One of the main features of any vehicle is that it provides a great amount of driving range between the different parts of the car which allows for more speed than you would be able to reach with your hands. This can be achieved thanks to an electric power system called a hub motor. A lot of vehicles use hub motors but there are two main types of them which are used in most vehicles: the stationary type which is also known as a fan stator or flywheel that spins on the fly (the name comes from the fact that this type of motor is powered by electricity), and the rotary type which is called asynchronous stator which spins on its own axis. Let’s take some time to find out what they do, how they operate, and some other useful data such as their current price and whether they are reliable.
What does a Hub Motor?
A well-known thing about all electrical systems is that they make sense only when they have very low power consumption, otherwise they have very high power consumption. So, if we want to get a low power consumption motor then just using one of those small motors is not going to be enough, so we need to think about developing something powerful enough to drive the car’s engine or a bike’s engine for example. That is the end of today’s article and I hope that it provides you with the information needed to start exploring the world of electric vehicles. If you are interested in making your own vehicle electrically powered, then keep reading the next article because it will provide you with all the basic details about making your motor work properly and about developing whatever kind of motor you want it to be. So let’s begin.
Types Of Hub Motors Used In Vehicles
Hub motors come in three major varieties, namely: rotor, stator, and synchronous stators. These are also considered to be different types of motors or electrical motors as they share some common properties (like power consumption) and differences (like their shape).
The first, rotor, type of motor is characterized by a rotor. They spin on their axis and produce power through an external source like a battery or solar charger to generate electricity for the entire vehicle (e.g. battery-powered vehicles have a rotor motor with a stator motor inside of them, while the internal batteries serve as stators). When we talk about a pure rotor motor, we mean that the rotor never moves. But in case we speak about the fact that power gets generated from spinning shafts, it means that the rotor motor generates power only at some point in its movement (usually only its endpoint which happens to be its axis of rotation). Now, as an analogy to the helicopter on which the rotor is attached, we may say that a pure rotational motor is similar to a winged rotor helicopter which produces some power each time it turns around (and of course can turn around and land too), whereas asynchronous stator motor is similar to a propeller generator. It makes use of the same electrical components that make a winged helicopter, such as the air inlet, wing blades, and some others. Another difference is that asynchronous stator motor spins on its axis and makes use of an internal battery to get power, whereas a rotor motor uses an external source (a battery), which usually becomes the source of energy for the whole vehicle, like a solar charger for example.
The second kind is the stator motor, which is similar (but not exactly identical) to the asynchronous stator motor but makes use of a gearbox. In order to generate electricity, the stator motor spins faster than the asynchronous stator motor. As a result, it doesn’t really require much energy for making a smooth movement. On the contrary, synchronous stators generate energy by turning slower than the rotor motor, which makes them quite cheap to manufacture and therefore very attractive for mass production. An advantage of these motors is that they produce less noise than the rotor motors. Moreover, the synchronization between the rotor and stator motors helps in reducing wear on the rotor motor shaft and can significantly reduce the noise level of each one of them. All things considered, both types of motor can produce pretty well, with no tradeoffs, although that depends on many factors (e.g., one of them has to be stronger in order for the whole vehicle to have more power than the others).
The third kind of motor, called synchronous stators, offers higher speeds than rotational motors and can produce large amounts of power. Furthermore, they are cheaper and easier to manufacture and use as compared to rotor motors. This is why all three kinds of motors, rotor, stator, and synchronous stators, can make sense to power cars, bikes, and even planes.
The Current Price And Reliability Of Hub Motor
Hub motors are among the cheapest motors available by far. In comparison to the price of inverter motors, which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, hub motors cost almost nothing. You can see this because they have relatively simple structures (rotors), relatively easy installation, and relatively very stable operation. Here we are talking about a standard unit to which you should not only purchase the motor itself, but also the adapter. It serves as the connector between your motor and the equipment for converting the signal from your motor into electricity (e.g. lights to electricity). Although we may imagine a single motor being sold separately by itself, here we are talking about a special version of the same motor where all components of the motor have been integrated into a special package. So it is possible to buy a single motor and separate the adapter, hence saving money. There are currently several companies selling hubs motors, but none of them offer a wide variety of models. The good news for people who intend to use hubs motors for their own vehicles is that there are already multiple companies offering hubs motors in various configurations for which you are free to choose any of them, such as KVM (Kilowatt Mobility), STB Motors (Stirling Track Ball), ZF Friedrichshafen AG and AB Volvo Group. Apart from these, there are newer players coming up that offer customers a wider variety of options. For example, in 2016 the company Leclanché International started producing a brand new model of a hub motor, and, later on, another model was developed, which the company announced recently. I expect that these products will bring innovation and a more affordable product to the market. Therefore, we must wait and see which ones of these brands are adopted by manufacturers, but until now one might consider that hubs motors are still very expensive. Nevertheless, given that we have seen the price of a wide range of hub motors, I am not sure that hubs motors are very expensive in comparison with inverters, it seems rather likely that they are less expensive.
Conclusion
We have explored some important aspects of hubs motors and we have learned a bit about how they function, what they produce and how they are compatible with each other. We also met a device that is able to convert the input from our motor to electricity, which can be used on the ground by the vehicle and which costs almost nothing in terms of cost and complexity. Additionally, we also found out that hubs motors are becoming increasingly popular among vehicle manufacturers, and in addition, we saw a few examples of hubs motors used by other automakers. Both types of motors are also relatively cheap but the main challenge is choosing a suitable motor depending on individual needs that must be taken into account before buying and planning your road trip. To recap, our objective in this article was to learn about the most commonly used motors (rotary, stator, and synchronous) and to understand if there are any significant differences between these motors. We also looked into the current prices and reliability of hubs motors both individually and in combination with the rest of motors and concluded that indeed hub motors are not extremely pricey in comparison with other types of motors, but they do not seem to be particularly cheap either in combination with other types (except maybe with regard to synchronous stators). Besides, we would like to know if there are specific motor brands that we must watch for in order to get the best value for our bucks. So let us resume the analysis we began with after finding out about the different types of motors.
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