The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-04-08

try, d6Scr1Ded to the New Ork Times new power plant for electric vehi- cles, -enabodying the, principles hith-. erto unknown to this field, on which he has been working in an advisory capacity. This simplified power plant is the invention of Harry B. Day. an The experimental work has been car rted on by a syndicate of eight pro fessiohaI men, of which pr. Stein metz is a member.
 A car of the three-passenger run about type, incorporating MT. Days ideas, will be completed shortly It will weigh between HOO and 1,20o pounds. or about one-third much as present electric pleasure cars. It 1 is hoped that the price may be brought down to $75O, or less than i one-third- the cost of present electric machines.
 In this novel device the entire driv- ing mechanism is made a part of the rear axle. and great number of parts, vital to the automobile of to- day, are eliminated There are no separate motor suspended under the car, no shafting from the motor to the axle, and no differential, the me chanism, which compensates the speeds of the rear wheels when run ming on a, curve. The whole power plant can easily be carried by one man.
 .tIt is Beautifully simpIe,'' said pr. IStein1netz. "In every electric motor, as you know, there are two chief parts the field and the armature. In the ordinary motor. the field is stationary and the arnaature revolves! In certain motors this rule has been reversed and the armature held stationary and the field revo1ves. But in this power plant something quite revolutionary takes place. Both field and armature revolve. This unique, motor is in corporated, in the rear axle. The field portion drives one of the rear wheels of the car and the armature portion the other wheel, so that in this way the motor acts as it's own differeptial. 'But this is by no means all By reason of this type of action, the mo- tor is doubled in power. For exam pie, in an ordinary motor, the ar 1 mature were to reVolve at the rate of 1,5o0 revolutions a minute. it would here be revolving at 8 rate equiVa- lent to 5000 revolutions a minute be- cause the field would be adding, it's independent 1,50o revolutions. It can be appreciated readily, therefore, that this motor will either require half of the current to drive 1t with equal power, or that it will show dou- l ble power on the same amount of current
 This does not mean any enormous I increase in mileage single charge 1 of the storage battery. Rather it
 
 battery maybe used with satisfactory results. Moreover, doing away with the motor separate from the axle and attached to it by. shifting, has other | interesting advantages. In the first place, 1t frees the bottom of the car body so that the battery alone need be carried there. This means the saving not only of the space actually necessary for the motor itself, but also of the space used by supports cross-members and braces to hold the motor in place.
 Secondly, this arrangement brings about 8 great saving, in weight by making it possible to tighten the l whole construction of the :. frame, i since a, far; less rigid structure is need ed when there is no shafting and nd beve1 gearing to keep, in mesh. The ! tive.
 TT see no reason why simplifed electric Of this character Dr. Stein5netz, continued, should not be made, under quantity production, to sell for as little as the cheap but good gasoline car-or for less It Is by far more simple and it should be lighter by many pounds. We hope to get this car within the thousand pound limit. As to price, that, of course. must depend on the method and extent of manufacture. One I so much to-day is that they are made l by the hundreds. Economic car pro- 1 ductton sfaoaId be by the hundred ! thousands, as has been shown 1n the field of the gasoline car. "Of course this power plant is ao-9 p4icab1e to any kind of electric ve- h1cle that does not run upon track I-the light delivery truck the heavy duty truck, even the lawn mower, as well as the pleasure car of all types. It is not it's application that inter ests me much as the thing itself; l a step forward. very decidedly" In addition to the driving part of the car, Mir. Dey has perfected sys- tenn of control in connection with it, which pr. Steinmetz also described with enthusiasm
 sBy this control he said, "the ne oessity for using brakes, except under unusual circumstances. is done away
 with. Its technical side need not be gone into at the present time, but it's effect is to make the motor act as it's own brake and also to prevent it from slowing down so greatly on up-grades. speed in going uphill has always been against the electric. This is because with more to, do the field of the motor
 becomes more highly nagnetized and 1 does not allow. the armature to re- voIve so rapidly. This feature is
 rninin1ized by this new control so that
 there is far less dirninution of speed
 on the upgrade.
 eOn the down-grade the same con- trol features make for very satisfac-
 tory operation On long hill, under lordinary circumstances the brakes
 would have to be used great deal. But with this control and motor, if the former be set at the half speed position the motor will act as a brake as soon as 8 speed equivalent to half ] on is Grfa 1 momentum.
 'It will do more than that. As soon as the speed called for by the half | speed position is passed, the motor
 back current into the battery. Of course this does not mean perpetuaI