Cylinders, exhust fumes and pistons are some equipments which we have often heard while discussing about conventional car engines. But there is a question always comes, does electric car engines contain such equipments. How does an electric car motor really work ? Hence we will discuss about various parts of electric car motor.
What is an electric motor?
Electric motor is a kind of mechanical instrument in which electric supply is passed just to rotate a piston. So in short we can express electric motor converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. So here there are two parts one is stator and another one is rotor. Stator means the part which is static and converts electric supply into magnetic field. And rotor means the part of the motor which rotates under the influence of magnetic field.
What is the difference between engine and motor ?
In automobile industry engine is something which runs the vehicle. But when it comes to electric vehicle’s engine it is simply motor. The conventional engine uses thermal energy and converts it into mechanical, where as electric motor uses electrical energy and converts it to mechanical. We have seen water pump motors where some kind of fuel ( diesel, kirosene ) is used to turn on the motor and that pumps water. These kind of engines are called motors where as these motors converts thermal energy into mechanical energy. In instrumentation term if I say any instrument that converts mechnical energy into electrical energy is known as transducer. But here we are talking about motors which converts electrical energy into mechanical.
How electric car motor work in EV ?
Basically electric car motors are connected to a power supply. As the electric vehicles use batteries, it means here power supply is DC ( Direct Current ). In such scenario rotation per minute is directly proportional to intensity of current. Such electric motors do not work well for electric vehicles although it is useful for wipers and other components. Here the question is how really motors work inside and electric vehicle engine ?
To understand working of electric car engine we must understand certain terms like stator, rotor, AC, DC, synchronous and asynchronous motor.
What is AC and DC ?
AC stands for Alternate current which passes like a wave as the electron continuously change it’s direction. While DC stands for direct current does not pass like a wave. The current which we use in our home as an electric supply from government that is AC current and the current which is taken from battery is DC current.
How DC current runs motor ?
In electric car engine the power supply is taken from battery. As battery current is DC current and AC current is required for running the motor, so DC is converted to AC using an inverter. Once the energy reaches motor the motor functions. Here the functionality of the motor depends on whether it is an asynchronous motor or a synchronous motor.
What are asynchronous and synchronous motor ?
Another name of asynchronous motor is known as induction motor. Here in induction motor power supply is given to a stator which creates a rotating magnetic field. Due to this the rotor is set to an endless rotation. When any electric vehicle is used with high speed for long period of time such induction motors are used.
But in synchornous motor the rotor acts as an electromagnet and the rotation speed depends on the intensity of power supply.
Both synchronous and asynchronous motor converts mechanical energy into electrical energy too in a reverse manner. This is how regenerative braking works.
Parts of electric car motors.
There are some parts of electric car engines. Some cars use synchronous motor while some other cars use asynchronous motor along with powertrain.
Some of the synchronous motors use permanent magnets made of ferromagnetic substances like neodymium or dysprosium which have some kind of supply problem to solve such global issue. So for such scenario EESM technology is made this Externally Excited Synchronous Motors ( EESM ) is developed by Renault group. This EESM technology basically uses an electromagnet made of copper wires which involves a lot of industrial process.
The powertrain is an equipment which ensembles all these magnets wires to function the electric car motor. There is another unit called Power Electronic Controller ( PEC ) brings together all the electronics which are responsible for motors power supply and charge of battery. Also it controls the speed and torque of the motor.
Conclusion
There are various state of the art methods used in new vehicles which may increase the performance of the electric cars motor.
But we can say still there is scope of green transport using electric vehicles. There are other articles in which you can find best electric cars in 2022. This article is inspired from one of the article produced from Renault.