[Juan] dropped us a note to let us know about a little project he’s working on. A few years ago, he bought a Honda S2000. It served him well, but now he’s converting it to electric power, and it’s going to be a beast.
[Juan] is using 104 battery packs each containing 4 cells in parallel. The total output of his battery assemblage is 686 kilowatts, or 920 horsepower. [Juan] is assuming his drive train will be 85% efficient, meaning his wheels will be getting 782 horsepower and 1500 ft/lbs of torque at 0 rpm. Yes, this thing is going to scream.
A project of this caliber is usually undertaken by gear heads with decades of experience, but that’s not the case for [Juan]; he’s still a senior in High School. A build this awesome can only portend a very bright future as an engineer and certainly a few drag race wins. This car is going to be a monster, and we can’t wait to see it on the track.
Awesome build! give the kid an A+. I hope he reinforces the mounting on the electric motors though, otherwise he might be shearing a lot of bolts. it looks like there are only 2 bolts holding each motor to the frame. good job though.
I’d give him an F for physics, because you don’t actually get any Power at 0 RPM for the simple reason that power is defined as torque times speed.
He said X power, and Y torque at Z rpm. Perhaps a comma would have made it more clear to you…
And I’d give you and F for reading comprehension and being a dick.
the HaD article says 782 hp and 1500ft lbs of torque at 0rpm.
The actual post does not say that; it says 1500 ft lbs of torque at 0 rpm, which is not incorrect.
In the event sarcasm was indicated I missed it. Just because the calculated horsepower would be be 0 at 0 RPM doesn’t mean there is 0 power available that can perform work at 0 RPM when an electric motor is used. In the event there wasn’t any power at 0 RPM a modern train locomotive would just sit on the track looking pretty, and making noise ;)
Thats interesting. The construction equipment in use today has lots of electric motor powered wheel hubs (Thing like Tourna-pulls use them) where the electric motor is built right into the Wheel/axle.
Those things have- literally tons of power at 0 rpm.
Gosh Fella you should maybe take some classes yourself and pay attention while you are there.
That way you can avoid embarrassing yourself in front of gadzillions of people. Steam engines and electric motors have a peculiarity that you I bet
you will know shortly.
Jack Powell
M.Eng.EE
no work is ever done a 0 RPM How do you Measure TQ at 0 RPM Help me understand that
Ok here ya go. Get big bolt, put in vice, get socket to fit bolt head, put socket on torque wrench, fit socket on bolt head, attempt to turn bolt until torque wrench says 100 #/feet. Now hold that and think about it. Torque at zero rpm Einstein !
Ok here you go Einstein, get big bolt, put in vice, find socket that fits bolt head, place socket on big torque wrench, place socket on bolt head, attempt to tighten bolt until wrench indicates 100 pound/feet torque, hold that pose until it sinks in, 100 #/feet torque @ zero RPM. So he does NOT get an F! You, well I dunno……….
Well it sounds like an amazing project but we’ll have to wait and see if it gets done, and done safely.
Neat. Wont be getting 700hp for long without cooling on the batteries though.
Looks like the engine mount had been redesigned. Two pieces of 1/4″ flat stock holding it to the frame would have been a disaster.
He needs to learn some basic shop safety. He was lucky to get away with as little injury as he did with the glove. A note for anyone else out there. NEVER wear gloves around rotating machinery. Not even latex/nitrile gloves. They can suck you in.
Same is true of jumpers. A mate of mine had his ripped from him by a lathe, amazingly he was totally fine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PzPfzLeDa0
@Haku
Holly crap, thats an incredible FAIL@work
Clearly you missed seeing all the details of the motor mounts. They are not simply 1/4″ flat stock, and more than two bolts are being used. Not all that uncommon during cold weather to wear gloves in the presence of rotating machinery when working outdoors in an unheated shop. Yes even if “safety cuff” gloves are worn there are both close calls, serious injuries. However it’s a known, and reasoned risk taken to get a job done, particularly when the use of gloves prevent injuries from other hazards present.
Never, ever, ever wear gloves around rotating machinery, wether it is a drill press, mill, lathe, or a grinder. Cold weather is no excuse. Gloves will catch and pull your hands right into the equipment just like what happened to him.
