I get that the battery pack for a Tesla is very heavy. But I remember a small industrial electric motor about the size of a one liter soda bottle and beIng stunned to find it was so heavy due to the windings that it took real effort with two hands for me to pick up and move. So, is a significant part of a Tesla’s extreme weight from the electric motor? If so, is the motor weight proportinately comparable to an IC engine? Or is the car literally weighted in favor of the battery?
I understand that the electric motor used in the Tesla weighs about 70 pounds. One reason it’s so light is because it’s a very high rpm motor, I believe the gear reduction from motor to axle is around 8:1, which would have the motor spinning over 12,000 rpm at the car’s top speed. It’s a four pole three phase induction motor, no permanent magnets in the design, which is appropriate being that Nikola Tesla invented this type of electric motor.
Along with the high rpm, another thing that keeps this motor light is the fact that it isn’t designed to put out its rated horsepower continuously. At its maximum power output, it’s probably good for a minute or two before the motor control shuts it down to cool off. People who have tested this car on a race track find out that it’s only good for one or two laps before it goes into limited power mode to keep from burning the motor up.
Designing it this way actually makes perfect sense since most street cars only use their engine’s maximum power for short bursts, accelerating and passing, the rest of the time the engines typically put out less than 30 horsepower.
It’s not necessarily the copper wire that weighs so much. We rewound a burned out 3000 hp. 3600 rpm 4160 volt three phase motor for a power plant, this motor weighed over 10,000 pounds, the new coils for this motor weighed about 970 pounds total.
@B.L.E. Thank you for the explanation
Years ago I road a Norton 750 and going from 0 to 60 in 5 seconds was simply awsome. This thing does that in half the time with one hand on the wheel and no flies in your teeth. I need one before I die.
I owned a 1200cc Kawasaki ZRX1200R that would go from zero to 60 in around three seconds, or about the time it took for the engine to hit redline in first gear, if there was enough traction and you could keep the front wheel on the ground.
After putting 100,000 miles on this bike, I traded it in for a much smaller and less powerful Kawasaki Ninja 300 which I ride today. When asked why, I say “because I need to get 70 mpg a whole lot worse than I need to double the speed limit”.
But I still remember what it was like rolling open the throttle in second gear, it’s like you are being accelerated into the future.
@dagosa, you don’t need no stinkin’ Norton. You need a 2006 Suzuki GSX R 1000. 0 to 60 in 2.35 seconds! It’s even a used bike, so you can save money! Put that on your bucket list. If you simply must have a European bike, here’s a list of the quickest to 60 MPH:
You can afford the bike but you can’t afford the insurance.
I think I may have related this story awhile back but based on your post you may enjoy it.
Guy I know had a KZ900- wicked fast bike back in the day. Bunch of people sitting around at night shooting the breeze and another guy starts dissing the KZ900. Long story short, friend lets him ride it. He comes back saying it’s a hunk of junk, slow as molasses etc. We all go outside to settle this brewing dispute and the street is literally covered in black stripes from his passes back and forth…
Seems like one of the issues are the rattles that used to be a problem in the 60s with US cars. Took a lot of re-engineering and elimination of mucho screws to eliminate the interior rattles after a few miles.
"Seems like one of the issues are the rattles that used to be a problem in the 60s with US cars"
When Ford re-engineered their full-size cars for the '65 model year, in addition to giving them a much more compliant ride, they also reduced interior noise levels to a great extent.
Interior noise reduction was accomplished in two ways–by using more sound-deadening insulation, and by reducing the tendency for squeaks and rattles. I recall one of their engineers telling one of the car magazines that the trick was to either widen the gap between interior parts, or to make the interior parts fit together very tightly . The engineer stated that the major source of annoying squeaks from interior parts was the result of trim panels rubbing against each other very slightly. If the gap was widened, or if they fit together very tightly, he claimed that less squeaking was the result.
You need a 2006 Suzuki GSX R 1000. 0 to 60 in 2.35 seconds!
Translation: Professional drag racer Jay (PeeWee) Gleason managed to do this exactly one time in a row under perfect conditions on a drag strip in Southern California with this bike.
This guy got paid very well for wringing out every bit of acceleration out of stock bikes for road tests and manufacturer’s bragging rights.
Your results on street pavement may vary and will likely be a bit slower.
^No matter; I’m sure it accelerates faster than I can process what’s happening as I ride! The limiting factor is man, not machine.
I saw a road test comparison between Yamaha’s R-6, 600cc sport bike and Yamaha’s R-1, their 1000 cc sport bike. What caught my eye was that their 0-60 times were practically identical in that road test. Around 2.9 seconds.
I think that the 600’s horsepower already is at that saturation point where more horsepower is just more wheelspin.
Rider/driver skill plays a huge role here also. A lot of people take their new superbikes to the drag strip only to find out that pulling off a 10 second 1/4 mile run is not as easy as it looks.
I can’t imagine that any of us on this board could take any racing motorcycle and meet the fastest ET for it. I wasn’t suggesting that just anyone could do that.
Fast bikes and fast cars have far exceeded my abilities. A Honda 300 or a VW GTI is about all the speed I could use.
I saw a couple mini bikes for sale the other day (but can’t remember where) for about $400. That’s really all the speed I want on two wheels. 20 mph feels like 70 on one of those.
I came back to small bikes because I increasingly felt that a motorcycle that only gets 35-40 mpg and wears out a $180 dollar rear tire every 5000 miles or so, kind of misses the whole point of a motorcycle, an economical alternative to a car. And, in the process, I rediscovered just how much fun small bikes were to ride.
Well Ed Frugal,you have heard of Tesla making or at least considering an SUV,?You have seen Buddy tanks on aircraft?And you have seen or heard of people buying huge gas tanks for their SUVs or pickups?I have actually seen a fair amount of trailer hitches on cars,my brother had one on a Taurus He used to pull his Leonard trailer,no its not a ridiculous idea when you need the extra range for say going across country,besides there would be a lot of space in the trailer for hauling extra luggage etc.Sometimes it pays to think outside the box a little bit,seen a good many bicycles and motor cycles pulling small trailers,too.Who would have thought?