DIY hybrid scooter?

[pengyou]

I have seen some scooters advertised that have an electric motor as well as a gasoline one. They claim to get up to 200 mpg! I am guessing that they are assuming the scooter starts with a fully charge set of batteries and puts around town - doesn't go any further than one tank of gas and one set of batteries will take him.

Has anyone tried doing this? It doesn't seem too hard to mount a hub motor on the rear (maybe even the front) and stash a set of LiFe batteries somewhere on the bike. To make this really cool...would be to have an alternator with enough capacity to be able to recharge the batteries while on the open road, outside of the city and traveling at a comfortable cruising speed of 30 or 35 mph. Hybrids really shine in the city traffic but on trips with no intermittent stopping there is little benefit - also battery life is still too short.

[urbestfriend]

Urbestfriend finds Hybrids are a "HOT" items, both for autos and bikes. Motorcycles and Scooters alike.
I'm sure if you search the Internet enough, you'll not only find some company making one, but an individual
who has also made one. As it is, Electric Scooters are more popular these days, but apparently leave much
to be desired. Oh Yes....pengyou....Your other thread about Carburators. Cold weather make starting difficult here,
but my new Kymco Xciting 250 does have Fuel Injection. Starts and runs so much easier. Gets 65 MPG at 70 MPH.
(Sorry.... you calculate the conversions).

[joelscootdude]

There was talk about a hybrid scooter here, in a forum regarding " what is this engine" or something like that. Piaggio has a MP3 that is hybrid, and a small vespa with it too. I dont know if they are for sale yet. The motor is located on top of the clutch bell, so that it can move the wheel at a low gear, thus being easy to move and small motor, and because electric motors spin fast, is not prob.

I've played with the idea in my head but havent really made anything, it would requiere a serius investment. There is enough space for batteries under the foot area or behind the headlamp in any scooter pretty much. 200mpg sounds right. The alternator does charge the batteries but most of the charge comes from the motor itself, when its running the engine it uses the motor as a generator. The Vespa model has a small switch that allows for 3 modes of operation.
1) total electric mode: allows for 2 miles of electric travel or more depending on terrain.
2) hybrid: turns the engine off when idle or stopped, turns it on at 15 mph or when battery is low. regenerates breaking
3) full gas mode: the scooter always runs with the engine on and uses the motor as suplemental power. it allows faster takeoff and more power, and uses regenerative breaking, but the least economic. good for long trips.

Now dont quote me on this, i read this years ago somewhere. look it up, and look up the thread on this topic here too

[Skullet]

i don't know much about engineering new stuff, but wouldn't that be more of a pain than it's worth? the extra weight of all the batteries would be self-defeating wouldn't it?

[joelscootdude]

its not that much of a "pain" since u can canabilize a electric scoot and use those parts. the batteries he described , like Li-po are super light, and the size of a padded foam envelope. perhaps you would be adding 20 to 25 pounds of gear. thats nothing, the scooter can take 2 people + cargo.

and who cares about the pain of making it, " we do these thigns not because they are easy, but because they are hard"

[pengyou]

" we do these thigns not because they are easy, but because they are hard"[/quote]

Preach it, brother!

[Skullet]

its not that much of a "pain" since u can canabilize a electric scoot and use those parts. the batteries he described , like Li-po are super light, and the size of a padded foam envelope. perhaps you would be adding 20 to 25 pounds of gear. thats nothing, the scooter can take 2 people + cargo.

and who cares about the pain of making it, " we do these thigns not because they are easy, but because they are hard"

i wasn't talking about it being a pain because of the difficulty, but rather because of the battery weight. if it only added 20-25 pounds, that's a LOT less than i was thinking it would.

[pengyou]

To do a simple conversion would be easy. There are a lot of electric scooters that have the same wheel size as the gas ones - seem to have the same bolt pattern also. I don't think it would be difficult to install a hub motor in the rear and then mount the batteries and controller elsewhere on the scoot. It also don't think it would be too difficult installing an upgraded alternator/generator on the scoot - maybe canabilize one from a larger scooter or cycle? The part I am not familiar with is the effect freewheeling will have on a hub motor - if I travel on open roads at 35 mph and the motor is turning with no electricity, is it going to create drag? Will it wear out the motor?

[joelscootdude]

well....

instead of goign to be complicated, if you add a hub motor, then how do you hook up the engine to the wheel? you would have to separate the motor from the engine and the engine from the motors...etc

The easiest way to install the Hub motor in the front wheel. You can find a electric hub motor that will drive you to 35mphin a scoot allready with a rim and tire. Check out EVT scooters
http://www.evtamerica.com/
they buy the shells for Chinese scoots and install electric powertrain. where i work at, its a battery company, and they have one there they are modifying it, they added a lithium battery pack. he said he removed over 130 pounds of lead batteries. i raced it with my scoot they went the same acceleration he said he got 50 miles back n forth in the parking lot. With lead batteries.
you can get a hold of one of those motors and a controller if you look good enough. Getting it to work all together, thats the game. to answer ur question.

like i said, installing it in the back is the problem. problem but not impossible. I would go to the front for simplicity. Second. yes you can install the batteries and controller anywhere u please.