It even violates OSHA and other international safety rules for workplaces. There is a legitimate reason for these rules. I have trained people on safe use of machine shop equipment at a couple places I have work and this is one of the number one no-nos.
It is not a reasoned risk, it is an incredible stupid risk.
yep gloves and rotating machinery are a bad mix, as I discovered when using an industrial power planer. Glove snagged and my left hand was dragged in – instant pizza hand – shocking thing was how little time I had to react.
Still, didn’t really need the 2mm it took off my palm and fingers…
and yes the fingerprints were the same before and after, I had a friendly cop check after it healed ;o)
I’ve worked in 0F weather without gloves on. Mostly because I hate working with gloves on. Sure it sucks but man up!
I saw something a while back where a guy was able to work in short sleeves, no gloves, and shorts in very cold weather by wearing a heat vest. I think it may have even been here. For all us hackers, it wouldn’t be that hard to make something like that and save hands.
I think he needs to learn a bit more mechanical engineering. His battery may be capable of delivering 700hp, but will his motor be able to draw that much? For an absurd example, he can connect a windshield wiper motor to the battery pack and it will only be able to consume a fraction of the power. Only of he can find a motor that can deliver mechanical 700hp will he fully load the battery, and such a motor would likely be bigger than his car.
Nice work though, and much credit to him for working on a big project.
His blog says he’s using Warp 9 motors. From a quick glance at the specs, I think his calculations are correct. Very nice design work.
According to the motor specs, he should be able to get about 65 HP from both motors combined, but his blog says they’ve been specially modified to supply at least 250, possibly 500.
The 900 HP calculations were pointless. An electric motor that could supply anything near that would never fit in a S2000. The type of motor he is dealing with, even with an active cooling system, is FAR lower than that.
While this is cool, I wonder if this power rating is anywhere correct. He might get peak 2000A / 686 kW out, but not continuos.
At work I mess with motors and controllers about that size, and a continuous 1000A motor controllers tend to be the size of an oven. And the motors used for that kind of power are sizeof a little car…
Anyways very nice project, I want to see it finished (safely!) and how it performs.
A modified Tesla S motor and controller can deliver 450kw, 1000nm and 1400 w continuous.
He is assuming 85% on the drivetrain. I’m assuming 0% as it snaps the transmission in 1/2 the S2000 has a weak transmission.
??? He says he’s gotten rid of the transmission. And I’ve seen very few electric vehicle conversions that use a transmission. Are you just trolling?
All fartface ever does is troll >_<
The diff WILL break if he doesn’t replace it. I own a S2000. The diff is made of glass.
Hey Guys
Thanks for all the compliments and criticisms! :)
Flattering picture as well lol
Thought I would clear some things up really quick
The differential is no longer an issue. The first thing I did after purchasing the car was replace the stock diff with a ford 8.8 with 4.1 gearing.
Traction will definitely be an issue, but I have some extra differential gears to play around with (3.73) so I may end up switching to those, to get less torque and more upper end.
The car will not put out 700 hp continuous I don’t think. Fortunately though, the electronics are liquid cooled so I think that will help ensure that I get the most amount of power while staying cool!
Another detail I think I should point out is that this is a daily driver. One of the primary reasons that I built this car was to save gas on the 50 mile round trip to school and back. Because of this, I won’t need to go 140 mph on the freeway.
The battery pack is composed of 8 modules of 3p/13s, a total of 416 battery cells. I don’t believe that the cells will be an issue with the car, as they each can put out 600 amps for about 10 seconds, and I have 4 in parallel.
I am building a custom charger which will output 10kw, so with a 26ish kWh pack it will take 2.5 hours to recharge from 0-100%. Assuming that I will only use about 50% each day, I will only need to plug it in for about an hour.
Lastly, the motor mounts are a slight concern, but I think it should hold up. The arms and brackets are made of 1/4″ steel, so they’re rather rigid. With everything tightened down, the motors refuse to move at all. The s2000 used the same mounting holes, so I hope it will hold up!
Thanks for featuring me hackaday!
This is for Juan Ehringer; it wouldn’t let me reply directly.
Why do you think that those motors will pull anything near 700hp? Honestly, I would be surprised if you pulled off half of that.
or motor mounts or axle or rear-end
I’d use titanium mounts and carbon fiber axle, with reinforced rear-end. Then again I wouldn’t be going for an electric stop-light racer..
Always nice to read about projects from students.
Having rich parents seems also nice.
Extra respect for him for having rich parents and choosing to learn and improve himself whilst sharing with the community unlike most people in a similar situation that would not take similar advantage of what the situation offers. Plus from the thread it seems he runs his own business too.
Kudos to his parents for supporting him.
i thinks he needs a little more respect for those batteries. ensuring they ard well balanced before committing to building bat packs. a good bms too. foolish to build a pack and then just ‘try it out’, scare me half Shitless doing that
Why don’t people spend that much money on a used LS2 engine? a tank of gas gets you much farther, and the LS2 engine will actually be able to go faster than 100mph.
I really want to see if this guy can even keep traction when trying to accelerate, he needs some wide tire upgrades. Without better tires, he could lose to a modern stock corvette – which already has traction issues if you turn off traction control.
Could you miss the point any harder, Steve?
ampeater, I have come to the sad conclusion that a small, but not negligible, part of the HaD readership does completely miss the point of hacking. And they are always opinionated about the most un-important or unrelated issues.
That being said, this is a great hack. I wish the kid luck and you as well (I looked at your 240z electrification blog.
How is cramming a GM small block into a Honda shoe not a hack?
Not that a Tesla-class electric conversion isn’t a hack, but I wouldn’t think negatively about any crazy swap like this.
Either way, the important thing is it’s going to be fast as hell!
does this seem a little fishy to anyone else…
i mean, i could see a high school sr putting together an electric car (its tough but not rocket surgery)……
but from a shear cost standpoint….the kid is using Inventor Pro, thats a $7,300 piece of software…not to mention the cost of the batteries is ~$50/per cell( as best i can find)…..thats $20,000 in batteries….then you have the motors and misc electronics…
either this kid is a successful coke dealer….or hes got to be working with someone else.
what even lol…
I don’t deal crack!
Inventor, as well as any autocad program, is free to students. I applied to get a copy, and was accepted. I’ve gotten relatively skilled at the program because I have used it for so long. I think they give away the software so that they can get an edge over solidworks and such.
As for the price of the car, I am still shooting for < $22,000
The S2000 was 6k, the motors and controller were ~6k, and the batteries are about 7k.
Everything else I am paying for myself (work at publix / my own laser business / sell stuff on craigslist) or I got from a sponsorship.
The batteries were actually about a quarter of the price you put.
Originally, the A123 pouch cells were about $90 a piece. But then A123 stock CRASHED. Went from $15 a share to ~ $.23 in about a month. and they were forced to liquidate a bunch of their stuff.
So I got a 90% discount on the cells ($17 a piece), and I needed 416 of those cells.
It may not be an economical solution, so per say, but it is a fun project nonetheless. A lot of people go to dealerships and buy slow plastic cars for $25k, and then end up paying 2k in taxes and dealer fees. I don't feel too bad thinking about my project considering it will be less of an initial investment, plus I don't have to pay for gas :)!
So you were given 19 grand? Bloody hell I had to give my parents 5 grand for a car that had 160 thousand miles on it.
Success given; isn’t.
so you’re using a student license of CAD software to run a business.. you know that’s against T&C right?
That is a rather presumptuous statement, but I can see the misunderstanding.
I have a copy of coreldraw X4 on the computer that runs the cnc. I bought this program.
Generally when someone has something that they need made, the send me a dxf file and I pop it into coreldraw.
Or…….
He could have very rich parents.
Plus if you fully read he has several sponsorships and also his own cnc business
Money isn’t hard to make if you can do something useful aside from minimum wage crap like those who flip burgers and mow lawns.
The extra challenge is not spending that money on the fad of the week. Or spending time on meaningless crap, for that matter.
It’s not easy to listen to one’s peers brag about part-time job raises from $4.75 an hour to $5.15 an hour while keeping one’s mouth shut, like a good dork/nerd/whatever… making $45 an hour (2hr minimum) fixing computers for people a couple times a week or so.
Similar thing for Juan. And best wishes to him.
I like the concept, but not only am I like others worried about the motor mounts and the transmission, what about the rear end as well? I would be mildly concerned for the brakes as well, but that is depending on the weight difference between the gas engine and the electric motor. I would assume the electric setup is lighter but I don’t know. Also, how long would it take to charge this back up? UK top gear tested the tesla roadster. It ran dead in about 20 minutes if I correct, Granted that was hard hard driving, and takes 16 hours to recharge on a standard wall outlet. 16 hours for 20 minutes of fun?
Come on Mike, you didn’t do your homework. There is no transmission, the rear end will hold up just fine. Top Gear is a terrible resource for info on electrics, and who the hell charges a Tesla from a 15a socket? It’s like if I complained that lambos were total shit because the 1/16″ tube I use to refill the gas tank takes days.
The rear diff on an S2000 is known to be a weak point. They break with 200 at the wheels.
It’s even worse than that. UK wall sockets, although wired for up to 15A, are technically 13A.
The custom 8″ Ford rear end won’t be a weak point…
It might…it can handle 1000HP, but can it handle 1500 ft/lbs? I know the stock dif for any 4 cylinder would just sheer off or explode the instant he hit the throttle.
As someone else said, this kid either has crazy rich parents or a very successful drug dealing business…just the fact that he got an S2000 as his first car shows that, add in the incredibly expensive conversion and the extra car he will need now that his S2000 won’t go long enough on a charge to get him anywhere is probably another $30-50K.
You mean the Tesla Roadster hoax? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear_controversies#Tesla_Roadster_review
If my calculations are right the battery pack holds about 27.4KWh (a bit more than a Nissan Leaf) and can supply the peak output (ignoring all the non ideal aspects of a battery) for 2.4 minutes.
He can make at least ten passes down a dragstrip with that, assuming he puts the car on a trailer to bring it there.
Power to weight ratio isn’t a concern? Are the batteries heavy? He’s also severely offset the balance of that chassis by putting all the weight in the rear like that. I highly doubt it handles the way a stock one w/ a gas turbo motor (to make the same hp’ish) in it does.
Cool project none the less.
Batteries = 1 lb / cell, so about 416 lbs.
Add about 40 for copper and wire.
electric motors = 110 lb / motor if I remember correctly, so 220 lb there.
Electronics are like 50 lbs total. Really light weight for the amount of power they possess.
Total of 726 lbs of conversion stuff.
When I shipped the old s2000 engine it was 350 lbs.
I would add 150 lbs for the rest of its components (intake, exhaust). I removed the gas tank and a bunch of thick sheet metal, tank = 30 lbs and metal = 15 lbs. Replaced with 5 lb boxes, so 35 lb ‘removed’.
Soft top was like 75 lbs, replacing with 19 lb hardtop. 30 lb seats replaced with 15 lb seats.
So 621 of weight removed, 726 lbs added. Not too bad :)
Also, I am second guessing placing all the batteries in the rear of the car. Right now, with the motors in place and no weight in the back, the front of the car is noticeably higher than the rear. I kinda wanted to have this super clean look with just the electric motors in the engine bay, but I may end up putting a couple of modules up there.
You don’t necessarily have to put any of the modules in the engine bay…I mean of course if you have ungodly amounts of weight in the rear and very little up front that wouldn’t be mechanically sound for the suspension, rear-end etc..But, from my experience with building rear wheel drive 240sx/Silvia drift cars, you wanna put most of the weight right between the front wheel base low as possible in the engine bay and keep the majority of the rear weight offset from the differential inward towards the rear of the seats…Use coilovers for your suspension you can easily adjust camber and ride height.
Keep all the weight as central and low as you can. That being said if you have some in the trunk, which it looks like you will, I would move those to the engine bay as far against the firewall as possible maybe even twisted 45 degrees to fit in the nice “v” between the braces.
No matter what you will need to make some suspension adjustments down the road to rectify the new Cg and roll-center but since the weight won’t be changing massively it should be simple and stable enough to test at reasonable speeds until the bugs are worked out.
Seems like alot of you are jealous at what this kid accomplished in such a short amount of time, I see most of these comments are directed in bashing his project or attempting to discredit him even though most of the comments seem to be coming from people who didnt watch the video or RTFA.
I am going to follow this project, and hope the kid succeeds, this is an amazing project so far. He seems really bright and I am confident that he can overcome the obstacles to finish this project.
Haters gonna hate.
very nice project!
tho the “problem” (if you see it as such) with electric motors is that all 700hp will be down at the wheels instantly without revving up … so keeping all that power on the road and not turning it into a hovercraft will take some driving skill XD or one hell of an in car computer
tho im super jealous here and am quite far way from getting the extra 100hp to match this out of my nissan XP
From a stop there will be zero HP at the wheels but a lot of torque, controlling the torque is fairly easy, all the sensors and processing are built into the ABS and TCS system already. You just need to figure out how to read it from the CAN Bus and interface it to the motor controller. Or just keep your foot out of it. Not that I could manage that as a teen; actually it is still hard sometimes.
this is pretty cool. especially that this is all done by a high school senior.
personally, i don’t really like all electric cars. i’m more of an old school gas guzzler type of guy.
it would be even better if he can implement solar power into the build. that would make it over the top environmentally friendly.
keep this up :]
I’m also from the big V8 and carburetor era, but there’s something that really appeals to me about an electric car that can blow the doors off most streetable gas powered cars. And do it nearly silently. Very Jealous.
I’m jealous
Nice project, but that’s not how you calculate horsepower, if it was, then I would take the energy in my fuel x gallons in my tank and have but load of power.
He needs to measure torque output of motor shaft, then calculate hp with rpm
I wish you the best of luck with your project, you have some amazing materials and tools at your disposal.
If I could point out a few issues though:
Pouch batteries shouldn’t be stacked like that, they are designed to radiate heat from the large flat surfaces so you need cooling blocks where every third cell goes; that way each cell would be cooled on at least one side. Heat and humidity will kill them and it would be a shame to loose all those expensive cells. Also when they heat they expand and can in fact become swollen if they overheat(which they will almost immediately if stacked and discharged at a rate of 20c) so it is common to have them in a reinforced container. I think your plexiglass case while nicely made won’t be up to the job.
Your motor mounts, while looking much better still seem to need some attention to the rear motor, it seems the only member linking the two are the “C” channel bars. that gives very little radial stiffness which is what you want there. Also the direction they flex in will put a load on the motor bearing and shaft that may lead to their failure. If you are avoiding a full carrier mount to save weight an aluminum coupler between the two motor faces would keep them aligned better and allow you to still use the motor bodies as a stressed member.
Speaking of the shaft, it looks like you are using a through bolted coupler between the motors. Splined shafts and coupler would be far less prone to failure.
The new side-mounts look great but I would have a professional welder attach them to the mount or make them into a single subframe that spans all the way side to side under the motor. As it is there will be a lot of mechanical advantage trying to lever the bolts out of the side of the motor.
I can’t see how the rear of the diff is mounted but that front hanger needs gusseting at least.
All in all though awesome project and a great learning experience. See if you can’t get some class credits for it.
I wonder what kind of traction control you can do with electric motors? I mean the computers motorcycles use a delta prediction to drop power be for the tires brake loose. Can the motor controllers handle that or would you need something added?
Small math error.
HP = Torque (ft/Lb) * RPM / 5252
At 0 RPM there is 0 HP, not 700 something.
HP is the amount of work being done. If you are not moving, no work is getting done.
Maximum battery output capability is in no way an indication of how much power the motors will produce. This depends on the motors. I’m betting that the end product has a max speed of 55 or so.
Dang…
That type of attitude will get us no where!
The maximum battery output capacity (or rather ability) is a good indicator of how much power motors will produce.
If someone were to have weak batteries that were only able to supply 300A for 10 seconds max, they would likely have a slow car. One can compensate for lack of current by bumping up the voltage on the battery pack. Power = I * V
You are incorrect in stating that motors dictate how much power they will produce, instead the power experienced by the motors is dependent on the controller & batteries.
Power in = power out – inefficiencies
You can take any motor and give it 600Kw, but it doesn’t mean it will last long. In my case, my motors are capable of a little more power than what I am feeding them.
Since my batteries can deliver ~ 2,400 amps at 345v, in reality I have much more than 700 battery horsepower. However, my controller only have the ability to deliver 2000 amps at 345v. That is where we are getting the 700hp.
With a redline RPM at 8k, I would be sucking anywhere from 150-300 amps, going 140ish mph.
The maximum battery output capacity (or rather ability) is a good indicator of how much power motors will produce.
