Can you map and EV?
Discussion
It’s a different world for sure.
That said, there has been an emerging market for boosted Priuses (sp?) here in the US and it’s pretty interesting in a techie way. Changed motors and charging systems etc. Toyota doesn’t seem to care too much, so it’s game on!
Tesla does though. They might have sold the most EV’s but they are also into locking features and selling subscriptions now. And they don’t want you to do anything to their cars. Rich Rebuilds on YouTube leaned the hard way and while salvage rebuilds are a different area, it’s clearer that they don’t want customization. That said they did upgrade a Model 3 from RWD to FWD. so it’s possible but don’t expect it to last. Tesla will disable high speed charging if they find out, effectively limiting the usefulness of the car.
Let’s see what other manufacturers do though. But I suspect suspension and brakes are the way to go first though. But give it a few years and we might see something. That said some manufacturers are slowing upgrades. BMW for example will upgrade batteries and there is emerging market for this already. Early i3’s are getting the bigger batteries and it won’t be long before you can upgrade the motors too!!! Could be an interesting world.
That said, there has been an emerging market for boosted Priuses (sp?) here in the US and it’s pretty interesting in a techie way. Changed motors and charging systems etc. Toyota doesn’t seem to care too much, so it’s game on!
Tesla does though. They might have sold the most EV’s but they are also into locking features and selling subscriptions now. And they don’t want you to do anything to their cars. Rich Rebuilds on YouTube leaned the hard way and while salvage rebuilds are a different area, it’s clearer that they don’t want customization. That said they did upgrade a Model 3 from RWD to FWD. so it’s possible but don’t expect it to last. Tesla will disable high speed charging if they find out, effectively limiting the usefulness of the car.
Let’s see what other manufacturers do though. But I suspect suspension and brakes are the way to go first though. But give it a few years and we might see something. That said some manufacturers are slowing upgrades. BMW for example will upgrade batteries and there is emerging market for this already. Early i3’s are getting the bigger batteries and it won’t be long before you can upgrade the motors too!!! Could be an interesting world.
Frimley111R said:
I guess you can but it's something that came up on the thread about Mountune and a guy saying engine mapping will be fading away with EVs and it occurred to me that you may be able to 'map' EVs....
Just a hack of the on board computer to change certain parameters I'd expect, it's essentially how Tesla turn a Model 3 LR into a P- as far as I know.You are going to ultimately be limited by motor rating and battery output etc. though?
The manufacturers have far more opportunity to make it really, really hard. The whole battery/power gubbins/motor is tightly integrated, and the power management probably won't let you pull more current with a bigger motor - at least not without voiding the warranty on absolutely everything. i suspect that cars will become subscription/garage only, and modifying your car will be similar to modifying the spin speed of your washing machine - possible, but pretty hard and why bother.
There's already a few places in the U.S and Canda offering software and hardware hacks to give Model 3s more performance and remove/reconfigure driving aids.
It will happen more but I doubt it'll be widespread until a lot of the higher performance EVs are well out of warranty and cheap enough to attract the sort of people who don't worry about what happens if something goes pop or the car fails to boot up one morning.
It will happen more but I doubt it'll be widespread until a lot of the higher performance EVs are well out of warranty and cheap enough to attract the sort of people who don't worry about what happens if something goes pop or the car fails to boot up one morning.
you can "map" anything, if by map you mean modify the parameters held within an electronic control unit.
If that map actually achieves anything, well that's a different matter
1) EVs effectively cannot be mapped for more economy, because unlike with an ICE, there is no trade off between performance, emissions and consumption. The map in a motor control inverter is already calibrated to produce the maximum torque per unit amp at any speed and load. And it's been calibrated with toolsets far beyond anything that any aftermarket tuner is going to be using, so don't think there's anything left to "optimise"
2) In the short term (<10 seconds), when cold, electric motors are performance limited by their supply (battery and inverter) and by various extremely complex effects such as votlage oscilations due to PWM slew rates. Whilst it might be possible to get a little bit more peak power out for a few seconds, you run a very real risk of blowing stuff up because of effects you don't know about, and haven't got either the toolsets to measure. Realistically, the only way to get significantly more power out of an electric motor is to run it at a higher supply voltage. The problem here is that means a new battery and inverter, both massively expensive units to replace. if you are using the parts from an EV in some form of aftermarket conversion then this may be do-able, but it is unlikely to be practically possible with a production EV where you just want to make software changes.
