UQM providing electric drive system for Rolls-Royce 102EX
04 March 2011
UQM Technologies, Inc. is providing two 145 kW UQM PowerPhase electric propulsion systems for the Rolls-Royce 102EX introduced at the Geneva Motor Show. (Earlier post.) Combined, the two electric motors produce 388 hp (283 kW) and 590 lb-ft (800 N·m) of torque.
Rolls-Royce joins Saab and Audi in selecting UQM Technologies electric propulsion systems to power their pre-production test fleets.
UQM has 40,000 units of annual production capacity for its PowerPhase electric propulsion systems to support the commercial launch of CODA Automotive and other customer vehicles powered by its electric propulsion systems. UQM is also supplying Proterra Inc. with 150kW PowerPhase electric propulsion systems for its electric and hybrid electric, composite transit buses.
It does not say what technology is used in these motors. Are they injection moulded copper induction rotors as used by AC Propulsion or are they permanent magnet devices. Many electric and diesel electric locomotives are now induction motors with inverters. The Pseudo direct current Swedish, German, Austrian and Swiss 16-2/3 AC catenaries are now only needed by old equipment, but they are still finding ways to put the heavy low frequency transformers in some rail vehicles and locomotives. You could see the incandescent lights on the Swedish locomotives pulse. They had to get the old locomotives out of museums to deal with the now unusually cold and snowy global warming winters.
The transformers are still used because high voltage DC drives are still unusual. Some built by ABB are used on an oil platform to run the natural gas compressors to pump a lot more gas to Germany. The drives are fed with 30 kV DC through undersea cables.
The Swiss used electric fueled steam locomotives during the periods when their neighbors were at war and coal was hard to get. Resistors will operate at any frequency. Several such locomotives, which can cost only ten percent of the price of a modern electric locomotives should be stationed at the mouth of the Chunnel to rescue trains stalled by very cold fine snow in the electronics. They could be made to work on 750 Volt third rail DC as well as 25 kV AC catenaries and 3000 V DC catenaries without a transformer or a single high power silicon valve and no low voltage ones either. The breaks in the third rail electrification are not an issue even with a single collector shoe; nor are the shunting tracks without catenaries an issue. Perhaps Roger Waller of DLM could be persuaded to make a dozen or so. With the price of diesel fuel and the limited use of such machines, efficiency is not an issue. At a moderate cost the Chunnel could be fitted with a simple low power 750 Volt third rail for when the catenary is compromised by fire or accident.
Simple cheap third rail systems could be built in some areas with cheap highly unregulated AC power system frequency on the rail only when power is being taken from the rail and the primary of the nearby supply transformer is disconnected from the grid at all other times to eliminate transformer and inductive current losses in cables and conductors.
Electric locomotives with cheap EFFPOWER technology batteries can run when the tracks are frequently used, but the far less capital expensive steam locomotives can be used for the occasional trip, and may be more cheap to operate than diesel shunters in regular service and certainly produce less CO2 and NOX. Very efficient Flywheel locomotives were invented for similar electrification in the UK about 80 years ago. Even back then it may have been cheaper and more efficient to use electricity from a steam turbine coal fired power plant in an electric heated steam locomotive than to burn coal in the average steam locomotive.
With very good earlier work by his French teachers Livio da Porta developed chemistry to give boilers infinite life even with the very bad water along Argentine railroads. When diesel becomes much more expensive, his gas-producer combustion system for burning bad Argentine coal in high performance locomotives will become cheap to use.
Autobahnen, motorways and freeways can be electrified with simple contact rails at the surface similar to the modified third rail system proposed with very low losses when there is little use. One very simple method would be a single rail with meter long insulated rail sections alternately connected to a 50 volt DC bus. This is just a linear version of the DC brushed motor commutator. Servo mechanisms can keep the car connected to the rail and following it. Batteries can make up for many mile long gaps.
EFFPOWER lead batteries can be used in conjunction with other batteries designed for high capacity rather than high power. The more recent Atraverda batteries are also almost available. What is forgotten in lead batteries is that the electrolyte needs to be about seven times the volume of the actively used lead materials. And a thin coating of active material on the walls of the carbon foam of Firefly could have been of the correct ratio.
The formerly related Rolls-Royce naval ship builders use and sell ZEBRA batteries for submarine and surface vehicle use. It is not known if the rekated NGK sodium sulphur unit has higher energy density.
An automobile this expensive should have used the much more tested ZEBRA batteries. They can be redesigned for higher energy density and peak power can come from a different design or different battery chemistry or flywheels. I have no doubt that either the lead EFFPOWER or Atraverda technology could have been used to provide peak power at far lower cost than lithium batteries. Atraverda technology can and is being used used with non lead chemistry. Cooling a ZEBRA battery would have been much simpler. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 06 March 2011 at 01:22 PM