Highly-Integrated Wheel Hub Drives are a Key Element for New Vehicle Concepts - Schaeffler's Concept Car with the Schaeffler E-Wheel-Drive on Display at the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt
The Drive for the City Cars of Tomorrow - Schaeffler Presents a Concept Car with E-Wheel-Drive
One of the highlights of Schaeffler's trade show booth at the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt is the Schaeffler E-Wheel-Drive electric wheel hub drive. The innovative electric drive will be on display in a development vehicle created in cooperation with Ford and based on a Ford Fiesta. The compact vehicle is driven using two Schaeffler E-Wheel-Drives that are installed in the rear wheel arches. All components required for drive, deceleration, and driving safety in the highly-integrated wheel hub drive - like the electric motor, power electronics, controller, brake, and cooling system - are installed inside the wheel rim.
They boast technical key data of up to 40 kW per drive, and a continuous output of 2 x 33 kW. When viewed as a traditional reading, this equates to 110 and 90 horsepower, respectively. The liquid-cooled wheel hub drive in its current stage of development also delivers up to 700 Nm of torque. In comparison to the first-generation wheel hub drive, which was first exhibited in Schaeffler's Opel Corsa-based Schaeffler Hybrid concept car in 2010, the current E-Wheel-Drive thus features an output increase of one-third, as well as 75% more torque. The electrical voltage of the high-voltage drive is 360 to 420 V.
The highly-integrated wheel hub drive has a total weight of 53 kg, so the weight increase compared to a conventional wheel with a wheel bearing and brake is 45 kg. It has a 16-liter design envelope, which is housed inside a 16-inch wheel rim. The highly-integrated wheel hub drive outweighs its first-generation predecessor, which still featured power electronics installed in the vehicle, by an additional 6 kg. Overall however, we were able to reduce the vehicle weight once again , explains Dr. Raphael Fischer, Vice President Product Group Wheel Hub Drives in Schaeffler's eMobility Systems Division, because, in addition to the liquid cooling, the power electronics and controller can now be integrated into the wheel, which means that the complex wiring in the vehicle can be omitted.
The B-segment vehicle serves as a pre-production model. However, wheel hub drives have to be integrated into new vehicle concepts in order to demonstrate their strengths to the full, explains Prof. Peter Gutzmer, CTO at Schaeffler, in his assessment of the drive technology innovation: Thanks to this highly-integrated wheel hub drive, we can now re-think the city car without restrictions. It will be a key factor in new vehicle concepts and automobile platforms in the future. For electric vehicles used in urban environments, which may become obligatory in many densely populated areas, the wheel hub drive makes previously unheard-of space savings possible. In these new vehicle concepts, all components that are relevant for propulsion, braking, and driving safety are housed inside the wheel. The vehicle platform therefore provides maximum space for passengers, luggage, and for the battery, electronics, and communication systems. And vehicle manufacturers can use this as a basis for a range of different body designs. Automobile manufacture originally started in just the same way.
At Schaeffler, development vehicles have a busy schedule when it comes to testing: The joint development, coordination, and testing program being carried out for the Fiesta eWheelDrive - which was constructed in cooperation with Ford Research & Advanced Engineering Europe - includes everything from extensive test drives in the cold climate of Scandinavia to comprehensive driving dynamics tests requiring a lot of space. The test drives clearly show that the driving behavior of this test vehicle in terms of comfort and safety has remained at virtually the same level, despite the higher wheel-sprung masses compared to the conventional basic vehicle , explains Roger Graaf, project manager at Ford Research & Advanced Engineering Europe. On the contrary, the Fiesta eWheelDrive displays extraordinary dynamics. In addition to regulating the stability of the driving dynamics, the two wheel hub drives also allow so-called torque vectoring, i.e. the selective distribution of the torque to the wheels.
In this way, highly-integrated wheel hub drives also provide significant advantages in terms of maneuverability, driving dynamics, and active safety in addition to the perfect utilization of space. This will be able to play a significant role in the future, especially in combination with independent driving , explains Prof. Gutzmer. The electric wheel hub drive therefore has the potential to become one of the drives of tomorrow and a valuable addition to the range of drives that, from a global point of view, will continue to be governed by increasingly electrified drive trains based on internal combustion engines.
Schaeffler's E-Wheel-Drive wheel hub drive is now also part of a research project that is listed by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. The advantages of this drive concept are already on impressive display in the Fiesta eWheelDrive today.
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Highly-Integrated Wheel Hub Drives are a Key Element for New Vehicle Concepts - Schaeffler's Concept Car with the Schaeffler E-Wheel-Drive on Display at the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt
