Tuning an electric car...?
Discussion
I guess it would be like RC cars on a larger scale - more exotic motors, higher current speed controllers with lots of mapping options and (at more expense) improved battery packs. The range thing is interesting - you could just tell the car how far you need to go and the shorter the trip, the more power it would make available. You could crawl 100 miles or drag race to the postbox at the end of the road!
If you had a diddle with the drive circuits i imagine its possible
Also there are some shockingly quick electric cars out there like white zombie and black current
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqTY9y3cECI&fea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tay2jfHsfZo&fea...
Fast forward to 1:05
But i'd prefer a petrol fun car and an electric commuter
Also there are some shockingly quick electric cars out there like white zombie and black current
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqTY9y3cECI&fea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tay2jfHsfZo&fea...
Fast forward to 1:05
But i'd prefer a petrol fun car and an electric commuter
Not being familiar at all with RC cars I'll take your word on it! Interesting idea though as you said; a fast short drive or a slow long one. I do similar when traveling today. Do I drive faster and have more fun/possibly get ther quicker, or slower & be bored s
tless but get better mpg/save money?
How hard is modding these RC cars, and can full size car modding be replicated & affordable?
tless but get better mpg/save money?How hard is modding these RC cars, and can full size car modding be replicated & affordable?
It's easily possible to recalibrate the control units within a hybrid car. Bump up Phase and DC bus current limits, ignore battery system + inverter + traction motor thermal limits.
And just like for a conventional IC engined car, the drawbacks in robustness and reliability will be readily apparent. But instead of a blown turbo, or cracked piston, you will have fry'd IGBT's, melted windings, demag'd rotors, and a battery that looses it's capacity significantly everytime you use it.
Assuming that the entire point of an electric car is ultimate efficiency, making it un-efficient is really a rather pointless exercise!
And just like for a conventional IC engined car, the drawbacks in robustness and reliability will be readily apparent. But instead of a blown turbo, or cracked piston, you will have fry'd IGBT's, melted windings, demag'd rotors, and a battery that looses it's capacity significantly everytime you use it.
Assuming that the entire point of an electric car is ultimate efficiency, making it un-efficient is really a rather pointless exercise!
Max_Torque said:
I And just like for a conventional IC engined car, the drawbacks in robustness and reliability will be readily apparent. But instead of a blown turbo, or cracked piston, you will have fry'd IGBT's, melted windings, demag'd rotors, and a battery that looses it's capacity significantly everytime you use it.
I overloaded a bosch 14.4V battery with sustained heavy drilling, the resultant explosion and fire didn't leave much. The initial explosion blew the battery case apart and sent parts more than 20 yards. It's only the fact it blew out the bottom that happened to be pointing away from me that I wasn't seriously hurt. It only takes a slightly dodgy solder on one of the cell connectors, high resistance joint gets hot, gases expand in the sealed cell or casing..... and you have a bomb. OddJoe said:
Not being familiar at all with RC cars I'll take your word on it! Interesting idea though as you said; a fast short drive or a slow long one. I do similar when traveling today. Do I drive faster and have more fun/possibly get ther quicker, or slower & be bored stless but get better mpg/save money?
How hard is modding these RC cars, and can full size car modding be replicated & affordable?
Usually when modding an RC car with, say, a more exotic motor, its a case of complete recplacement. Whilst this is a 5 minute £50-80 job on a racing RC car I should imagine it will quickly become expensive on a full-size car with huge motors in each wheel.tless but get better mpg/save money?How hard is modding these RC cars, and can full size car modding be replicated & affordable?
Ditto for upgrading the battery packs.
Electrical stuff has always been a case of replacement to upgrade rather than fettling the existing unit.
Blimey! Sod that kind of risk taking! I have to agree that the idea of 'tuning' what is meant to be an economical car is somewhat skewed however with the recent Twizy articles and the discussion about youths buying & using these types of EV's potentially, I was interested in whether or not a tuning 'scene' would evolve around them, as it once did in the 90's Max Power days.
Don't get me wrong; most of the MP style cars were hideous but at least it got young people interested in cars. All the young people I know view a car as a tool, nothing more. As they earn more money they simple buy a nicer/more expensive tool, with no actual interest or passion behind the purchase. Such a shame I think. It was MP that got me into cars as a young teenager, that caused me to obsess about passing my test and getting my, at the time, dream car; a Fiat Uno Turbo i.e.
