Revolutionary Wheel for Electric Cars Puts Guts Inside Wheel
By integrating a motor, suspension system, brakes and tire into a standalone wheel package, Michelin’s paradigm-changing “Active Wheel” technology is an innovation that could make electric cars truly affordable and practical, as well as fundamentally change the way we approach car design.
When you’ve eliminated the need for an engine, a transmission, a drive shaft, a differential, an exhaust system, shock absorbers and a suspension system within the chassis of the car, not only can you start to imagine entirely different car shapes, you can have both front and rear “trunk” storage, have a lot more room for people in the cabin, and create new safety features to boot.
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Earlier this year at the Paris Motor Show Michelin revealed the Active Wheel to the world and has since been busy firming up plans to put it in an actual car by 2010, and partnering with other companies for future cars. Granted, the first implementation of the Active Wheel technology does not win any awards for innovative exterior design, but it’s just a start.
The first production car to use the technology will be the 2010 Heuliez WILL, the result of a collaboration between Heuliez, Michelin and Orange. Michelin says the WILL has enough room for 5 people, even though it’s about the size of a compact car.
The WILL can go from 0-62 mph (0-100 km) in 10 seconds with a top speed of 87 mph (140 km/h) — making it fully highway legal. It also will have a range of 93, 186 or 248 miles (150, 300 or 400 km) on a single charge, depending on the modular battery configuration the driver chooses. Target price is around $30,000, putting it in the realm of affordability for most people.
Due to the collaboration with French telecom company Orange, the WILL has been fully wired for advanced communications options including WiFi and 3G.
Taking advantage of the fact that there’s nothing under the hood, the WILL has an extremely large crumple zone up front, prompting Michelin to claim that the WILL is “just as safe as the big cars on the road.” Additionally, the advanced electrical suspension system in the Active Wheels controls all pitching and rolling with an extremely rapid computer response time — 3/1000th of a second — which also presumably adds to the car’s safety.
The first WILLs are already on the road enduring testing and by 2010 the cars will be available for business fleets. Heuliez envisions that first-year production output will be several thousand vehicles. By 2011 Michelin and Heuliez plan on making the vehicles available to the general public.
I only hope that by then we’ve worked out a way for cars designed in the European market to be easily imported to the North American market, ’cause I might just be the first in line.
Update: Bonus video found on YouTube shows off an early concept car using the Active Wheel technology.
Source and Image Credits: Michelin
An very interesting twist on auto design, and one that has been done before, but it will be interesting to see if they can produce a commercial version that withstands the vibration requirements over a significant distance and in any weather.
() How do you change the tire without damaging the components?
() How heavy, cumbersome, and interconnected is this thing? How does the driver change a flat out on the road.
()You will need a fifth wheel for a spare.
() How do you keep people from stealing this $2000 (guess) wheel?
In the US the electric wheel idea was independently developed for earth moving equipment by Robert LeTourneau, starting in the 1930s. His company was later bought out by Caterpillar.
Just about all the tire companies are working on wheelmotor concepts. The question that I have has to do with unsprung weight. The drive motor has to add unsprung weight, which is generally regarded as deleterious to handling.
OTOH, you can do some very cool stability control things with individual motors at each wheel. Theoretically you could have a parking mode that allows the car to turn on its own axis.
Wheel motors are the oldest of old hats.
Michelin’s new idea (new to me anyway) is a SPRUNG wheel motor, an idea that could be a step toward solving wheel motors’ two biggest faults: the handling penalty of high unsprung wheel weight and the low durability of unsprung complex drive components.
Does Michelin’s system make strong progress in these problem areas? It is not yet clear.
Couple of issues. Seems like unsprung weight would be high yielding handling problems and, hey, isn’t an electric car just burniog coal? Whats so green about that?
Chinese allready sell EV bikes and scooters, and it seems cars, with Electric Motors inside the wheels.
Chinese make it cheap and simple.
Why Westerners should always be slaves of their Automotors MAFIA: those of Chicago and the European ones.
Can’t we abolish these MAFIA borders?
For God and the Planet of my Children
Snoo,
The wheel design looks as if the power plant component will be upstream from the suspension component, so that it will not be bouncing around as much as the tire itself. Or am I wrong about that (not an engineer)?
I have several concerns here, but the seizure issue isn’t one of them. A simple clutch mechanism would solve that. First, as someone else noted, what’s the reliablity of those motors and their bearings when directly exposed to the shock of wheel travel on a potholed road? Second, reduction of unsprung weight is one of the keys to automobile handling. This reverses that effect. Third, just turning the steered wheels on this thing will introduce gyroscopic forces into the motor bearings, as well as increase the load on steering components. Loads increase, the structure necessary to react that load increases. There will be a cost in vehicle weight.
All that said, it’s worth investigating. Slap a set of four of these on anything with a frame, and voila! automobile! Makes design packaging endlessly adaptable.
ChuckL,
I think you’re right with the slipper clutch - if they’re using a similar system there shouldn’t be much problem.
That said: I am definitely a well-wisher, but remain a gen-2 customer on anything that is this much a departure.