This is GM’s new series of Ultium Drive electric motors
This is GM's new family of Ultium Drive electric vehicle drive units. From L-R: Assist all-wheel drive unit, front-wheel drive unit, rear wheel drive unit, front- or rear-wheel truck drive unit, dual motor truck drive unit. [credit: General Motors ]
It might be too early to say that the auto industry is undergoing a great electrification. But more and more automakers are headed in that direction as product pipelines swell, with new battery-electric vehicles arriving over the next few years. Take General Motors-it plans to bring 22 new BEVs to market between now and 2023, starting with a reborn GMC Hummer to be debuted later this September. To make matters simpler, GM is standardizing the components it will use to build what promises to be a wide variety of vehicles.
We already learned a little about GM's modular Ultium battery packs, which it claims will break the $100/kWh barrier "early in the platform's life." As the reveal of the Hummer approaches, the company is opening up about other aspects of its new BEV brigade. And this week it was time for motors to take to the stage. GM has developed a new family of modular drive units called Ultium Drive that it will mix and match in cars, crossovers, SUVs, and trucks.
In total, there are five drive units, each of which integrates the power electronics as well as the electric motors. There are drive units for front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, and an assist all-wheel drive unit, and then a pair of drive units for trucks. One of these can be used for the front or rear axle, while the other is a dual motor drive unit for rear axles. And inside each drive unit is one of three electric motors in the Ultium Drive family: a permanent magnet primary front-wheel drive motor, a permanent magnet primary drive motor that's happy in either front- or rear-wheel drive configurations, and a smaller induction magnet assist motor.
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