I got it too, eventually. A little rocket on the straights but wasn't too fun in the corners. That & the Renault 5GTT were the order of the day, although I sadly lost a friend due to their tinfoil construction.
Back OT, so I guess it is possible then, & with the congested nature of our road network maybe the instant torque & an electric motor's acceleration might entice people back into cars...
Don't get me wrong; most of the MP style cars were hideous but at least it got young people interested in cars. All the young people I know view a car as a tool, nothing more. As they earn more money they simple buy a nicer/more expensive tool, with no actual interest or passion behind the purchase. Such a shame I think. It was MP that got me into cars as a young teenager, that caused me to obsess about passing my test and getting my, at the time, dream car; a Fiat Uno Turbo i.e.
I got it too, eventually. A little rocket on the straights but wasn't too fun in the corners. That & the Renault 5GTT were the order of the day, although I sadly lost a friend due to their tinfoil construction.
Back OT, so I guess it is possible then, & with the congested nature of our road network maybe the instant torque & an electric motor's acceleration might entice people back into cars...
OddJoe said:
& with the congested nature of our road network maybe the instant torque & an electric motor's acceleration might entice people back into cars...
Current EV's without multispeed gearboxes may well have "instant torque" but they don't have "instant power" which is what really matters. Unlike any other car in production for example, a Chevy Volt/ Vauxhall Ampera can't actually produce it's full ~120kW below approx 40mph........Adding to the informed points already raised I imagine 'tuning' electric cars will mostly be as dull as those overclocking PCs. I picture a community of dull people worried mostly about magical cooling compounds and thermal control and with not much real engineering between them - then the effort trying desperately to find a use for the result that justifies the effort.
Huff said:
Adding to the informed points already raised I imagine 'tuning' electric cars will mostly be as dull as those overclocking PCs. I picture a community of dull people worried mostly about magical cooling compounds and thermal control and with not much real engineering between them - then the effort trying desperately to find a use for the result that justifies the effort.
That does sound an awful lot like the car tuning scene these days. 
OddJoe said:
Aaah, I see. Somewhat misleading advertising/articles then about the nature of the 'performance' EV poowertrain. I remember the Tesla was heavily publicised as having immediate access to xx lb ft of torque at 0 RPM, which of course sounds great.
Hmmm..
The Tesla was orginally going to be fitted with a 2 speed transmission to allow it to accelerate to 60 more rapidly. Though most owners would just leave the car in second most of the time.Hmmm..
Essentially most battery packs would be able to provide more power than the motor is capable of handling so your tuning would be to put in a more powerfull inverter and motor. For something like a Tesla tuning is somewhat more difficult as the motor is already very high performance and the limiting factor is the motor cooling even with the exisiting set up running at full power for extended periods of time will overheat the motor and the car will put a limit on the motor current.
The reason most battery packs are not "Power limiting" is due to the poor energy density of the current battery chemisty. Hence, in order to get a reasonable range (large kWh), you end up with a massive number of individual cells. In order to limit both the maximum battery output voltage and the total number of series cells (that need individual monitoring which adds cost), you will therefore end up with a significant number of parallel "strings". This results in a low overall battery ESR and hence a high peak battery power.
Unfortunately, as battery chemisty improves and specific energy density rises, the ultimate power capability of the battery systems could actually fall. On top of all that, the peak power capability that is utilised from an EV battery is generally only limited by the durability concerns of the manufacturer. Aftermarket "tweakers" are going to have very very little info or previous knowledge on just how much you can push these limits before your customers run into issues!
Unfortunately, as battery chemisty improves and specific energy density rises, the ultimate power capability of the battery systems could actually fall. On top of all that, the peak power capability that is utilised from an EV battery is generally only limited by the durability concerns of the manufacturer. Aftermarket "tweakers" are going to have very very little info or previous knowledge on just how much you can push these limits before your customers run into issues!
OddJoe said:
Aaah, I see. Somewhat misleading advertising/articles then about the nature of the 'performance' EV poowertrain. I remember the Tesla was heavily publicised as having immediate access to xx lb ft of torque at 0 RPM, which of course sounds great.
Hmmm..
Whats the issue? Electric motors can produce huge torque at zero revs, and across the range.Hmmm..
The only advantage an IC car has over electric (at the moment) is the energy density, and speed of fueling. The motors themselves are far superior.
Edited by 98elise on Friday 13th April 13:01
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