[VBprogrammer]

Doing some back of the envelope calculations to see if we're in the right ball park here:

A Tesla motor weighs in at 70lbs (31kg) on its own, not including the inverter or any gearbox, and generates 362hp. Or 11hp / kg.

Using a turboprop because it's easier to do a straight hp comparison, the PW150 has a dry weight of 716.9kg and produces 5000hp continuous. Or about 7hp / kg.

Of course it's absolutely not a fair comparison for a number of reasons, for a start running a Tesla motor at full power for more than a few minutes at a time is going to result in an overheated motor where as the PT150 can do that all day long. The Tesla motor weight doesn't include the inverter which would be needed (unless it's all designed to run each motor at a synchronous speed with the generator...), nor the cooling system, a gearbox (the low pressure turbine of a high bypass engine is only ~4000rpm, the Tesla motor does 18000rpm). Not to mention the elephant in the room, you still have the weight of the generator plus the prime mover (or battery...).

[jacobush]

That just makes me think it might be feasible. If off the shelf components aren’t off by an order of magnitude, that’s a good sign in my book.

[VBprogrammer]

To be honest that surprised me. I think the Tesla motor is slightly misleading. If you've ever seen a 3hp industrial motor you'll see where I'm coming from, they are about the same size as the Tesla's motor and probably weigh twice as much. I appreciate that the tech in those motors is very old compared to the Tesla, but if they are that far out you'd think there would be profit somewhere in improving them.

[taneq]

The difference here (as often is the case when comparing industrial vs. consumer equipment) is that the Tesla motor is rated for peak load under favourable conditions while the industrial motor is rated for continuous load under worst-case conditions. That 3hp industrial motor will run at 3hp shaft power at its maximum rated temperature for its rated operational life.

Many DIY electric car conversions use DC motors rated between 9hp and 20hp. They routinely get 100-200hp+ out of these motors for a few seconds at a time.

[jacobush]

The industrial motors don't have permanent magnets, so are cheaper to build and do not run any risk of permanent magnets become de-magnetized. Downside is they are very heavy.

[VBprogrammer]

Before the model 3 neither did Tesla. The main difference is that Tesla motors are water cooled so can dissipate heat more easily.