Since I have been involved in electric motor design for the marine environment, I contacted Elaphe directly with some very specific questions. They had the right answers based on my experience, and my confidence level in this solution has increased.
@SS 11186 I sent them a data sheet of an American potting supply potting compound that is very shock resistant and they sent the following reply:
Luka Ambrozic <Luka.Ambrozic@elaphe-ev.com> Nov 11, 2020, 4:28 AM
to me
Hi Bruce,
Thank you for reaching out.
We are aware of the requirements for automotive grade IWMs (we are actually creating the standard for IWMs and their validation).
As we validate our complete motors for environmental, endurance and durability cases in the most demanding conditions, we have worked with several potting providers to develop a unique formula we use that handles the required loads in our motors, which operate from -50 to +85 deg Celsius environmental, with large thermal gradients.
Our motors are shock-tested up to 100G.
We are open to exploring these topics with you, as they align with our experience. If you have a list of objections, it would be appreciated, and we can prepare suitable materials to answer such queries.
Many thanks,
Luka
If you have any specific questions I will be glad to forward them over.
KInd regards,
Bruce
Elaphe hub motor seals. I watched Aptera founders fielding questions with the Elaphe team and they spoke about hub motor seal replacement intervals. One Elaphe guy said every 20,000 miles and the other guy said that it would be double that. Whatever the interval is it would be nice to hear what these seals cost and what it takes in time and effort to remove the old seal and install a new seals. If I purchase an Aptera I would hope this would be easily accomplished and not cost prohibitive.
An important partner of Elaphe, the US company Lordstown Motors, got under fire from Short Selling Group "Hindenburg Research". In their Lordstown-report (https://hindenburgresearch.com/lordstown/) they also mentioning Elaphe and they rate Elaphes economic situation as not particularly encouraging.
Bad news for lordstown and elaphe but could actually be good news for aptera. I've personally contacted elaphe about buying hub motors and they declined my inquiry. They replied with "we are currently very focused on series production-oriented projects with the industry and that keeps us really busy". This could give aptera better bargaining leverage as they will be a bigger purchaser of elaphe.
Since I have been involved in electric motor design for the marine environment, I contacted Elaphe directly with some very specific questions. They had the right answers based on my experience, and my confidence level in this solution has increased.
Love a summary of what you found out...
SS
@SS 11186 I sent them a data sheet of an American potting supply potting compound that is very shock resistant and they sent the following reply:
Luka Ambrozic <Luka.Ambrozic@elaphe-ev.com> Nov 11, 2020, 4:28 AM
to me
Hi Bruce, Thank you for reaching out. We are aware of the requirements for automotive grade IWMs (we are actually creating the standard for IWMs and their validation). As we validate our complete motors for environmental, endurance and durability cases in the most demanding conditions, we have worked with several potting providers to develop a unique formula we use that handles the required loads in our motors, which operate from -50 to +85 deg Celsius environmental, with large thermal gradients. Our motors are shock-tested up to 100G. We are open to exploring these topics with you, as they align with our experience. If you have a list of objections, it would be appreciated, and we can prepare suitable materials to answer such queries. Many thanks, Luka If you have any specific questions I will be glad to forward them over. KInd regards, Bruce
Thanks!
SS
This is an older article on Wheel motors, but you may find it as interesting as I did: https://www.proteanelectric.com/f/2018/04/protean-Services3.pdf
Elaphe hub motor seals. I watched Aptera founders fielding questions with the Elaphe team and they spoke about hub motor seal replacement intervals. One Elaphe guy said every 20,000 miles and the other guy said that it would be double that. Whatever the interval is it would be nice to hear what these seals cost and what it takes in time and effort to remove the old seal and install a new seals. If I purchase an Aptera I would hope this would be easily accomplished and not cost prohibitive.
In that recent webinar the Elaphe team also said they were working to develop a lifetime seal that didn't need replacing.
Unfortunately, the operative part of that statement is "Working toward".
Bad News for Elaphe:
An important partner of Elaphe, the US company Lordstown Motors, got under fire from Short Selling Group "Hindenburg Research". In their Lordstown-report (https://hindenburgresearch.com/lordstown/) they also mentioning Elaphe and they rate Elaphes economic situation as not particularly encouraging.
Bad news for lordstown and elaphe but could actually be good news for aptera. I've personally contacted elaphe about buying hub motors and they declined my inquiry. They replied with "we are currently very focused on series production-oriented projects with the industry and that keeps us really busy". This could give aptera better bargaining leverage as they will be a bigger purchaser of elaphe.
Impact is hard to predict, definitely worth keeping an eye on.