Raser Will Unveil New Electric Motor at EVS-22
19 October 2006
Raser Technologies, a technology licensing company established to develop and license advanced electric motor, controller and related technologies, announced that it plans to unveil a new more powerful electric motor design for electric and hybrid-electric vehicles next week at the 22nd Electric Vehicle Symposium (EVS-22) held October 23-28, 2006 in Yokohama, Japan.
Raser will announce a new 100kW AC induction-based electric motor design called the Symetron P-100. The P-100 was designed to double the performance of the company’s award-winning P-50 integrated starter alternator. (Earlier post.)
The Symetron P-100 is one in a series of high-horsepower motor designs Raser is developing to meet the demand for more onboard electric horsepower required by the next generation of strong hybrids, plug-in hybrids and fuel cell vehicles. These vehicles are more electrically dominant than today’s mild hybrids and often require the electric motor to serve as the primary drive for the vehicle.
The electric motors used in today’s mild hybrid vehicles typically deliver 15-20kW of power utilizing permanent-magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs) that require expensive rare-earth magnets to operate. Permanent magnet motors generally become even more expensive as the motors get larger.
Raser’s AC induction-based technology, recently awarded the Drive System Technology Innovation of the Year Award by Frost & Sullivan, achieves its high performance through advancements in motor control software and motor design, without requiring the use of permanent magnets. The Raser motor design offers performance and form factors comparable to PMSM-based systems, but provides the economy and reliability of the AC induction-based platform. This cost-effective alternative may help automakers reduce costs and improve reliability to bring next-generation hybrids more within reach of mainstream consumers, according to the company.
In addition to unveiling the new motor design, Raser will exhibit other new implementations of its Symetron family of technologies, including its new high-output, high-efficiency brushless alternator technology, designed to improve performance and fuel economy in conventional vehicles and its award winning P-50 integrated starter alternator.
This sounds a lot like the motor the Tesla is using that was pioneered over at AC.
It'd be great to have more options available for the next generation of EV's.
Posted by: Greg Woulf | 19 October 2006 at 08:03 AM
Is anyone going to be covering the symposium for this site?
Posted by: Neil | 19 October 2006 at 09:36 AM
Without permanent magnetic can such a motor act as a generator? You know for reclaiming energy when braking.
Posted by: Ben | 19 October 2006 at 10:08 AM
I don't see why not. Many diesel locomotives have AC induction motors now and can do dynamic braking using them as generators.I see no reason why a hybrid car shouldn't work just fine with one.
Green note: Some of the newer loco's are even putting that engergy into batteries for use when power is required. Previously it was all wasted as heat in the dynamic brake resistance grids.
Posted by: Tim Russell | 19 October 2006 at 11:50 AM
Greg - One reason PMSM have been preferred for HEV applications is that they don't require a speed differential (slip) between rotor and stator, whereas all IMs do. The slip causes additional losses on the order of a few percent, which require extra cooling. However, I expect that IMs will indeed get a second look as the HEV market grows and rare-earth permanent magnets become more expensive.
Ben - IMs can of course generate electricity, though you need to imprint an AC voltage pattern at the terminals to get things started. With modern 4Q power electronics and control systems, that is not a problem. Neither is the continously variable speed of the rotor.
Tim - For vehicles with permanent grid connection, wouldn't it make more sense to deploy stationary energy buffers (batteries, ultracaps or flywheel arrays) at key nodes in the grid, rather than lug them around?
Posted by: Rafael Seidl | 19 October 2006 at 12:17 PM
PMs had a couple of concerns with heat demagnetizing the magnets and a failure mode that might drive a coil on full time and cause a problems.