Upgrade stator.... not so easy. the stator is inside the flywheel so you have to deal with the limited space. as it is, on small scoots, there very litle to no power extra, only when the engine is reving fast. I think an upgraded voltage controller would be best. You could change the wires in it, but thicker wires will give you more amps and less voltage ( more heat and less efficiency) and thinner wires more voltage less amps ( but more dangerous and harder to limit, and it can damage anything else on the scoot, and the stock voltage regulator will fry) but phisically you cant get any more power. its just not posible, its physics. unless you wind more wire than usual, but the extra wire in such litle space= less air flow, more heat, and it will be harder for the engine to rotate, power you take out for electricity to recharge batteries is power lost at the wheel.

you cannot put a bigger flywheel because it changed the dynamics of the engine, the rotational inertia, and such, it may give u more torque and more takeoff, but it will rotate slower, and in the case of something not goign right, it will be easier for the engine to self destroy. unless you develop some special carbon fiber flywheel, forget about it. not to mention remaking the fan housing, cover, blades, and a new base for the stator which must be perfectly centered, and re-shaping the crankshaft to accept the flywheel.

the effect of the free spinning on the motor depends on the motor itself. if its a brushed motor, then you got two problems. the brushes will wear at any time the rotor is spinning. this will prematurely wear them out because of the excessive wear, and heat generated. the rotation of magnets arround the core, or the core rotating arround magnet, or the magnets in the core..... you get the point. rotating magnetic fields will "induce" a current in the windings, essentially making the motor into a generator. Yes a generator is the reverse of a motor( remember the stator in you scooter? newer scoots like the honda metropolitan dont have a starter, they use the stator, pass current trough it, makes the flywheel act as the motor, and spins it, starting the scoot.)

this voltage in it self may or may not be a problem. if the motor is spun faster than desinged, it will generate a voltage higher than desinged. this can cause the insulation to short out and burn the motor, short it and burn it, or create sparking on the brushes or contacts burning them and premature damage. also the voltage feedback, into the controller, if its desinged to regenerate then the motor can be used a as a brake and can be used a charger so when the scooter is riding you can charge the batteries without using the stator at all. if its not, then it can short and damage the controller, and maybe even overcharge the batteries.

if its a brush less motor, then there are not brushes to wear, and the motor should theoretically last 4 ever. the only problem is the bearings may not be spun too fast, but the bearing will be fine 99% of the time. the magnet still generate electricity, but because there are many transistors operating the motor, they might have bypass diodes to protect them, and there are more chances that the controller has a electric brake mode, whether regenerative or not, means it can handle all the EMF (electro magnetic feedback) the motor can throw.

there is a thrid kind of motor, but i highly doubt you can find one for this application. the Wound motor, has a winding in the stator (non moving) and the rotor ( spinning) and has no magnet, so no EMF. forklifts have these, and electric golfcarts.

if its a 3 Phase induction motor ($$$$$ and very hard to find and apply but not impossible) the none of the problems above apply. electric cars use these motors. they also dont have magnets

and of course with ALL of the options above, the motors will always retain SOME magnetism ( obvious in the magnet type but even the induction and Wound) and this will always induce some current in the metal parts of the motor (bearings, casing, bolts n nuts, the metal pole in the center, other metal objects etc) this is known as Eddy currents, and they warm up the motor slowly, too slow for concern, but this heat is energy and it accounts for lost energy in a motor and thus, how efficient it is. this will cause a minimal drag on the scoot when its running, at all times. like a litle extra brake, tiny, but still there.

its not impossible, and like u said. A "simple" conversion can be made quite simple, but to have a Hybrid " vehicle" that is fully automated and functional might require a bit of engineering.

scoot on

PS: Stumbled upon this while doing some research on this topic, Electric scoot by honda
http://paultan.org/photo/Honda-EVE-Neo/

[joelscootdude]

check here they got everything you need, even the regenerative motor controller, all for low prices, and a 2KW hub motor. (thats about 1.8HP, and electric motors are by nature stronger than gas, so that should be about 3hp, average chineese scoot power)
http://www.goldenmotor.com/

check under "electric motorcycle motors" the Model: MW16C -- High Power

[wheelbender6]

A hybrid scooter using a system similar to Lexus might work well. Lexus uses battery power only to help with accelaration, so you get highway gas mileage in the city. You would need to find a motor controller that would allow you to use regenerative braking (enroute battery charging) to avoid the need to plug into the grid.

[wheelbender6]

I did some looking on ebay. Search ebay on electric bicycle motor kits. When you click on one of the hub motor sellers, you often see "store home", which will show all the items offered by that seller. I was able to find 48v 1000w scooter hub motors in 16" size. I also found some controllers that allow regen braking on those hub motors.

Adding one of these hub motors to the front of a gas scooter would provide e power without having to make mods to your gas drive train. On a step thru styled scooter, you could fab a battery box that would stack the 4 - 12v batteries between your feet and legs.

A good place to see how to fab or adapt a battery box would be a site with electric assist bicycles. They find many cool ways to mount batteries and controllers.

You could end up with a 50cc scooter that accelerates like a 150cc scooter. Though 1000w is a little over one hp, max torque is immediately available, from 0 rpm.

if you could find all these components in a used e-scooter, it would be much less expensive.

[joelscootdude]

An used E-scooter would still be expen$ive.

Acceleration would be astronomical, yes!