Prius

[Tony Bryer]

[PC Paul] :

Presumably there is a reason for not using a DC motor ?

[Andy Dingley]

DC motors are horrible things - they need to pass a huge current through brushgear into the rotor. A polyphase AC motor is _much_ simpler mechanically (thus reliable) and electrically more efficient. With modern electronics it's also easy to build a variable frequency inverter to power it. Pretty much every large motor design these days is 3 (or more) phase AC with a dedicated inverter as its controller - even if they're powered by 3 phase AC to begin with.

[mrcheerful]

Try just going to Toyota gb and looking for a brochure for a prius, that was how I got to the above link.

mrcheerful