Posted by: SJC | 19 October 2006 at 08:48 PM
The idea of Raser motor (patented) is quite simple. Instead of neodime (rare-earth element practically 100% supplied by China) permanent magnets in rotor, they employ electric magnets. DC electricity is supplied to rotor by two brushes contacting two uninterrupted contact rings, and because there is no need for reversing current to rotor, brushes do not “spark” and have very long service life. Rotating electromagnetic field of stator (like in regular PM motors) makes rotor to rotate synchronously. Optimized for this operation air gap configuration is also patented. Since electric magnet is twice more powerful then permanent magnet, torque, efficiency, and power output of the motor are very high.
They already have some motors in evaluation at major automotive manufacturers: traditional alternator, belt driven and pancake starter/motor/generator for hybrids, and traction motor. All motors could be reversed to work as generators.
Posted by: Andrey | 19 October 2006 at 11:33 PM
Andrey,
Can you point me to more indepth iformation in the Raser tech that they have on the web.
Thanks,
Mike
Posted by: mikey | 20 October 2006 at 06:41 AM
Andrey -
it's an AC induction motor. No brushes or slip rings involved. No mechanical wear and tear at all.
Posted by: Rafael Seidl | 20 October 2006 at 08:03 AM
Rafael Diesel locomotives have no grid connection they generate their own power with a generator that is fed to traction motors in the trucks. Even in the case of electric locomotives which I think your were thinking about it is hard to feed back AC electricity into the line because you need to sync it up. Also Hauling batteries around for a locomotive is no big deal because many of them carry ballast weight to increase rail adhesion anyway. You just replace dead weigh with batteries and save some diesel fuel in the process. Have a look at this link https://www.getransportation.com/general/locomotives/hybrid/hybrid_default.asp
Posted by: Tim Russell | 20 October 2006 at 08:10 AM
so andrey are you suggesting that these motors are a kind of double fed?As far as generating paower is concerned look at vector control...it makes it so simple
Posted by: sagem | 20 October 2006 at 02:12 PM
Mike, Sagem:
Look at rasertech.com Also their US patent 6847186 (go to http://www.uspto.gov/patft/ and to pat. number search) or directly:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=Raser.ASNM.&OS=AN/Raser&RS=AN/Raser
Rafael:
I learned about brushes from their patent, but I am not sure if it applies to all their motors or not:
“The rotor and stator are connected in series through slip-rings”
“Due to high rotor current, which is equal to stator current, several brushes angularly disposed and in contact with the same slip-ring may be implemented to reduce brush-ring contact current density to levels facilitating extension of brush life.
It should be pointed out that brush life in a slip-ring application far exceeds that found in mechanical commutation of a standard brush-type DC motor inasmuch as no switching function is involved”
Posted by: Andrey | 20 October 2006 at 11:50 PM
This company has managed to raise over 1 billion dollars in shares with no product to show yet. The only thing they have is a patent on a AC motor with a seperately excited rotor using slip rings.
There's articles on the web regarding the dark history of this company's founders ( responsible for several other no-product companies that went bankrupt after a few years). Unfortuanely this alternative energy field seems attractive to the hype and press release game.
Posted by: Nick | 26 October 2006 at 11:06 AM
I have my doubts as well. It looks like they bought the patent from the innovator and now have mostly officers that hold a lot of the shares.
Posted by: SJC | 30 October 2006 at 07:25 AM
I think a hydrogen turbine generator setup would solve the pollution and battery problem with most hybrids. However expensive they are the price would lower as popularity increased for such a setup. Hydrogen gas burns completely clean and ,lb 4 lb, has 3 times as much energy as gasoline. And turbines are most efficient at high speeds required for adequate electricity generation.
Posted by: Mike | 12 January 2007 at 12:29 PM
I was interested in Raser in the past. It appears to me that government/business sectors are working together(see quote on right by Hatch). Maybe not as fast as we like, but the improvements, drive, profit incentives are way up from past efforts.
http://www.rasertech.com/company_director_bios.html
The people involved with Raser are not slouches and have connections which can prove advantageous in the future as market suppliers to GM, Ford, Toyota, etc.
Is there any reason their products cannot be finely tuned for cars in the future?
Posted by: | 14 April 2008 at 02:08 PM