Vehicle alternators are interesting beasts. Produced on a massive scale, these electric machines are available for a minimum of cost and contain all kinds of great parts: some power electronics and a belt-driven generator are generally standard fare. This generator can also be used as a motor with only minor changes to the machine as a whole, so thanks to economies of scale it’s possible to get readily-available, powerful, compact, and cheap motors for all kinds of projects using alternators as a starting point. [LeoDJ] noticed that this starter motor in a modern Mercedes had some interesting benefits beyond all of these perks, but it took a bit more work to get up and running than a typical alternator would have.
The motor, built by Bosch, can be found in the Mercedes E200 EQ Boost. This is a hybrid car, but different than something like a Prius in that it doesn’t have an electric motor capable of powering the car on its own. Instead it uses a combination starter motor/alternator/generator to provide extra power to the engine during acceleration, increasing efficiency and performance. It can also charge the small battery bank when the car slows down. Vehicles that use this system need much beefier alternators than a standard car, but liberating it from the car means that it has much more power available than a typical alternator would.
There were a number of issues to solve, though. Being that the motor/alternator has to do all of this extra work (and that it came out of a car whose brand is known for being tedious to work on in the first place) it is much more complicated than an off-the-shelf alternator. [LeoDJ] has been able to get his to spin by communicating with it over the CAN bus, but there’s still some work to be done before it goes into something like an impressively fast electric bicycle.
Thanks to [RoganDawes] for the tip!
I don’t get why people would buy German cars, they’re horrendously overengineered and difficult to fix. I drive a 2005 Chevrolet Lanos and it’s very easy to fix, you don’t need special tools for most repairs and parts are also very very cheap. I think it’s stupid when a car has computers for everything where a simple switch would be enough.
Thats your take on this article. Really?
Same here in India, brands like VW made their cars complicated so they are very poor value in secondhand market. On contrary Japanese cars are simple and efficient.so they have great demand .
Your makes no relation to easy to work on increases 2nd owner value. Many Japanese cars are just as difficult in there own ways. Some require that the engine be unmount and rotated 90 degrees from back to from coming half way out the engine bay just to get to the back spark plugs. Not to mention that European cars are not Japanese, so to take the same approach to working on similar parts is the issue. A mechanic who is unfamiliar with a type of vehicle will take a difficult approach. For example Merc mechanics don’t drain oil from below, they don’t ever drain any fluid from vehicle. They always use pumps from the top side. That’s why filter accessible from top. Example of where Euro cars much easier to do oil change because you don’t have to jack up the car, use blocks, and crawl under. Don’t complain that trees are hard to cut down compared to weeds because your using a weed Wacker on a tree.
The weedwacker/tree analogy just might be over simplifying the complexity of Deutsch vehicle repair.
I once had to hook up 300A Snap On Charger Jump Starter and 3 1000A jump boxes all grounded through the immobilizer on the side of the engine… per Mercedes SALES persons instructions because an unsold used car had no programmed keys to start the vehicle… The person interested in the vehicle decided not to buy the vehicle even tho the Mercedes Salesman said after paying $175 per key that it would start off of the key alone… all the gauges spun around backwards the odometer counted down to zero and then all the gauges spun toward direction until stopping at bulb check upon starting off of jump immobilizer bypass method..
I can attest. I had a look at some maintenance bills of a m-b dealership (manager was s friend of mine) and well, they were a bit high for my taste, even for routine maintenance items.
Friend tried to sell me one. Nooo no.
And yet the service bills for my BMW are lower than the ones for the Ford, plus the BMW dealership is actually competent
They are more complex mainly because of the ever changing environmental legislation. And I prefer them over any American build car.
But you also need to take in account what they are build for. American highways follow the landscape, European roads cut through with cuttings, tunnels and bridges. This makes the inclines way less than in America. So they focus on horsepower over torque. Different than low power high torque American setups.
German cars are actually surprisingly well engineered. But you need to keep up with the exact maintenance schedule. And use the exact oils and parts the manufacturer recommends.
I own 4 Mercedes, 2 vintage for fun and 2 daily drivers. I have never had any issue with any of them. Nor did I have with the Audi’s I drove before.
250 $ for an oil change. the Mercedes intake manifold is a nightmare 8+ hours to just remove it?
Depends on the model, but on all of my Mercedes (4 of them) it would take roughly 30 minutes to remove the intake manifold, 1 hour if I take my time. Besides, the intake manifold is not a common wear item, so how often would you need to remove it, if ever during the life of the car?
