Electric motors make big torque, but... Really, is it that much?
Is there anyone on the forum who can't - with the correct breaker bars - torque their CV's?
That's 150-175Nm on a disc brake front end. That's more torque than almost any Mini motor in the world.
The motors in EV's tend to be not
that much more than that... And they tend to run reasonably low power outputs. How many EV's are there out there that run higher bhp's/kW's than a decent 1275?
Gearboxes are needed for two reasons. Firstly, acceleration without gearing would be sluggish without reducing the ratio. Even big modern cars with 500-600-700Nm of torque have gearboxes. Yes, that's to make them even quicker, but, given the gearbox is a torque multiplier, if 1st is 3:1, it means that they're putting out 1500-1800Nm at the diff (yes, that's assuming no drivetrain losses, which I realize is fiction). A Mini with 100Nm (75lb-ft) going through 3:1 is 300Nm at the diff (again, ignoring drivetrain losses, but also ignoring that 1st is shorter than that in a Mini). How many electric motors output that, and what sort of battery pack would you need to do that?
Secondly, with fixed gearing set up for acceleration, top speed would be very low. Look at the top speed on any EV - they're all pretty low. The motors spin much higher than car petrol motors, but they don't rev to infinity.
My belief is that, if you're going to run an EV, it's better to go A/C. Then you can run regen.
You can get big motors more easily. The problem is with controllers.
My belief is that, whilst being no cheaper and likely significantly dearer (because of A/C controller cost), the best solution is high voltage/low amperage A/C. Why high voltage? The higher the voltage, the higher the revs the electric motor can run.
The higher the volts, the lower the amps for the same power. Which means smaller wire diameters. Which means it's (arguably) less dangerous (current - amperage - is the killer, not voltage).
That said, I think Phill's conversion is very cool, and I'd love an update.