Electrician reporting in.
I have been reading up since the a123 cell fad started.
All the information we need is provided by the RC hobbyists and electric motorcycle crowd in the last five years.
On the hobby side.
The larger RC planes have very high current, light weight AC motors. Seems to be perfect solution given we all want to shave pounds of our BRZ's
I have taken these motor apart and inside you find aluminium Neodymium and tolerances beyond belief. This is why you see big brush-less power in tiny motor packages.
Of course we are driving a greater load here, but we are still moving air.
The greatest part with these is the Controllers aspect. On the market today, for example, helicopters controllers. They have governor programming via USB. All plug and play. NAME your flavour.
Drawback of course is the massive heat produced from the controller and debris getting into unsealed ventilated motors. Remember, these are used to flying through the air where neither of which is a problem.
