← Back to context

Comment by pfannl

2 days ago

Also known as: “we removed the rare earths and added software.”

Synchronous motors: running on software since the 1880s. Nikola really was ahead of his time!

  • He invented the induction motor which runs right off the grid.

    • Tesla had invented a kind of two-phase induction motor, but the three-phase induction motor that is the ancestor of the modern induction motors was invented in 1891 by Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky (working in Germany at AEG), who had also invented in 1888 the three-phase grid, the three-phase generator and the three-phase synchronous motor.

      The Dolivo-Dobrovolsky motor is the ancestor of all high-power induction motors, while the Tesla motor can be considered the ancestor of the single-phase induction motors that have been used (more frequently in the past than today) for several household appliances, like washing machines (or reel-to-reel magnetic tape recorders, a half of century ago).

    • Other way round. He invented the induction motor (1887) which the three-phase grid was then demonstrated to drive (1891). That's how influential it was. There are other reasons a three-phase grid is handy but being able to drive these brushless contraptions must have seemed utterly wild at the time.

      1 reply →

Rare earth magnet motors require software too if you want them to be maximally efficient. You could embody that software in e.g. an FPGA of course, but it's still software.