced weight re-genrative bakes somewhere in the electric-drive as well.

If this technology is only a few years from production, I would wait until then before giving up my carbon fuel powered cars for electric.

Thomas

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[Jim D]

Looks great, just stay away from water that can reach the rotor.

[eagle-co94]

I think this would be great for trucks and vehicles with mediocre handling, but all that unsprung weight will really mess with a normal to performance level cars abilities. I like where the thinking is going, to be able to adapt any car to a hybrid. I'd love to have a few hundred extra lb-ft of torque at each wheel for launches!

[LEVY]

This is not new technology, been working on those motors for over 10 years but, on different vehicles.

It might be new on passenger cars.

LEVY

[DMC5180]

My employer donated NC router machine time to a group of Collage Students from the University of Minnesota to fabricate mold plug for the body of a A Solar car they were building. They brought the completed car to my work this past fall to show it off and explain the technology that went into it. IIRC it used a version of Protean In-wheel motors also. I don't remember if they used just 2 rear drivers or all 4.

[Jim D]

I believe this technology is already in use on some electric wheelchairs. The wheels are detachable and are really power assist wheels for a wheelchair.

[mike3112]

Ferdinand Porsche introduced this 110 YEARS AGO in a car he called Semper Vivus. And it was a hybrid to boot. He also put it in a race car as well.

As far as weight in the wheel goes, It's not the absolute weight of the wheel that affects handling, it's the RATIO of sprung to unsprung weight that matters. Since you'd have to be hauling around 1000 lbs of batteries more or less, adding say, an extra 20-50 lbs to each wheel may not be that detrimental. It's never going to be as nimble as say a Delorean (heehee) , but it may not be all that bad.

IMHO, the whole wheel weight issue goes away when your road is smooth at least. For example, my escalade takes turns like it's on rails (fat tires help) , as long as the pavement is perfectly smooth. Hit a bump, or a pothole repair and it handles, well, like an Escalade.

[rdarlington]

This is not new technology, been working on those motors for over 10 years but, on different vehicles.

It might be new on passenger cars.

LEVY

Yeah, we did this on an EV project at upenn.edu ~ 15 years ago and it wasn't a new idea then.

-Bob

[Exolis]

I think the main engineering challenge is to make it durable and reliable while cost effective enough to have this in an affordable car.

Having a connection to a 2 Axis system that is going to be going through hell and back, with it maintaining a clean connection where the wires are undamaged is going to be nuts. Then having the motor and other electronics in the wheel where it's essentially receiving all incoming vibrations is going to be a huge achievement in itself if they plan on having it last at least 10 years.

It will also require one hella impressive Controller Module that will be able to maintain equal speeds in all 4 wheels. The idea sounds simple, but when you factor in things like Hysteresis, resistances of the connectors and condition of the Motors, it becomes a hot mess of variables. Good thing they have a few PhDs on board.

[rdarlington]

Yep, did that too. Again, 15 years ago.

That said, the motors we used were $10k a pop and not very realistic for most people to pull off.