Motor

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Thermal Management 2020

Peter Donaldson reports on the methods and materials for keeping EV batteries and other components in their optimum temperature range. Thermal management is the art and science of moving heat energy around to keep various components of a vehicle – and its occupants – at safe, efficient and comfortable working...

Digest

Workhorse Group C-Series

Rory Jackson details the development of these electric delivery vans, which have been designed and built from the ground up. The Workhorse Group designs and builds battery-electric medium-duty trucks, and earlier this year it started production of its C-Series vans...

Dossier

Liebherr ETM Series

Developing these all-electric cement mixer trucks has meant blending the bespoke with the off-the-shelf. Rory Jackson reports. The conventional cement truck is a diesel-powered vehicle that spends much of each working day at a standstill. However, whether it is having concrete...

Grid

Dyno development

For ICE powertrain companies looking to transition into e-powertrain engineering, the construction of the new test cells poses on of the biggest cost-barrier to entry, writes Rory Jackson. High-speed dynamometers and test benches capable of measuring the performances of e-motors are inevitably pricey, and many such companies already possess significant testing equipment for cycling combustion […]

Focus on...

Measuring methods and equipment

New component measurement technologies are complementing traditional methods, and are now being integrated into EV production lines, writes Peter Donaldson. Metrology methods and equipment used in the manufacture of EVs are no different in principle from those applied to IC- engined ones, but their powertrains are built using a different set of...

Deep Insight

EMI

Nick Flaherty explains the different ways of protecting against EMI in EV platforms, and why it needs to be considered from the earliest stages of system design. Essentially there are only three ways to handle electromagnetic interference (EMI) – don’t produce it, filter it out or shield from it. These options lead to a wide range of design trade-offs in e-mobility designs, from the power systems through the...

Digest

vRbikes vR3

Rory Jackson looks at how this three-wheeler has been designed to carry as much cargo as possible in the smallest footprint possible. Given that an electric powertrain brings with it lower maintenance times and costs compared with ICE powertrains, so more and more EV developers are looking to ‘right-size’ their vehicles into smaller and more compact architectures, for ease of use and...

In Conversation

Henrik Fisker

Fisker Inc's founder tells Stewart Mitchell why the company's first car will be a mass-market, all-electric SUV. For the past few decades, automotive designer and entrepreneur Henrik Fisker has been working on high-performance luxury sportscars and unique coach-builds...

Dossier

Elaphe L1500 in-wheel motor

The L1500 has been designed to enable it to be used in a wide range of OEM EVs and HEVs. Rory Jackson reports on how it was developed. Slovenian company Elaphe is known in the e-mobility industry for its in-wheel propulsion technology, which is used in a range of automotive applications around the...

Deep Insight

Power and torque density

How do you choose the most suitable type of motor for a given application? Peter Donaldson gets some expert input. One of the many challenges facing the developers of the BB Green ferry project was finding an electric propulsion motor of sufficient power, power-to-weight ratio, compactness and...