Quote:
Originally Posted by m_thompson
The biggest challenge to getting more performance will be thermal issues with the battery, motor controller, and the motor itself.
More performance means more current to the motor. You might be able to get a short burst of higher than normal performance without design changes. If you ran at higher current for a significant time the motor would run hotter than it was designed for and might be damaged. You would need to improve the motor cooling solve this issue.
The motor controller has the same issue. The semiconductors that control the current are very temperature sensitive. The electronics cooling was designed for a specific thermal load. If you increase the current for more than a short burst you could cook the electronics. Again, you could improve the cooling to solve this issue. The interconnections inside the motor controller will also be designed for a specific maximum current and may need to be modified to handle higher current.
The battery would be a big challenge. Pulling more current from the battery than it was designed for will make it run hotter than expected. Modifying the battery cooling might be a significant challenge.
All of the cabling that interconnects the battery, motor controller, and motor were sized for specific maximum current. Increasing the current could lead to overheating and potential for a fire.
I am sure that some small performance improvements could be made without expensive design changes. It will be interesting to see if the tuners take on this challenge.
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Look what is going on with the Toyota Prius now, Toyota is having problems with the power inverter, heat issues on the diode plate with the result being cracking and then electrical shorts. I don't think I would want to play around with this type of potential damage to my i 3 when I get it.
Toyota is currently recalling I think around 1.5 million Prius cars to detune the software in order to eliminate this heat problem. As I understand it this part of the inverter assembly is a $2000 part that would have to be replaced if the heat problem is encountered. I am sure the design is different on the i3, but similar type of issues would/could be encountered if you try to up the output beyond the design limits.
The only thing I would like to change on my i3 is to restore the function of the Rex, so that I can engage it like can be done in the euro version.