Also doing an oil change is one of the easiest maintenance jobs to do, don’t know why you would be on this website and not do an oil change yourself, unless you physically can’t…?
Remember never assume :P I agree though if your’re a regular hackaday viewer and you don’t do your own oil changes ….why?
“I own 4 Mercedes, 2 vintage for fun and 2 daily drivers”
imma guessin’ you’re in a slightly different pay bracket than the typical person needing to maintain a car
also “hard to fix” doesn’t mean “fails a lot” just like “easy to fix” doesn’t mean “doesn’t fail.”
“Faalhaas” is either Dutch or Belgian, judging by his name. Mercedes makes their cars a 3 hour’s drive away from us. The prices of vintage Mercedes are low, and they are very cheap in tax. The daily drivers would tell me that Faalhaas probably has one daily driver as a lease car, and maybe one daily driver purchased (but could be a lease car as well). His pay bracket does not have to be that high as you might think. But of course, it could be that high… ;)
“His pay bracket does not have to be that high as you might think.”
I’m guessing what you think the “typical person needing to maintain a car”‘s pay bracket is not what I think it is
Geography plays a huge part in what brand of vehicle you own in most cases. Land Rovers are cheaper in the UK than say in he US. BMW, AUDI, Mercedes cheaper in the germanic regions. Honda, Toyota, Subaru etc. cheaper in Japan and Asia…I shoudn’t have to go on to prove this point.
“Geography plays a huge part in what brand of vehicle you own in most cases”
It wasn’t the fact that he owned a Mercedes, it’s the fact that he owned four of them.
Mercedes is expensive enough that no reasonable person would experiment with cheap oils on them. A scatterbrained person would but they wouldn’t bother tracking the experiment so the result is preordained.
The Mercedes W123 is among the most reliable cars ever built and quite easy to work on. Similarly, VW used to make a set of cars based on air-cooled engines that could be completely disassembled and put back together with little more than an adjustable wrench. Older models don’t even need a battery to run. Times are different now but there are plenty of reliable German cars if you know where and when to look.
sir you do realize you’re replying to an article about a part from a car 40 years after the car you’re talking about
there literally might not be anyone at the company left who designed the cars you’re talking about
Ok, boomer
As an example of how horrendously expensive German cars are too fix, my VW Jetta starter cost my $80 brand new, where a GM starter was $220. I got 15 years out of the original, where a 15 year old GM car would have been recycled into razor blades and soup cans. There’s no such thing as over-engineering something. One can only make something less good than those done proper. I had a German built 1988 VW Jetta with 300k miles on it, when it was totaled in an accident. I tore the engine down to reuse in another car and the cylinders had no ring groves and the original hone pattern was still visible. Tear down an American made engine with half that mileage and you’ll find a very different scenario. MB, in general, builds their engines to produce it’s best power and performance from the factory. There aren’t modifications you can do to them to get more power, short of forced induction and ECU mods that will cost MPGs. Their turbocharged M139 2.0L I4 AMG engine produces 469hp! Over engineered?
It’s not the parts cost. Parts costs are negligible nowadays. It’s all in the labor and shop fees, so the question is always “how hard is it for you to do it?”
“15 year old GM car would have been recycled into razor blades and soup cans. ”
15 years ago was 2010. If you think all GM cars pre-2010 are now razor blades and soup cans, I don’t know what to tell you.
My friend gives me his “worn out” Ford since he drives a lot more than me. We’ve had 3 Focuses and one C-max. I have never added any oil to any of my cars. They are supposed to get 4.5 quarts at an oil change but I just put in 4. It hits the lower end of the range on the dipstick. I gave my white Focus to my brother-in-law in SW Texas. I’m in Nebraska. He drove it up to 100 mph and failed to notice he was going that fast. It had 235,000 miles on it at that time. I’ve done all the repairs on all of these cars myself except changing the spark plugs on the C-max and ABS module on the C-max. A full set of discs and rotors is $300 a car.
“He drove it up to 100 mph and failed to notice he was going that fast.”
That is, in my experience and opinion, one of the biggest dangers of a Mercedes: it’s just so smooth that it’s extremely easy to be speeding unnoticed. If you have never driven a Mercedes, you won’t understand it. So in a country where 90 mph is already considered a dangerously high speed, the Mercedes is prone to gain you more speeding tickets than most other cars.
Of course, in Germany, many highways do not have a maximum speed, and you’ll find many Mercedes drivers cruising at 150+ mph, legally. And if you think I am exaggerating that, think again.