3) In the long term (>30 seconds approx), electric motors are performance limited by their thermal characteristics. Here you could indeed use something like cryogenic cooling, or change the hardware of the cooling loops to increase long term output. But this is again massively expensive. You also need to know where the limits lie, for example the curie temperature of the magnets (for a PM machine) or the breakdown temperature of the insulation enamel on the phase windings. When you find those limits, there is generally nothing left to show what limit you found.....
4) Mappers will need to ensure they consider the entire system. You cannot modify any significan parameter without working out what the knock on effect will be. Production EVs have levels of diagnostics and safety spread across all their major system nodes. Increase the motor current and not only will things like the inverter fault, the battery protection system will fault, and even things like the battery fuses may fail. You may even find that the driver display fails to read an accurate range or that the battery fails to charge because the systems SoC estimation is too far out
5) Most ICE mapping is done in conjunction with minor hardware mods, often that change subjective things like exhaust or intake noise, but that actually make little real performance improvement, but go "hand in hand" with a remap. There is no exhaust or intake to change on an EV, it'll sound the same, and pretty much go the same (it's not like most EVs are actually "slow")
6) Battery warranty! As EVs are still new to most people, very very few would risk voiding something like their battery warranty by making non-approved changes to their car. Any change to the powertrain would immediately void the battery warranty, and any failiure (even if not caused by the re-map) would basically write your car off.....
If that map actually achieves anything, well that's a different matter
1) EVs effectively cannot be mapped for more economy, because unlike with an ICE, there is no trade off between performance, emissions and consumption. The map in a motor control inverter is already calibrated to produce the maximum torque per unit amp at any speed and load. And it's been calibrated with toolsets far beyond anything that any aftermarket tuner is going to be using, so don't think there's anything left to "optimise"
2) In the short term (<10 seconds), when cold, electric motors are performance limited by their supply (battery and inverter) and by various extremely complex effects such as votlage oscilations due to PWM slew rates. Whilst it might be possible to get a little bit more peak power out for a few seconds, you run a very real risk of blowing stuff up because of effects you don't know about, and haven't got either the toolsets to measure. Realistically, the only way to get significantly more power out of an electric motor is to run it at a higher supply voltage. The problem here is that means a new battery and inverter, both massively expensive units to replace. if you are using the parts from an EV in some form of aftermarket conversion then this may be do-able, but it is unlikely to be practically possible with a production EV where you just want to make software changes.
3) In the long term (>30 seconds approx), electric motors are performance limited by their thermal characteristics. Here you could indeed use something like cryogenic cooling, or change the hardware of the cooling loops to increase long term output. But this is again massively expensive. You also need to know where the limits lie, for example the curie temperature of the magnets (for a PM machine) or the breakdown temperature of the insulation enamel on the phase windings. When you find those limits, there is generally nothing left to show what limit you found.....
4) Mappers will need to ensure they consider the entire system. You cannot modify any significan parameter without working out what the knock on effect will be. Production EVs have levels of diagnostics and safety spread across all their major system nodes. Increase the motor current and not only will things like the inverter fault, the battery protection system will fault, and even things like the battery fuses may fail. You may even find that the driver display fails to read an accurate range or that the battery fails to charge because the systems SoC estimation is too far out
5) Most ICE mapping is done in conjunction with minor hardware mods, often that change subjective things like exhaust or intake noise, but that actually make little real performance improvement, but go "hand in hand" with a remap. There is no exhaust or intake to change on an EV, it'll sound the same, and pretty much go the same (it's not like most EVs are actually "slow")
6) Battery warranty! As EVs are still new to most people, very very few would risk voiding something like their battery warranty by making non-approved changes to their car. Any change to the powertrain would immediately void the battery warranty, and any failiure (even if not caused by the re-map) would basically write your car off.....
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