All Wheel Drive Electric FF! (2021)
Fabrizio Cross has just released (16th Feb 2021) a great little video of his Electrom FF with its latest update: Two-wheel drive, tested in snow!
He says, "The recent snow in Victoria has presented the ideal situation to test the latest addition to the Electrom. All Wheel Drive. The bike has been running AWD for a couple of weeks now, and it has proven to increase acceleration and hill-climbing speed immensely while still using the same total wattage. This is because the new front hub motor has gear-reduction which allows it to produce much more torque with the same watts, but the downside of geared hub motors is that they usually do not support regenerative braking because they have a freewheel between the motor and the hub that allows them to coast without creating motor drag. With a direct drive hub motor on the back and a geared hub motor on the front the Electrom now has the best of both worlds. And amazing traction in the snow!"
The five minute video can be viewed on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/electromLEV/videos/412407689860225
PNB
Image: screenshot from Electrom video
Good stuff!
Interesting innovations there. Such a pity that motor weight rules out two hub motors at "Motorcycle" power levels, and no-one seems to think that major weight reduction is possible. Some time ago I proposed a four wheels in line layout, which has a range of possible advantages, but makes for complex drive and steering systems. Using four wheels in line with hub motors however solves some of that complexity and allows quite small (light) individual motors that might add up to an acceptable total power rating with acceptable unsprung weight. Of course getting enough batteries in remains a problem, especially if a conventional wheelbase is specified.