Electric vehicles are becoming an increasingly common sight for many people. Whether it’s viewing a shiny new Tesla lower the street, or gear reduction motor hopping on a light rail train or renting an electric scooter to get from that train to your house, EVs are everywhere.
One problem with electrical motors is that because of the speeds at which they rotate, to become useful in most vehicles, they need a gear reduction device. I’d call it a transmission, but usually, these gearboxes just have one speed. This takes the 10,000 rpm from a drive engine and reduces the acceleration at the wheels while multiplying torque.
What if there were a engine that didn’t need to spin as fast as that to make enough usable power and torque to drive a car? If that existed, you could change all kinds of reasons for having electric car design. If you didn’t need a gearbox, you’ll save a good-size chunk of weight and, probably even more crucially, space.
With that space, you could raise the size of your battery pack, and with the reduced weight, you’ll improve all kinds of things like handling, range and acceleration.