This is how that looks and sounds (145-165 mph cruising): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTwsMUQUFoA
Try going 270 kmh with your Lanos and you will understand.
I think you mean you don’t understand why poor people buy German cars. Because those are the only ones that don’t see the reason to buy.
We don’t have to repair/maintain by ourselves but we like the higher quality.
I don’t know what this has to do with the article, but the first flaw in your logic is that many people don’t keep a car long enough to have to fix much of anything.
I buy German cars because of the precision.Quality,longevity,safety, length of ownership being 15-25 years,Japan and Germany build the best cars without a doubt!!
I’m 56 and have been a mechanic and Graduated to Master Engineer since 1986… Japanese cars are by far the most cost effective reliable cars and the German cars literally can last a lifetime if properly cared for!!
I had a VW Beetle when I was just 14 back in.1982/83 and it was my first driver in December 1986 when I turned 18 I got my license!!
“This generator can also be used as a motor with only minor changes to the machine as a whole, so thanks to economies of scale it’s possible to get readily available, powerful, compact, and cheap motors for all kinds of projects using alternators as a starting point. ”
Great for when the apocalypse happens, we’ll be ready.
It’s a good notion to integrating a single electric motor/generator with the engine to make a hybrid drivetrain: Why would you want to have a separate starter motor, alternator and electric drive motor? It’s redundant and adds mass.
So I have lately wondered: Why don’t we see alternator/generator integrated into the flywheel itself? It is basically free rotating mass that could be magnets, and could be used as a starter motor or as a generator, or as a drive assist motor.
The only reasons I can think are: A) an integrated part makes servicing more expensive, and B) manufacturing design inertia. But those are both pretty weak reasons, so I remain mystified: Why do we continue to build cars with separate starter motors, alternators, and heavy flywheels that do nothing else?
This integrated starter/generator/motor is a start, but why not integrate it directly in the flywheel?
The original Honda Insight hybrid did exactly that. It also allowed for a hybrid drive coupled to a manual transmission.
The rotation speed is too slow. Generalised Machine theory tells us that the amount of power you can get from an electrical machine is proportional to the rotation speed, as well as other factors. That’s why a 1500 RPM 1 hp motor is huge compared with a 30000 RPM 1 hp motor! It’s also why the starter motor turns much faster than the flywheel.
It’s because the flywheel is a PITA to replace, typically requiring the engine/transmission to be dropped out of the engine bay. Starters and alternators are typically replaced as a unit by mechanics shops, so you want them to be easy to replace.
Alternators are a part that fails occasionally, I wouldn’t want one buried inside the engine housing.
I’ve had to replace Alternators twice, and both times it’s a 200$ part that can be swapped out in an hour. There’s benefits to separating functionality, especially when components have lower life spans.
Alternators usually fail because of one of three reasons,
Bad regulator, bad rectifier diodes, or bad brushes.
This generally snt an issue with ISA equipped mild hybrids as they tend to use a brushless motor without integrated regulators and rectifiers.
By eliminating or separating these components you reduce the cost of part replacement and the time required as well. The motors themselves can be buried deep within the drivetrain as they are unlikely to ever go bad.
I know one generator manufacturer that builds exactly this: https://www.hatzamericas.com/fipmg/
It’s standalone, though – not something you’d find in a car.
Honda did this with the 1st gen insight and the civics, with a flywheel style motor generator in front of the clutch.
Toyota uses 2 motor/generators in a sun planetary system and for that manages to do away with the clutch and selectable gears by running one or both motor generators forward or backwards, or having one generate while the other motors as needed. This simplifies the transmission and provides effectively a CVT where Honda’s system still needs a standard transmission behind it. Toyota’s solution was licensed out to be how most hybrids are now.
Simply because flywheel in normal ICE sees A LOT of vibration. It should be as solid part as possible. It’s not impossible (like other commenters suggested, it had been done), but it’s more expensive.
The early, mid 2000’s General Motors did exactly that with the hybrid Tahoe and Yukon but instead of the flywheel they utilized the transmission torque converter instead of
Starters have been closely linked to the flywheel for 100 years. Mercedes made this deliberate choice. Probably for packaging and maintenance reasons.
You mean using a belt-driven starter/generator instead of one more directly run off the crankshaft? Belt-driven mild hybrids have been around for a long time: they’re way, way easier to integrate into an existing architecture. You basically just swap an alternator for an alternator/generator. It’s not really a packaging/maintenance thing, it’s basically one of the simplest ways to create a mild/micro hybrid with the whole “no idling while stopped” requirement.
