Elaphe Hub Motors

Elaphe hub motors are what has been chosen to

power the Aptera. These motors are the latest in

automotive technology. They have gone through

years of testing. It appears that Aptera Motors will

be using a custom version of Elaphe’s M-700. The

M-700 is pictured to the left. Their use means no

drive shafts, CV joints, transmissions, or trans-

axles so these motors will be extremely efficient

when used on the Aptera.

 

 

 

Below is a cutaway of one of the hub motors on the Aptera.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unsprung Weight

The first criticism that I usually hear about hub motors is that they increase unsprung

weight. There is no denying that that’s true, however, Aptera is using one of Elaphe’s smaller

motors that only weigh 51 lbs. Aptera’s team has designed the connecting suspension parts

to be as light as possible to make up for the increased weight. They also use

lightweight wheels and tires to help make up for the weight of the motors.

I have read that hub motors work best in light vehicles. Well. I’ve never heard of

any car lighter than the Aptera.

Elaphe will be making a custom motor for the Aptera based on the M700 that they have

developed.

(Click on the ad below to get your $30.00 discount when pre-ordering your
Aptera. Your discount will appear on the last page of the check-out process.)

Maintenance

The rotor of the hub motors has a seal that rubs against the backing plate of the stator.

This seal keeps water and dirt from getting into the motor so it’s pretty important.

Engineers at Elaphe recommend that this seal be replaced every 30-60 thousand miles. I

would assume that how long your seals last depends on how you use your car and the

environment you expose it to. Elaphe is working to make the seal a lifetime part, but they’re

not there yet. This is the only regular maintenance item that I have heard of on the

Aptera. EVs (Electric Vehicles) are already known for being very low maintenance because of

their small number of moving parts.

I’ve been driving an electric Nissan Leaf for six years now and I haven’t spent a dime

on maintenance. That’s how trouble-free electric cars are.

Having the motors in the hubs cuts down on the number of moving parts in the drive

train even more and therefore cuts down on the efficiency losses in the drive train. In fact,

Elaphe claims that the motors themselves are 90% efficient.

Even though they are mounted in the hubs, the weight of the Aptera will not be on the

motors. The weight of the car will be on the spindles and bearings.

Having the motors in the hubs also frees up space under the hood. Chris Anthony

said that it will be easy to convert the Aptera to a right-hand drive because there are way

fewer components to move around under the hood.

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Elaphe Hub Motor Testing

Hub motors are nothing new. They have gone through years of development and testing.

For those of you who are worried about the fragility of hub motors, they have been tested

by Elaphe at up to 100 gs. They have also been sprayed and immersed in saltwater. If you

would like to see some of the other torture tests done by Elaphe then click here.

Also, Lordstown Motors has announced that it will be using license-built Elaphe hub

motors on all four wheels of its upcoming pick-up. If you would like to see the demo

tape of the Lordstown Alpha prototype click here.

(Update: April 2021: Hindenburg Research has made several allegations regarding Lordstown Motors,

one of which is that they are at least three years away from production. It will be interesting to

see if they’re right.)

(Click on the ad below to get your $30.00 discount when pre-ordering your
Aptera. Your discount will appear on the last page of the check-out process.)

Racing With Hub Motors

The Lordstown has been entered in the San Filipe 250 (actually it’s 320) miles) in Baja

California on April 17^th, 2021. At first, it was assumed that Lordstown would be using

their Alpha prototype which is very light since it doesn’t have a body, but they

announced that a racing version of the Endurance truck will be entered. The Endurance

has a claimed range of 250 miles on the highway. This would be a problem since racing

will burn electricity much faster than highway travel. However, Lordstown is willing to

give it a try. They think they can get by with only one recharge. It will be interesting to

see how they do

(Update: April 27th 2021-The Endurance only made it 40 miles before it had to drop out. The company

said that energy use was higher than expected so it might have died on a critical part of the course so

they dropped out. I’m not sure I believe that. It might just be spin. When I saw a film of the truck on the

course, it looked like it was out for a Sunday drive. Something may be going on.)

The Lordstown Endurance is slated to go into production the same month as the Aptera.

September of 2021. I have a feeling though that Covid-19 might delay both companies’

plans.

When Steve Fambro was asked how the new Aptera drove compared to the old

Aptera, he said, “While both cars are light, the new Aptera feels more planted to the

ground”.

(Update: January 2022

September 2021 has come and gone and neither Aptera nor Lordstown has made it

to production. Both companies are likely to be having COVID-related problems, most

likely chip shortages, and supply chain issues. I haven’t heard about Lordstown, but

now Aptera is shooting for production to start by the end of 2022.)

 

What? Me Innovate?

They won’t say it out loud, but the above is what most large OEMs (Original Equipment

Manufacturers) are thinking.

Like me, you’ve probably been wondering, “If hub motors have been around for years,

why aren’t any OEMs using hub motors?” This question caused me to think about

how slow the big OEMs are to try anything different than what they’re already using.

Ford had hybrids and short-range BEVs for years but didn’t really try to improve the

technology and is just now coming out with the Mach E while Tesla had the Roadster in

2008 and Nissan had the Leaf in late 2010. Most of the world’s large OEMs have been

very slow to start electric programs or haven’t even started at all. As a matter of fact,

large OEMs have a well-deserved reputation for being slow to innovate. The truth is,

other companies did try to incorporate the hub motors, but they were small, under-

capitalized and didn’t survive for very long.

I have a feeling that after Aptera and Lordstown Motors are successful with hub motors, then

the copycat OEMs will start using them.

(Click on the ad below to get your $30.00 discount when pre-ordering your
Aptera. Your discount will appear on the last page of the check-out process.)

Here are the specs of the M700 as listed on the Elaphe website:

Elaphe Hub Motor Specs

300V nominal

Added Weight	23 kg
Peak Torque	>700NM
Continuous Torque	400 NM
Top Speed (at nominal voltage)	1500 rpm
Peak Power (at nominal voltage)	75 KW
Continuous Power (at nominal voltage)	50 KW (liquid cooling)

They don’t mention it under “specs”, but horsepower is 67 hp for each motor so the Aptera

will have a total of 134 hp in the FWD version and 201 hp in the AWD version.

Traction Control & Torque Vectoring

One nice thing about the hub motors is that they allow for traction control and torque

vectoring. The car’s computer will analyze the performance of the wheels every 1/32 of

a wheel revolution and make adjustments to the traction control and torque vectoring.

Torque vectoring will require that each powered wheel have its own inverter. Aptera

Motors has announced that they are using Mosfet silicon-carbide inverters.

Fambro and Anthony recommend that if you live in a snowy climate then you should take

advantage of these features by getting AWD.

For those of you who don’t know what the difference is between a hub motor and a regular

motor, here is an image that compares a hub motor to a Tesla motor:

(Click on the ad below to get your $30.00 discount when pre-ordering your
Aptera. Your discount will appear on the last page of the check-out process.)

Update: March 24^th, 2022

In the March 2022 update, Chris Anthony stated that Elaphe has made their motor

lighter and more efficient for the Aptera. He still didn’t say if Elaphe is going to actually

produce the motors for the Aptera or if they will be made by Aptera.

This is an interesting point because Lordstown Motors has also said they will be using

Elaphe Hub Motors, however, Lordstown Motors says that they will build them in-house

under license. This makes sense because I don’t believe Elaphe has any production facilities.

Update: October 1^st, 2022

Aptera Motors announced at the “Fully Charged Live” show on September 10^th,11, 2022 that

Elaphe will be building the motors for the Aptera initially at their facility in Slovenia,

but will also be building a factory in the United States to make motors for the Aptera.

When or where this factory will be built wasn’t stated.

The hub motors will be slightly customized versions of Elaphe’s M700. Elaphe had one

of these motors on display. A picture of it is below.

Update: July 2024

It was announced this month that hub motors are no longer in the works for at least the Launch Edition of the Aptera. Instead, a conventional motor accompanying inverter and reduction gear will be used. The reason given for this change was that Elaphe wouldn’t be able to produce the hub motors in time to meet Aptera’s production schedule.

The motor to be used is the EM3 which is produced by Vitesco. This motor has been produced for ten different brands of electric cars with over one million units produced so far. Apparently, this was Apteras backup plan for at least a year because the carbon fiber body was built in such a way that the EM3 fits right in. See the picture below to see what the EM3 looks like.

Aptera Motors must feel bad about this last-minute change, but I can see why they did it. Right now, the most important thing for Aptera Motors is to get revenue coming in as soon as possible. They can’t afford to wait for Elaphe to get into production.

Another benefit of this change is that the use of a proven drive train may mean that there won’t need to be any troubleshooting of the drive train in the Launch Edition.

Hub motors must still be in the company’s future plans because they’re still taking orders for the all-wheel drive version.