MSXIV Motor Analysis

I don’t have a strong enough understanding of the electrical properties to dictate the usability of the motor. I believe the motors would be usable based on the reduced mass of the MSXV SOV versus the MSXIV MOV. There could be a more through electromechanical analysis. One factor to discuss about the motors is the additional mass.

As a motor gets more powerful, it will weight more. With the reduced mass of MSXV we would not need motors as powerful. A quick calculation of the contribution to the average weight of a SOV shows the significance.

Based on Motor Documentation from MSXIV we see the motor and controller weigh a total of 14.5 kg. Factoring in the average SOV weight of 192 kg from World Solar Challenge car weights we can determine the proportion of weight taken up by the motors.

If we were to use both motors, it would result in ~15.1% of the car’s mass being taken up by the motors. With one motor this is reduced to 7.55%. I don’t think that comparing this to MSXIV makes sense, as there many additional items contributing to mass that will not be in MSXV (ex. number of seats, interiors items). I haven’t found any resources on what the standard mass allocation on solar car SOV motors. The way to determine if they can be reused would be to begin estimating the mass of the different subsystems in MSXV and comparing it to the average of other SOVs.

An additional note is that I worry about the asymmetry of using only 1 motor. This would further require research into optimal placement of center of gravity (CG).