How Do Electric Vehicles Work?

ever wondered how evs get from a to b is it  essentially the same as an internal combustion   car but wired up to a giant battery or is there  some altogether more subtle trickery afoot join us   today as we pop the frunk and ask how exactly do  electric engines work surprisingly the operating   principle behind most modern electric vehicles  pre-dates the internal combustion engine by a   number of decades in 1834 a dutch professor named  sebranda stratting of groningen netherlands built   his own small electric vehicle the catch being its  battery was non-rechargeable internal combustion   engines work on the principle that fuel and air  when compressed and ignited cause a tiny explosion   that's the combustion part this explosive force  pushes a piston that piston's linear motion in   concert with a team of fellow pistons transforms  into rotary motion via a mechanical crankshaft   this in turn spins your wheels along the highway  conversely the fundamental principle that drives   electric cars is magnetism everybody knows how  opposing poles on a magnet attract and how a   like poles repel each other so let's imagine an  experiment using two magnets one fixed the other   mounted on a nearby rotating shaft if the two  poles nearest to each other on both magnets share   the same polarity say north to north the magnet on  the shaft will be repelled because it's attached   to a shaft the shaft will turn that is until the  south pole on the shaft magnet is aligned with the   north pole on the fixed magnet whereupon the shaft  will again be still in our imaginary experiment   we've made the shaft turn a half rotation all  very well but that won't get us very far on the   morning commute here's where electromagnetism  enters the chat in a fixed or permanent magnet   like the kind you have on your fridge at home  those magnetic poles are rigid and never change   north is always north south is always south on  an electromagnet however which is essentially   a core of metal coiled in electrical wires this  magnetic polarity can be reversed imagine one of   our experimental magnets is now an electromagnet  if the south pole quickly flips over to north   the fixed magnet will yet again repel the moving  magnet rotating our shaft another half spin that's   a whole spin now we're slowly getting there for a  basic illustration of how this polarity reversal   works imagine a very simple circuit involving  a battery and a light bulb electrons flow in   one direction from the battery through the wires  to the light bulb and back again to the battery   if we remove our battery from the circuit flip  it 180 degrees then replace it in the circuit   those electrons will still flow around the  circuit just in the opposite direction either   way the bulb lights up electromagnets like light  bulbs work whichever direction the electrons are   flowing but rather brilliantly the polarity of the  magnet gets reversed with the flow of electrons so   to keep our magnets in permanent repel mode we  just need to keep reversing the polarity of the   magnet how do we do that one way would be to keep  popping out the battery and flipping it around   but that's a lot of trips to the mechanics with  your ev for the sake of a few feet of ground   covered so the real trick to making a magnet spin  which is essentially how electric motors work   is through the so-called inverter the inverter  module on the ev draws direct current from the   car battery and through a clever combination of  quick switches slick circuitry and capacitors   flips the flow of electrons back and forth nearly  60 times a second domestic electric motors like   the one you have in your hairdryer don't require  an inverter why because the current that comes   from your wall outlet already flips back and  forth that's why it's named alternating current or   ac batteries of any type can only ever produce  dc or direct current so spinning magnets driven   by alternating current passing through coils of  wire is essentially what drives electric cars   electric powertrains have a number of advantages  over the internal combustion engine for starters   the motion produced by the motor is already  rotary in nature dirty pistons on an ice require   a complicated breakable crankshaft just in order  to turn their linear motion into rotary movement   so evs are less likely to fail or require  expensive time-consuming maintenance here's   another clever thing about that inverter by  adjusting the frequency and amplitude of its newly   created ac current the vehicle's speed and torque  can be finally calibrated by its driver there's   no such fine control built into an explosively hot  internal combustion engine which is why expensive   and accident-prone additions like gearboxes are a  tiresome necessity another nifty detail about any   ev's powertrain is when the shaft-mounted magnet  or rotor in engineering parlance is itself spun   it generates electricity this reversal very  handily recharges the car battery how can   the rotor be turned you ask with any hefty source  of kinetic energy like say a breaking automobile   which is handy this is to be clear a very simple  overview there's different types of electric motor   and refinements to the design are happening all  the time not least at one particular californian   car company named for the 19th century genius  who discovered the magic of alternating current   by himself nikola tesla what do you think  will your next vehicle be an ev let us know   in the comments and don't forget to subscribe  for more flipping electrifying tech content

Channel: Tech Vision

Views: 817,556

Keywords: tesla, electric engine, how electric engines work, electric vehicle, ev, tesla ev, how ev works, electric engines

Id: GHGXy_sjbgQ

Length: 5min 7sec (307 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 31 2021