YASA's axial flux motor achieved a record, doubling industry benchmarks | Hacker News Reader

YASA's axial flux motor achieved a record, doubling industry benchmarks

electrek.co

15 pointsbreve5 comments

Impressive.

In aviation, this gets us a Cessna 172 in a two seat configuration that has about a 2 hour endurance and insane takeoff performance.

Translated to a slippery aerodynamically optimized composite 2 seat plane, that could be around 3 hours / 330nm of endurance.

Reasonable electric light aviation is gradually coming within reach.

"delivering a whopping 550 kW of power from a package weighing a mere 13.1 kg (28.9 lbs.). That power density ratio equals 42 kW/kg or 19 kW/lb."

Something that compact and energy dense will require a powerful cooling system in a very small amount of surface area.

If we assume that the motor is operating at 98 percent efficiency (improbable but not impossible at that power level) then that’s 11KW of heat to carry away. That is similar to an ICE engine of 18KW, which is light but not extreme at 13kg. Even at 94 percent I’d say it is going to be in the ballpark of cooling requirement to ICE, which we are now pretty good at keeping under control.

That’s pretty remarkable.

The other part of this that many people miss is that since electric drive isn’t air-breathing, there is no propulsion related altitude limitation… so a light, relatively inexpensive aircraft can now fly in the high altitude region, potentially doubling range.for instance, an airplane that can do a solid 160kts cruise at sea level, which is a good but not unusual capability for a modern airframe, would be making 390 kts at 50000 feet.

If we assume a 120kwh battery (about what could be shoehorned into a 2 seat plane using existing tech a bit optimistically) :

Since electric power has the (in aviation, magical) capability to deliver 100 percent power at any altitude, a reasonable 1500 fpm climb gets you to 50000 feet in just over a half hour. You use 56 kWh to get there. Then you cruise at 40kw for an hour. That puts you at about 550 nautical miles from your takeoff point (assuming zero wind) from 50000 feet you can glide 120nm, so your range is around 700 miles with a half hour reserve, spanning about 3 hours for an effective speed of around 230kts. For every extra hour of endurance / 30% improvement in battery capacity, you pick up an extra 390 / 624km of range.

In a practical sense, with actual operational factors, with a 30 percent improvement in battery capacity you’ve got a 2 seat plane with a practical operational range of about 1100 miles that gets there at 275mph, with a half hour reserve, with the same energy it takes a car to go 600 miles, but in 1/3 the time.

It’s actually opening the door to a whole new golden age of practical small aviation.

(Edited because I got bamboozled by ChatGPT and I didn’t notice until a number seemed out of bounds… ghatGPT is apparently not a great copilot.

Been wondering if dino juice-burning motorsports have been improving cars/road transportation much. AMG (YASA owner) and Koenigsegg are revolutionary in reducing demand for rare earths and enabling electric planes.

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