Yamaha develops 496-horsepower motor for electric hypercars

MitchJi

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https://www.autoblog.com/2021/04/12/yamaha-hypercar-electric-motor-prototype-ev/
Yamaha develops 496-horsepower motor for electric hypercars

Ben Hsu
Yamaha has just announced an electric motor engineered specifically for electric hypercar applications. The compact 800-volt unit is said to be capable of generating 496 horsepower. It was developed with the intent of having multiple units powering the same vehicle, so a vehicle using even just two of these motors could be incredibly powerful. Yamaha also highlights the motor's compact size a result of the gear and inverter being integrated into a single unit.

This isn't the only electric motor Yamaha has developed. Starting last year, Yamaha began expanding its business to include development of motors ranging from 47 to 268 horsepower. The smaller units were created for personal mobility vehicles and motorcycles in mind, while the more powerful units are intended for passenger cars. These motors were commissioned by other companies for use their respective products.

Yamaha-Hyper-EV-motor-1.jpg
 
Why not? I guess drivers aren't stupid and antisocial enough with the way-too-much horsepower they already have.
 
Yamaha provides motors to other OEMS and for racing as well, so I could see this as one of their test cases for that.
 
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I love how small that is. They must be using a lot of reductions and spinning the motor up to extreme RPM if they can make that sort of power from such a tiny unit.

Yamaha makes some amazing stuff. Sure is a lot nicer than the ~200lb brushed motors used in conversion, lol.

Chalo said:
Why not? I guess drivers aren't stupid and antisocial enough with the way-too-much horsepower they already have.

Do us all a favor and stop vehicle shaming on a forum devoted to electric vehicle development. This is the wrong place for it. I see you doing this all across the forum... and even on my threads.
 
neptronix said:
Chalo said:
Why not? I guess drivers aren't stupid and antisocial enough with the way-too-much horsepower they already have.

Do us all a favor and stop vehicle shaming on a forum devoted to electric vehicle development. This is the wrong place for it. I see you doing this all across the forum... and even on my threads.

Car drivers don't need my help to disgrace themselves, and most seem to have no shame.

About a month ago, I went to get my second vaccine shot, and I waited in a line for the better part of an hour with thousands of other people who were behaving patiently, courteously, and considerately. But put the same people in their cars and make them wait forty seconds, or have to slow down slightly for another road user, and they start to behave like animals. Bad people gravitate towards cars, surely, but cars also make people bad.
 
Chalo said:
Car drivers don't need my help to disgrace themselves, and most seem to have no shame.

About a month ago, I went to get my second vaccine shot, and I waited in a line for the better part of an hour with thousands of other people who were behaving patiently, courteously, and considerately is. But poor the same people in their cars and make them wait forty seconds, or have to show down slightly for another road user, and they start to behave like animals. Bad people gravitate towards cars, surely, but cars also make people bad.

I don't disagree with you, but a majority of members here own cars. There is no need to make them unwelcome for their choice of vehicle. Cars.. and every vehicle of every size has a place here on the sphere.
 
put the same people in their cars and make them wait forty seconds, or have to slow down slightly for another road user, and they start to behave like animals

So true. But it is not relegated to folks in hyper cars and bikes. I get buzzed most regularly by hyper milers driving their tiny shitboxes. Not sure if they are just trying to catch a bit of draft. LOL. Something about that isolation that helps create more pronounced antisocial behavior. Most of it I believe, is they just can get away from you, and not have to face the music as they would on foot. Been thinking of wearing a camera lately as at least up here, folks are driving like idiots.

They must be using a lot of reductions and spinning the motor up to extreme RPM if they can make that sort of power from such a tiny unit.
Not finding much on size and weight other than the rendition of the 4wd in the article. Looks from the case to be a dual stage gear reduction as on many of the other drives.
 
I tried getting some info for a project I'm working on. I asked for any dimensioned drawings, step file if available, and cost. Their response was polite but that they only sell to oems and did not share any info.
 
Quite typical.. unfortunately to get many of these high tech parts, many of us hobbyists will need to pull them out of scrapped cars.
 
Yes, oil filter.

My guess is that it's for the gear reduction.

When the new transmission is assembled the final step of the machining process is the 'break in' period as gears seat into each other. This generates little specs of metal, which I suppose this filter is meant to catch. It may also be vented in which case small amounts of impurities will work their way in.

