Wednesday, December 26, 2007

3 Phase Makes the Motor Go Round

I did a little reading today about the Tesla Motors sports car that is coming out next year. The Tesla car makes use of a 3 phase AC motor with regenerative braking. I also did some reading on frequency drives today. The frequency drive is how you can control the speed and torque of an AC motor, and reduce power draw during startup.

I don't know how easy it would be to do, but the question I am asking at the moment is can I make a computer control the frequency drive? If not full control it would be fun at least to be able to have three profiles that we can use. I'd like to be able to adjust from max battery/econo mode to performance/max acceleration mode with just a click or knob adjustment.

Well off to more research.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

More people should learn about this. EV technology is really becoming impressive, like the new Zap that does 0-60mph in 4.8 seconds. Electric is looking more and more like the way to go.