Sabin Civil Engineering
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2020–2022
12:08 · 8M views · Dec 18, 2020
An engineering explainer on why Tesla abandoned the induction motor for the Model 3 and used an IPM-SynRM design. It covers the reluctance torque and permanent magnet principles behind the choice.
HN recommends it as a clear explanation of the Model 3 motor and reluctance rotor design.
5 comments from Hacker News
A tesla Model 3 motor already is partially a reluctance motor. This youtube video describes it rather well, and I'd recommend giving it a watch [1]. Notice the air gaps - thats the reluctance part of the rotor. [1]: this video
Youtube has recommended a few videos from the channel Learn Engineering that have been surprisingly good. For example: this video
> What sort of motor do you think a Tesla model 3 uses, for example? IPM-SynRM this video They went into a lot of effort to optimize it over RPM range. If you want to make a point use real motor curves at least. Your graph suggests it goes to sub 20% efficiencies at low speed which is completely false and would suggests way higher gains from gearbox than in reality. Hell, it would suggest ICE like performance, it's THAT bad.
> A tesla Model 3 motor already is partially a reluctance motor. This youtube video describes it rather well, and I'd recommend giving it a watch [1]. Notice the air gaps - thats the reluctance part of the rotor. > [1]: this video I dont think he's using air gaps? "Instead of using air gaps, Sansone thought he could incorporate another magnetic field into a motor."
> The engineers of Tesla motor's shocked everyone when they abandoned the versatile induction motor in Model 3 cars. They used a totally different motor called IPM-SynRM. Let's understand why the Tesla engineers made this crucial design change. this video