This is not true. It is an indication of the limit of power possible, if there is a motor that can draw it. Connect a 1/4hp motor to that power pack and it will not deliver 700hp, even if you try to place a big load on it. Your big motor does not ‘put out power’, A motor converts electrical power to mechanical power, but only as much as the mechanical load, and only to the limit the power source can supply.
I suspect your battery interconnects will be the real limit, as every connection represents an IR drop as internal battery resistance.
You guys are also both missing the fact that the properties of the motor, as well as the batteries, change as they heat up. At the power you are talking about they will heat up a lot too. These changes are all negative (increased resistance, shortened life cycle).
Also I don’t know where the hell you are pulling this 700HP figure from. It looks like you are using 2 Net Gain TransWarP 9 Motors. These are 35HP 72V motors rated at ~330A max. You can’t just dump an arbitrary amount of power into a motor and get that as work coming out. If I have a 10,000W power supply I can’t hook up a 100w bulb to it an say I have a 10kW lamp.
What you are doing is extremely awesome and very ambitious. However I question your knowledge of the hidden but extremely important engineering problems that an EV presents.
I highly suggest you contact Bob Simpson of evdrive.com. He was recently on the Amp Hour podcast (google it and listen to it) talking about his BMW EV conversion. There is a hell of a lot more too it than hooking up low esr batteries to a dc motor.
Please listen to what dijital said.
Your motors absolutely, positively, will not be producing 700 horsepower.
Look, I love what you’re doing, but the numbers are just wrong. Even with over-volting and dumping tons of current from your Zilla controller, it’s not a simple linear power relationship. Just figure in your 700 hp estimation, your motor’s efficiency rating, then convert that loss directly into heat. You’ll see how ridiculous the claim is. 700 hp is 521,989.91 watts. Assuming your motor is an unrealistically generous 90% efficient, you would still producing 52,198 watts of heat between the two motors! That’s the power of over 10 maxed-out home electrical outlets, JUST FOR THE HEAT.
That being said, if you dial back your controller to a reasonable level, I think that car is going to be plenty fast; the instant torque is going to pull some great acceleration times.
Seriously, invest a bit of money in some cooling for those batteries. Even thin aluminum plates that slide in between batteries would help; have them all connect to a larger heatsink. Even if you are talking 2000A output for a brief moment from your controller for brisk acceleration, that is some ridiculous stress on those batteries. If you’re running 80 AH (4 parallel), that’s right up in the 25C discharge range. A high KWH battery pack like that hitting a critical temp would be absolutely terrifying. Even if it handles 25C discharge, the life of your batteries will absolutely take a hit for doing it. I know RC guys do this stuff with LIPO’s but they don’t last that long! To put things in perspective, I’m going to be reluctantly running my LIPO EV project at 13C peak, which I still think is too high. I just don’t want you to get a crappy cycle life out your your batteries, or worse, have you die in a massive LIPO fire.
And if you insist on stressing those motors the way you plan to, they appear air open-case and air cooled. I recommend buying some decent sized bilge blowers to supplement the motor’s passive cooling. They are inexpensive will only require a couple hundred watts to run, but it will reduce your motor temps.
Good luck. I love how you’re willing to tackle stuff like this at an early age, and my criticisms are meant to be constructive! That thing is serious business and will stomp the hell out of most petrol cars (if you can get the traction and your drivetrain holds)!
Check out the little datsun “the white zombie” google it.
This will be just a sporty version of it.
Insanely awesome. I’m jealous as hell. I’m not gay, but do you want a blowjob? I think you deserve it. That’s how awesome this is.
All kidding aside, your build uses two motors wound in series. You have an opportunity here to wire those in series/parallel with a contactor to get an electrical 2 speed gearbox of sorts. You start off in series mode so both motors see full amps and you get full starting torque. Then you flip over to parallel mode once you get up to speed and your amps drop to overcome the additional back EMF to dramatically increase your top speed.
…and I’m also in agreement that your motors need some additional support. If those rails buckle and the shafts go out of alignment, you’re gonna have a bad time. I can see (briefly) the motors supporting each other via the coupler and fatiguing one or both of the shafts.
I wasn’t thinking earlier. Your volts are too high. You’ll get arcing if you try to run those motors in parallel. I know this sounds absolutely retarded, but it might actually make some sense to half your battery pack voltage. It will give you the same top speed (if you do the series/parallel contactor) but will give you twice as much starting torque.