Just a guess.

If that is true then 2-3 oil changings is probably all it'll need for the lifetime of the vehicle. There is no clutches or any thing like that in there to generate gunk, like in a automatic transmission.
 
My guess is the oil filter is mostly there to keep garages/servicing relevant. Maybe it's oil cooled, the filter could come in useful in that case but if it's only transmission lubrication it'll probably never be touched. Hardly any garages change transmission oils ever in 600hp luxo-barges and IC transmission have a much harder life than electric.
 
It's unlikely that it's oil cooled. Oil is fairly mediocre as far as coolant goes. The problem is that when it cools the viscosity goes up so it tends to create a layer of cooler oil in the radiator that isolates the hot oil flowing through it from contact with the metal sides.

I expect they use ethylene glycol water mixture for cooling. It's proven technology (they know what the long term effects are), and it is very effective. I expect it's meant to be used in conjunction with thermal management of batteries where they can use waste heat from the motor to help maintain battery temperature on cold days.

Electric motors can be very brutal to transmissions due to their high torque load at low RPM. However it's going to be a single speed reduction and they are going to want to use it for regenerative braking. So no clutches or gear changes or anything like that. The only contamination should be from the 'break in period' and regular wear of the metal gears as well as anything that makes it's way through the ventilation (although it may be sealed)
 
sleepy_tired said:
If that is true then 2-3 oil changings is probably all it'll need for the lifetime of the vehicle. There is no clutches or any thing like that in there to generate gunk, like in a automatic transmission.
Yeah, I think we know what it does, but the real question is why?
Oil filter requires oil pump, adding complexity, weight, and cost.
I'm not aware of any single-reduction drivetrain component (transfer case, differential) in a passenger vehicle that is provisioned as such, even in much higher load applications.
 
Yeah, I think we know what it does, but the real question is why?

On small industrial motors and older motorcycles they don't use oil pumps because the forces they deal with are not that great. Instead they tend to use a splash oiling system. And that is enough to make them run a very long time. However when you get into larger motors that doesn't seem to work anymore. Instead they use a oil pump with oil galleries and all that fun stuff.

Probably same situation here. I am guessing that in order to make the transmission as compact as possible they used smaller bearing surfaces. which requires some amount of oil pressure during operation.

From the description in the article it seemed like compact size, so it easily fits into different applications, was a priority.

Oil filter requires oil pump, adding complexity, weight, and cost.

Depending on the requirements a oil pump can be something as simple as a extra spur gear on a existing gear shaft. Add a idler gear and stick it into a hole that barely fits both gears and you have a oil pump.
 
sleepy_tired said:
It's unlikely that it's oil cooled. Oil is fairly mediocre as far as coolant goes. The problem is that when it cools the viscosity goes up so it tends to create a layer of cooler oil in the radiator that isolates the hot oil flowing through it from contact with the metal sides.
Well, oil (ATF, gear oil) in driveline components (transmission, transfer case, differential) performs both lubrication and cooling functions.

sleepy_tired said:
I expect they use ethylene glycol water mixture for cooling. It's proven technology (they know what the long term effects are), and it is very effective. I expect it's meant to be used in conjunction with thermal management of batteries where they can use waste heat from the motor to help maintain battery temperature on cold days.
I'm not so sure. If they're already using pumped oil for lubrication, it would be trivial to also use it for thermal regulation. EVs have only a fraction of the waste heat load of an ICE, and thus don't need the high thermal conductivity and specific heat of water-based coolant.

sleepy_tired said:
Electric motors can be very brutal to transmissions due to their high torque load at low RPM. However it's going to be a single speed reduction and they are going to want to use it for regenerative braking. So no clutches or gear changes or anything like that. The only contamination should be from the 'break in period' and regular wear of the metal gears as well as anything that makes it's way through the ventilation (although it may be sealed)
Torque is torque, and rpm shouldn't make a difference in this application.

