Ongoing projects
Due to legal limitation we can only reveal certain details about our current commercial projects, so this page only partly represents our ongoing work.
“Chebela” by Oprema Ravne
One of our current projects originates on an Elaphe initiative for local industry. A Slovenian company Oprema Ravne decided to start developing an advanced electric city car with in-wheel drive named Chebela.
Chebela
We started our cooperation in the middle of 2009. The car will be a light and agile electric four-seater with a charming design, sure to attract looks and together with excellent energy efficiency a good choice for a city commute. We are responsible for providing light 20 kW in-wheel electric motors and all the required calculations of electric propulsion parameters. These are specially designed to meet the performance demands and optimized to give the best possible range for the available energy stored in the batteries. We offer technical assistance in material and production process choices, and we head the assembly of the prototypes. In winter 2010, three prototypes have successfully been assembled and are being testing.
UPDATE November 2011:
So far 8 motors have been produced and two of them have been fitted to a final vehicle frame. They are being tested as we speak and will be presented to the public in the next couple of weeks. The motors have an integrated brake and are suitable for many different types of light electric vehicles and will be made available to the public when production starts.
The cooperation between Oprema Ravne and Elaphe is in accordance with our business model of custom development.
All-terrain vehicle
The first Hycat prototype featured an outer runner rotor, 880 Nm of torque and low cogging torque.
Our first EU project (ERA – SME tender) is an all terrain vehicle with Austrian, German and Belgian partners. An ambitious project will produce an unprecedented vehicle capable of climbing a 45 degree slope, performing tasks with high energy efficiency in a hilly surrounding and afterwards being able to drive off, feeling at home also at road speeds of 90 km/h. Elaphe was chosen for the project, because only Elaphe* technology enables both high torques and high speeds with good efficiency without bulking up the motor to 50 kg. The motors for this project will weigh less than half that and will be also usable in many other applications.
The final Hycat prototype features an inner-runner rotor, reliable sealing, and more than 1000 Nm of torque.
UPDATE November 2011:
The first generation of the motor was produced and tested in May of 2011, following by the second generation of 4 motors ready to be fitted onto a final vehicle design. The vehicle will be presented to the public in the middle of November and will have 4 Elaphe in-wheel motors, delivering a total of 4000 Nm of torque to the wheels. Motors will be suitable also for a range of other demanding applications, and can be produced on-demand.
Electric car conversion kit
In-wheel conversion motor assembly
We want our motors to be a part of the best electric vehicles possible. For that a complete car redesign has to be done, in order to take the advantage of every possibility going electric gives us. But unfortunately building an electric car bottom-up takes a lot of money and even more importantly a lot of time, so we decided that in parallel to projects like that, we must also be a part of short term projects like the electric car conversion kit project. With our partner, that is already producing a road approved conversion kit with a central electric motor, we will have a car on the road in December of 2011. This has multiple benefits. We’ll be able to test the market, set up a first small production of the motors and most importantly test the motors in real life conditions on a car. Our motors have now been tested for 3 years on our electric scooter and this would be another step forward in providing reliability and road performance of the motor.
All of these benefits will echo in our work in the long term projects and will be a huge help in the future design of the motors. Also, not to be neglected, a road-approved vehicle by TUV will be produced, which is a perfect opportunity for marketing and also a big decrease of the technological risks the customers are concerned with.
There is a window of opportunity for conversion projects, as the automakers aren’t delivering the performance and prices customers want. The market for the conversion kit is both in fleet conversions for large companies or government institutions as well as in private customers that ache for a change because of gas prices and environmental issues.
The 450 Nm of available torque and over 30 kW of continuous power often come as a surprise, when considering that this motor weighs only 19 kg. This is made possible by multiple innovations by Elaphe
UPDATE November 2011:
Following the positive feedback from the market we have decided to start offering a conversion kit that will contain all that is necessary for an electric conversion. The set of compatible components that have been tested together will ensure a simple and reliable conversion of an ICE car.
The first prototype motors, built around a rear Smart car hub (bearing+drum), for the in-wheel conversion kit have been produced and are currently being tested at our controller partner. We expect to test them on the vehicle in December and start setting up a small production of the conversion kit. A few will be available for the customers as soon as Summer 2012, so we will soon be issuing a call to all interested conversion or mechanic workshops that would like to apply for one of the first conversion kits. For more details regarding the conversion kit contact our