Electric cars can use AC or DC motors:
* If the motor is a DC motor, then it may run on anything from 96 to 192 volts. Many of the DC motors used in electric cars come from the electric forklift industry.
* If it is an AC motor, then it probably is a three-phase AC motor running at 240 volts AC with a 300 volt battery pack.
DC installations tend to be simpler and less expensive. A typical motor will be in the 20,000-watt to 30,000-watt range. A typical controller will be in the 40,000-watt to 60,000-watt range (for example, a 96-volt controller will deliver a maximum of 400 or 600 amps). DC motors have the nice feature that you can overdrive them (up to a factor of 10-to-1) for short periods of time. That is, a 20,000-watt motor will accept 100,000 watts for a short period of time and deliver 5 times its rated horsepower. This is great for short bursts of acceleration. The only limitation is heat build-up in the motor. Too much overdriving and the motor heats up to the point where it self-destructs.
AC installations allow the use of almost any industrial three-phase AC motor, and that can make finding a motor with a specific size, shape or power rating easier. AC motors and controllers often have a regen feature. During braking, the motor turns into a generator and delivers power back to the batteries.
Right now, the weak link in any electric car is the batteries. There are at least six significant problems with current lead-acid battery technology:
* They are heavy (a typical lead-acid battery pack weighs 1,000 pounds or more).
* They are bulky (the car we are examining here has 50 lead-acid batteries, each measuring roughly 6" x 8" by 6").
* They have a limited capacity (a typical lead-acid battery pack might hold 12 to 15 kilowatt-hours of electricity, giving a car a range of only 50 miles or so).
* They are slow to charge (typical recharge times for a lead-acid pack range between four to 10 hours for full charge, depending on the battery technology and the charger).
* They have a short life (three to four years, perhaps 200 full charge/discharge cycles).
* They are expensive (perhaps $2,000 for the battery pack shown in the sample car).
No comments:
Post a Comment