You are correct! Each motor can probably take 190v, but not much more. Motors are hooked up in series so each sees about 170v.
Drag racers used to do parallel / series switching, however the cost and trouble outweigh the benefits. You would need extra contactors, wire, lugs, everything is more complicated.
Additionally, the switch from parallel to series or vice versa is relatively painstakingly slow. About 1 second to switch, which will make or break you when you are running a 10 second quarter mile.
His dad or mom is most likely a successful electric/mechanical engineer with their own company. The software, and the tools that are used to build mounts, brackets, metal work, etc are way too sophisticated and/or expensive for recent college grad EE or ME, let alone a highschooler. But even if dude is tag teaming with his dad, still a cool project for any age.
That would have been awesome, but sadly no :(
My father is a doctor in general practice, and mother is a stay at home (previously a pharmacist).
I have received copious amounts of support from them, but no physical help with the build. Father has a bad back which prevents him from lifting stuff, not to mention I have a horrible case of ‘if you want something done right, you need to do it yourself’.
As you guys can see, I don’t really have any mechanical engineering skills, I am just learning as I go. Hence the motor mounts which have been redesigned 3 times. If one of my parents were an engineer, I am sure I would have been done with the car by now…
I have built 5 cars this lifetime(now71), some from scratch. Held world record drag racing, beat 12 Chrysler engineers when I was 20. One car considered for Smithsoning exhibit …
Therefore I believe my comments deserve consideration. Do not underestimate youth, passion and focuse. Most great breakthroughs come from a single mind, one who surrounds him/herself with experienced brilliance. The magic is the young mind picking and choosing in a selective and uniquic manner – solutions.. I expect the BEST. Constructive advise is wonderful, doubt for doubt sake Sucks.
After working on a number of the beasts I don’t think that stating you’ve beaten Chrysler engineers is much of a talking point.
Interesting. We see those commenting admitting they are jealous. In my opinion those making comment critical or making assumptions about Juan as a person, not of details about the build, are jealous as well. Damn that opinion makes me sound like some on the radical right in the US, something I’m not; oh well I’ll let it stand.
An ambitious Auto project undertaken by a High School senior, but probably not anymore ambitions taken by kids in the past, but tech is a whole lot different. I hope it turns out the be everything Juan is wanting it to be, when completed.
Thanks for the kind words…
I enjoy the critiquing of the mechanical aspects, as it helps me realize where I need to improve, but you are right.
You’ve taken their comments well and I am more impressed with that. There was no end to what my high school peers did to their cars (except maybe ev); I am sure yours isn’t much different. I biked but also live in town.
“Looks cool dude, but do you LAN party?” would probably be my IRL response.
Hell yeah, we are jealous. How could we not? Juan, take that as a compliment and keep on in that spirit.
This is bullshit. Do the math and you will understand it.
From another point of view: where are Tesla, Nissan, Ford.etc with their engineers? How can a boy with not completed high school education beat all engineers in all countries?
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Drayson Racing and Lola Unveil 850 HP Electric Racecar That Goes From 0 to 60 in 3 Seconds FlatX
Transportation
The AEGT01 in the teaser video is the first model of the vehicle, and Quimera plans to adjust its design after the car’s debut and presentation at the Frankfort Motor Show. The spectacular racer can accelerate from zero to 60 mph in just three seconds thanks to three UQM motors that pump out 700 hp.
Victor Kolesnichenko
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Incredible build, and this young fellow will go far. For my mind, I’m dubious about his battery tray design. For one, keeping all those batteries in a compact space is going to generate a LOT of heat, not to mention the utter scaryness of being near that pack in the event of a collision and pack puncture. If you have room to space them out, a bigger tray made from cooling mesh to allow air or thermal conductive material to seperate them, and the cell dispersal would reduce the likelyhood of a lot of cells being damaged. Keep a fire extinguisher handy when you drive this beast!
I hope my earlier comments were not rude. I do like the project, and I wish you luck, as you are going to learn so much from this.
Great project, will love to see a video of it running
Won’t 1500 ft/lbs of torque rip out/twist the drive train? or is it a special drive train made for that.
either way, It’ll be awesome to watch
Nice work Juan. I imagine you follow Jack Rickard over at evtv.me What are your thoughts about his adventures with cell interconnects and cell death?