They’re a little less reliable than a more integrated starter/generator because the belt’s tension jumps around a lot (obviously) and the belt can be thrown. Manageable if the belt tension’s monitored but, y’know, that’d be like, a five cent sensor or something, can’t have that on some models.
I’d hate to do an alternator replacement where it would take less than an hour to do the normal way.
It still is a belt-driven device, there’s no reason it should be more complicated (that doesn’t mean it isn’t).
But it’s not an alternator anymore, it’s the starter motor and an auxiliary drive motor as well. Look at it this way–you won’t have to do any maintenance on a starter motor. You’ll just have to replace the alternator again ;)
2012-2016 Malibu, Impala, LaCrosse, Regal (and other badge-engineered clones in that generation) use a combined starter/alternator/generator that drives (is driven by) a serpentine belt called “eAssist.” Essentially it’s just a sensor’ed 3-phase BLDC that uses an inverter/controller and DC-DC converter to get/use the proper voltages. These units are vastly more available here in the states and they’re water-cooled to boot! the BLDC is rated at 15hp/79 lb⋅ft @ 115v. The pulley ratio appears to be around 4:1 (eyeballed), so the BLDC probably spins around 24,000 to 30,000RPM maximum, 12,000rpm optimum, and has enough power below 1,000rpm to start a 2.4l 4-cylinder engine. These numbers are guesstimates.
Regarding the reliability of European (Mercedes, BMW, Stellantis, and VAG) vehicles… As a career automotive diagnostics specialist in the USA, I refer to European cars as “poverty bait,” since they’re always inordinately expensive to repair in relation to their resale value. When your $100k+ (new) vehicle loses over 60% of its value in 3 years, you can’t deny reality.
Quit being a Stan for multi-billion-dollar businesses that are overtly and aggressively anti-right-to-repair (and, by proxy, anti-hacking). They would quicker sue you into oblivion than stand-up for you as a customer, so why expend the effort?
Lastly, yes, believe it or not, almost EVERY SINGLE AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURER made extremely simple and reliable cars 40+ years ago. Yet, even back then, most European vehicles were still legendary for being overpriced, over-engineered to the point of ridiculousness, unreliable, much more expensive to fix, and generally hot garbage. Just because you’ve got “the good one” or your child is named “Beemer” and is made of metal does NOT indicate their entire product range’s reliability. Take off those rose-colored blinders and realize that if you put the same level of care, attention and maintenance into virtually ANY OTHER VEHICLE, it would have lasted longer, had less problems, been cheaper to repair and generally been a vastly better experience for you. This advice is coming from a lifetime RX-7 enthusiast, so I believe I’m (extremely) aware of what “fun but unreliable junk (that I still love)” is.
GM already did this years ago. It was their first hybrid design, adding a whopping 15hp. A compact motor like these aren’t powerful, but can add a couple of MPGs to EPA estimates for certification.
Mild hybrids are not so much about adding power. They are more about killing the engine and ALL fuel consumption when stopped but being able to immediately move forward when you hit the accelerator.
That’s what they are now. Earlier they were about being able to slap “hybrid” on something and sell it for more money.
The “adding power” bit does go a fair amount towards improving fuel consumption, though, because you want the engine running at peak torque for most efficiency, and if you’re at that point, you don’t have a lot of headroom left for power for stuff like passing/accelerating/etc. (By far the most common complaint about high-MPG non-hybrid vehicles is people feel like they don’t have enough acceleration to feel safe in high-speed situations).
You add a bit of battery power, problem solved.
…And also any other time when you only need <15hp to maintain forward momentum, which is actually a lot of driving (unless you have a lead foot)
12kw would make for a very capable electric scooter. What sort of power can this motor sustain?
Not sure which motor your talking about,
but the honda IMA is only rated at 10kw, which it can do continuously,
Hobbyists have gotten them up to 40kw intermittently.
Its pretty common for hybrid motors to be capable of much greater power levels than what they are spec’d at.
The big problem with reusing many hybrid drive motors is they are often incorporated into drivetrains in a way that makes them less “motors” and more “motor components” lacking bearings and any sort of uniting structure.
I was referring to the specs for the Mercedes motor generator given in the posts by [LeoDj] as linked to by the OP
…16 horses for those who are equine-inclined when it comes to measuring power in the context of a vehicle with wheels.
And agreed, it seems like a very hackable and flexible part.
Having clicked through the link to view the work log, I found the pictures on May 21 to be particularly interesting. The circuit board with all the bare dies mounted is something I’ve not seen much of before. The magnetic rotation sensor was also quite neat.