Tesla Model 3's motor - The Brilliant Engineering behind it

Sabin Civil Engineering · 8M views · 2020 · 12:08

Open on YouTube

Cars, EVs & motorcyclesMechanical & precision engineeringexplainer

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN recommends it as a clear explanation of the Model 3 motor and reluctance rotor design.

What it is

An engineering explainer on why Tesla abandoned the induction motor for the Model 3 and used an IPM-SynRM design. It covers the reluctance torque and permanent magnet principles behind the choice.

Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2020 to 2022.

What Hacker News said

Recommends sorenjan · 2020-12 · on “1937 film explains how a car differential works”

Youtube has recommended a few videos from the channel Learn Engineering that have been surprisingly good. For example: [this video]

Recommends londons_explore · 2022-08 · on “A 17-year-old designed a novel synchronous reluctance motor”

A tesla Model 3 motor already is partially a reluctance motor. This youtube video describes it rather well, and I'd recommend giving it a watch [1]. Notice the air gaps - thats the reluctance part of the rotor. [1]: [this video]

Cites iknowstuff · 2021-04 · on “Lithium battery costs have fallen by 98% in three decades”

> The engineers of Tesla motor's shocked everyone when they abandoned the versatile induction motor in Model 3 cars. They used a totally different motor called IPM-SynRM. Let's understand why the Tesla engineers made this crucial design change. [this video]

Cites b3nji · 2022-08 · on “A 17-year-old designed a novel synchronous reluctance motor”

> A tesla Model 3 motor already is partially a reluctance motor. This youtube video describes it rather well, and I'd recommend giving it a watch [1]. Notice the air gaps - thats the reluctance part of the rotor. > [1]: [this video] I dont think he's using air gaps? "Instead of using air gaps, Sansone thought he could incorporate another magnetic field into a motor."

Cites ilyt · 2022-11 · on “The stick shift might survive the electric revolution”

> What sort of motor do you think a Tesla model 3 uses, for example? IPM-SynRM [this video] They went into a lot of effort to optimize it over RPM range. If you want to make a point use real motor curves at least. Your graph suggests it goes to sub 20% efficiencies at low speed which is completely false and would suggests way higher gains from gearbox than in reality. Hell, it would suggest ICE like performance, it's THAT bad.