If I were starting a car now, I’d go with the new gray CALB cells, notwithstanding the awesome price you got on those A123s. The packaging just seems like such a headache with the pouch cells.
It looks like a great project for a high school senior. As far as the autocad skills – Autocad is a great program to have in your skill set. I took classes for Autocad at junior college and by the time we got to the advanced Autocad classes – most of the students already had jobs drafting before they finished all the classes. Once you really understand 3d drafting in CAD – its easy to model anything. As far as the real world engineering – its not a production car – it will have some bugs in it the first couple of times. As far as the electric car hobbyist scene goes – he’s leaps and bounds over some of the engineering ive seen on homade electric cars.
Ugh—”ft/lbs”?
Definitely an awesome project, but like others, I’m dubious of the HP claim. You included drivetrain losses, but what about motor inefficiency? According to those motor data sheets, their peak efficiency is under 80%, and that’s at well below the planned operating voltage and current. Also, how long can you expect to put 2000A through the motors for? With that current, the I^2R losses in the motor windings will be absurd!
So, uh, the warp 9 motors can output on the order of like 30 horsepower according to this dyno curve: http://www.go-ev.com/images/003_09_01_WarP_9_Graph.jpg
Am I looking at the wrong motor?
Looks cool, though.
All critique aside- actually doing this is thousands of times better than bashing it in some websites’ comments. I wish you the best Juan!
Great Idea and I really hope it works out well for you, but I would revise you electrical theory a little around your power calculation. What you have listed is the maximum the battery can supply and it will only supply that if the load is verrry small. What are the ratings of your motor? Whats its rated input current, voltage etc? This will tell you power rating of the motor.
Did a bit of research and the company that manufactures the motors recommends no more 170V to feed the motor and that its rated at 450A for less than 5mins. If it will actually draw 2000A I would be very carefull how long keep it at the 345V else you will blow motor very quickly (may only have a few secs of running at 2000A), and I would figure those motors weren’t cheap, nor the batteries which will cop a serious heat from discharging at such high rate.
Another thing to take into account is that your startup current is normmally exceptionally high (often up to 10x rated) and this will chew more power from your cells
Can you down the voltage and parrallel more cells, this will reduce risk of damage and will give you longer life on your batteries, and larger travel time?
Also when starting don’t dump that full 170 at once on the motor, slowly increase it over a few seconds, this will reduce your startup current.
Just plaster some large graphics on the side of the car. That’s good for at least 400 hp by itself.
The question is: Will it have VTEC?!
The motors will not develop 700HP. They will develop much less. That claim is spurious, and indicated a lack of understanding of the electrical machine.
Good job Juan
As far as education, a young mind with fresh ideas and mechanical
ability definately has the advantage over (this is the way we do it)
because the engineers say so. When bootleggers used to transport
Moonshine liquor the people modified their cars to out perform the cops.
They didn’t have some engineer draw them up a plan. And remember when
Buck Rogers flew his plane to the moon, it was fantisy and now it has all
happened. Steve Jobbs, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford and the list goes on and on.
the parallel warp 9 motors can accept 192v x 1000amps for about a 20-30secs in parallel you are looking at about 192v x 2000amps =384Kw or 514hp taking into account losses (85%-92% motors ) and some for the differential maybe about 400hp at the wheels. I think dont intent to run at this levels continous… but on a 1/4 mile will spank bigger hp cars, no transmission (no shifting )
I saw a car break the NHRA speed limit for a 1/4 mile track once. It crossed the line going over 336 MPH. Heck, until it ran down the track I didn’t even know drag strips had a speed limit. But apparently 336 MPH is simply too fast. It was a twin engine turbine rocket car. I think it did the 1/4 mile in under 4 seconds. The announcer said it had more horsepower than a 727 jet airplane. Now what were you saying about a spanking? You just keep on spanking it to electric cars but real speed freaks know the best way down the track is burning fuel!
are’nt there also electric propulsion rocket type engines too?
wiki it, NASA has one as a working prototype, LOL
To the 90% of you jealous assholes. Get a life. It is not about his rich parents or poor parents it is about the young man designing and building what sounds like a great car.
Where were the gene police when your parents were mating ?