The more I think about it, the more I suspect it is used for both lubrication and thermal regulation.
 
sleepy_tired said:
On small industrial motors and older motorcycles they don't use oil pumps because the forces they deal with are not that great. Instead they tend to use a splash oiling system. And that is enough to make them run a very long time. However when you get into larger motors that doesn't seem to work anymore. Instead they use a oil pump with oil galleries and all that fun stuff.
But that's in an ICE. We're talking about gearboxes, which aren't actively pumped and filtered in passenger vehicle applications.

sleepy_tired said:
Probably same situation here. I am guessing that in order to make the transmission as compact as possible they used smaller bearing surfaces. which requires some amount of oil pressure during operation.

From the description in the article it seemed like compact size, so it easily fits into different applications, was a priority.
Yeah, I was thinking along the same lines. The closest analogous components are transfer cases and differentials, which may have larger volume, allowing greater oil volume, lower power density, and higher passive heat rejection.

sleepy_tired said:
Depending on the requirements a oil pump can be something as simple as a extra spur gear on a existing gear shaft. Add a idler gear and stick it into a hole that barely fits both gears and you have a oil pump.
True, but coupling the pump to motor rpm would seem to be less desirable on an electric motor, given the continuous powerband. But this is speculative on my part.
 
True, but coupling the pump to motor rpm would seem to be less desirable on an electric motor,

Maybe. I don't know when the oil pressure would be most important. If there is a mechanical engineer here I am sure he could explain in more detail about what would be required to handle massive torque at a wide range of RPMs in a small package. But all that is beyond me.

I am guessing that if the oil viscosity is high enough you can trust it to stick around between movements then oil pressure would only be needed during higher RPM operation. In that case a simple mechanical pump driven by one of the shafts would be all that is needed.
 
Hm. Traditional gear oil (75W-90, as used in MT, t-case, and diffs) is not pumped through the cellulose fiber media of a disposable oil filter. They're likely pumping something with lower viscosity through, or maybe an uncoupled electric oil pump that only runs at operating temperature when viscosity has decreased?
 
sleepy_tired said:
True, but coupling the pump to motor rpm would seem to be less desirable on an electric motor,

Maybe. I don't know when the oil pressure would be most important. If there is a mechanical engineer here I am sure he could explain in more detail about what would be required to handle massive torque at a wide range of RPMs in a small package. But all that is beyond me.

I am guessing that if the oil viscosity is high enough you can trust it to stick around between movements then oil pressure would only be needed during higher RPM operation. In that case a simple mechanical pump driven by one of the shafts would be all that is needed.

It can be summarised fairly easily, the limit is the point at which lubrication breaks down, there's no longer a barrier between the moving bits of metal (the gear teeth, pins in a chain etc.). Metallurgy etc. comes into it ofc but lubrication is usually the limiting factor. At a guess it will use reduced torque output at lower rpm's, they could easily halve the weight of the drivetrain that way with no noticeable reduction in performance, that thing will easily put out more torque than tyres can handle at low speeds.
 
stan.distortion said:
At a guess it will use reduced torque output at lower rpm's, they could easily halve the weight of the drivetrain that way with no noticeable reduction in performance, that thing will easily put out more torque than tyres can handle at low speeds.

Not likely. Torque is torque -- it doesn't matter to the driveline or tires what RPM (or speed in a single-reduction). The former is why factory turbo ICE vehicles hold a fixed maximum torque across the engine operating speed: driveline limits.
 
fatty said:
....
Not likely. Torque is torque -- it doesn't matter to the driveline or tires what RPM (or speed in a single-reduction). The former is why factory turbo ICE vehicles hold a fixed maximum torque across the engine operating speed: driveline limits.

But it does to the motor, torque reduces as rpm increases. Probably a flatline up to a certain point though, I'd imagine that would allow lower battery amps to the controller (but I've no idea how that works with phase amps).
 
Oil pumps is sometimes used in manual transmissions on cars, I think most of the times to be able to run a lower oil level and thereby less drag from gears running in oil. Sometimes in more complex transmissions too, where there are more shafts and some then are over the oil level.
They then have some sort of tubing or similar that directs the oil to the gears. I dont think there are much pressure or even any pressure regulation, just enough to get a constant flow.
 
stan.distortion said:
But it does to the motor, torque reduces as rpm increases. Probably a flatline up to a certain point though, I'd imagine that would allow lower battery amps to the controller (but I've no idea how that works with phase amps).

Not enough to artificially limit 0-60 and 0-100mph times. Hypercars, remember -- they don't have to fit a budget or be mass-producible.
 
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