Volvo Recharge wheel motor TEST DRIVE

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http://electric-vehicles-cars-bikes.blogspot.com/

Volvo / PML finally demo a vehicle running with 4 in-wheel motors. The spec quoted by Volvo is MUCH less than was originally announced by PML in 2006. Volvo says these demo motors are 50 hp (36kw) with 1000nm. PML have said ever since 2006 these motors would have 160hp (117kw)

So they have about 1/3rd the power they said and I'd have to say the torque figure is extremely suspect too. The Volvo s30 is a small lightweight car, yet on the only slight grade on this video it slows down substantially and the video is edited well before it crests the hill.

In my experience, with their claimed total of 4000nm of torque, coming from electric motors which have 100% torque from zero rpm, the S30 wouldn't even notice a hill twice as steep or twice as long as the one in the video.

I regularly drive up a much steeper hill @60kph on cruise control with a 1600kg car that has 1200nm at the back wheels with the engine rpm steady @1500 rpm. It wouldn't even notice the grade in the video so I'd have to say there's NO WAY the PML wheel motors on this Volvo S30 have 1000 Nm each!

It is believed the asking price for these wheel motors was $25-35,000 EACH.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• Volvo
• Recharge
• AWD
• wheel
• motor
• test
• drive
• demonstation
• series
• hybrid

[ShwangShwing]

What happens if you hit the curb?

[tsport100]

If you hit a curb hard enough to destroy the wheel you will have hit hard enough to write off that corner of the car from the suspension right back to the chassis rails.

[kostea13]

THE FUTURE IS ELECTRIC !

[Killroy1999]

If you ever had a chance to design ground vehicles, then you know that weight and space are a problem. 4 in-wheel motors are a simple and elegant way to have all wheel drive and eliminate a lot of mechanical components that cost money, weight, space, maintenance and reliability. For the car designer, it is awesome to eliminate the transmission, drive lines, transaxle, clutch shifter, differentials, CVs, half shafts, ext.

[tsport100]

@pianoman469 1) EVs use 1/10th the energy of ICE cars to do the same work 2) Coal is not imported, unlike Oil 3) As most EVs charge over night, they actually use energy that is being wasted - making the entire Grid more efficient 4) less than 50% of US electricity is coal sourced! Get an INFORMED opinion!

[pianoman469]

@kostea13 Quit talking out of your ass! Oh wait, you posted that inane comment 2 years ago - my bad. By now you should realize that electric is just an indirect means of making power plants use more coal. The only future I can see is solar (that won't happen anytime soon) or nuclear (but then again, who wants to risk ending up like Japan). 

[HQsound]

@ 1:35

The car starts leaking some liquid. Coolant or washer fluid is my guess.

[Dimension13XYZZY]

I guess they are aming for maximum mileage, not maximum performance. Check this out instead:

youtube.com/watch?v=y-CylzF-Ah­g

[Swetriix]

@Hachiroku96 Because the oil companys sue creators of electric cars.

[Hachiroku96]

why we still using gas then?? thats ma fuckin question :S

[theiamania]

With only 5.5 mill inhabitants, it is still estimated from official side that air pollution in the cities course more than 2 mill sick days a year in Denmark. Apart from that there is the critical effect of noise pollution on the health an productivity of the population.

So I can't wait to have electric cars driving the streets :-)

[vooteleaer]

Wheel motors are not pathetic at all. I've built electric dirtbike with 1.5kw wheel motor (direct drive) and it accelerates very hard. Why Volvo has released a video like this, I have no idea. Surely wheel motors are not the ones here to blame, but test crew decisions.