Tesla Motors returns to CWIEME in 2016

Electric cars have come a long way since Tesla Motors first set up shop in 2003. Following the launch of its now iconic Roadster in 2008, its first sedan car – Model S – in 2012, and its Model X crossover vehicle in 2015, the company now has over 50,000 vehicles on the road in more than 30 countries worldwide. Tesla cars have been widely praised for their performance advantages over traditional combustion-engine-powered cars, thanks to their efficient, quiet and vibration-free motors with very high power density and instantaneous direct response to inputs. Yet questions remain over the range and cost of electric vehicles, which Tesla Motors’ principal motor designer Dr. Konstantinos Laskaris hopes to dispel through his participation at the forthcoming CWIEME Berlin exhibition for coil winding, insulation and electrical manufacturing.

“It took some time before battery technology was brought to a level where it could provide decent range and power – and in a size that is convenient and efficient for a car,” Dr. Laskaris says. “But today’s supercomputers now allow us to analyse with extreme detail and model the physics with accuracy and, therefore, optimise all aspects of the EV powertrain.”

At this point in Tesla Motors’ development, optimisation is indeed the name of the game. At the company’s facility in Freemont, California, Laskaris and his team of motor design engineers use a computer cluster to generate and analyse many different motor geometries in parallel to solve loss and efficiency maps in the blink of an eye.

“We are looking to achieve the right balance of motor size, power, efficiency, performance and cost – and they are all interrelated. For example, if you can reduce the motor size, you not only increase efficiency but can save on the total system cost by reducing the amount of material used and removing battery cells per given range,” he says. 

The following day, on the 11^th May, Dr. Laskaris will be interviewed live on stage at the CWIEME Central theatre in a session, entitled ‘In conversation with Konstantinos Laskaris’ at 11:45. There will be multiple opportunities for audience members to put their questions to Dr. Laskaris both during and after the session.

“I am anticipating many questions about winding since different winding methodologies and materials can exert a huge influence on motor cost and efficiency. I spoke to so many people after my seminar at CWIEME Chicago in 2015 and saw that many people wanted to challenge me. I’m looking forward to that again on a bigger scale in Berlin,” he says.

“It is a huge coup for us to have Dr. Laskaris, a true trailblaser for the EV industry, as part of our seminar programme for CWIEME Berlin 2016,” says Ingerid Sorgaard, acting content manager for the CWIEME exhibition series. “He has so many invaluable insights to share with visitors and exhibitors alike and I hope they will fully capitalise on this opportunity to pick his brains and draw on his wealth of knowledge and experience.”