tutmondigo asked:

I wonder if the hub motors will make a comeback. Seems like they'd be ideal for regenerative braking. So many possibilities. Imagine a 2 wheel drive dirtbike and what it could do. What does a car that doesn't require an engine compartment look like? My quick google search isn't coming up with any general impracticability problems with hub motors. Are you aware of any?

That is what the Prius uses for regenerative braking.  You’re right, though, that car design has always been based around an engine with wheels around it and you could radically alter that if you had hub motors instead.  You could make yourself a 2WD electric dirtbike by buying a couple of bike hub motors.  The only problem is really a systemic one- we live in a time where everything is crap, designed to be crappy and disposable, and in about 5 years we’re going to have a huge electric car battery disposal problem as well as strange malfunctions in these early hybrids.  Good luck finding a mechanic.  Since electricity comes from coal, you’ve effectively found a way to make cars coal-powered.  Let’s face it- an hybrid electric car that gets 55 mpg is just shit.  Shameful.  On par with the hybrids of 100 years ago.  For my clockwork motorcycle project, I’m focusing on flywheels, compressed air, and springs for regenerative braking, none of which require dangerous chemicals, rare earth metals, or the lousy conversion of kinetic energy into electrical energy into chemical energy and then back again.  You never get more than 20% back from a battery, whilst a flywheel in the right environment can approach 99%. 

[P.S. the reason they switched from steam locomotives to diesel-electric was basically that “hub motors” (or traction motors) don’t require all the monkey motion to get the power from the engine to the wheels.]

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