[WANTED] Advice: I pulled a motor from a crashed EV. Can anyone identify it?
By PacketDriver·4 replies·872 views
I picked up a rolled car from an auto recycler last month without knowing what I was getting into. The car was a 2021 something (no badges, VIN plate damaged) and the motor in it is unlike anything I've seen in my limited experience.
Motor specs from what I can measure
- 3-phase AC (I can count the windings)
- Approximate diameter: 290mm
- Approximate length: 340mm (not including shaft)
- Shaft diameter: 38mm
- Has an integrated resolver on the back end (8-pin connector)
- Two cooling fittings on the housing (liquid cooled)
- One large 3-phase power connector (orange, roughly 50mm diameter)
- A smaller connector (looks like 6-pin signal/temp)
- No markings on the outside except a partial alphanumeric code: "EM19-..." (rest obscured by crash damage)
What I've ruled out
It's not a Tesla (wrong form factor, Tesla motors are much more compact). Not a Nissan Leaf (those are DC for the older ones, and this is clearly AC). Not a Chevy Bolt (I have the Bolt specs — different mounting bolt pattern).
Why I want to identify it
If it's from a car with known inverter/controller hardware that I can source cheaply, this could be a great donor motor for my next conversion project. If it's something proprietary that requires an $8,000 OEM controller, it might be a parts recycler donation.
Sharing photos in the replies. Anyone with experience identifying motors by form factor and electrical specs — I'd love your help.
The dimensions and the integrated resolver are interesting. 290mm diameter, 340mm length puts this in the mid-size PMSM category — more powerful than a Leaf motor, comparable to a low-end Model 3 or Hyundai Ioniq motor. The "EM19" prefix sounds like it could be a Hyundai/Kia designator — they used "EM" prefixes in their 2018–2022 motors. Could be from a Kona Electric or a Niro EV. Can you photo the resolver connector pinout? That would help narrow it down significantly.
If it's a Hyundai Kona or Niro motor, you're in luck — those motors have been reverse-engineered by the Korean DIY community and there's a reasonable amount of CAN bus documentation floating around. The OEM inverter from a crashed Kona is a legitimate find — they're capable motors (150kW on the 64kWh version) and the inverter is well-integrated. Search "Kona EV motor conversion" on the EV conversion forums and you'll find people who've done it.
The orange 3-phase connector style might help ID it. Tesla uses a round connector. GM (Bolt, Volt) uses a flat rectangular multi-pin connector. Hyundai/Kia use a specific circular connector that I think matches your description. BMW i3 motors use yet another style. If you can post a clear photo of that power connector I might be able to narrow it down.
Also: pull the resolver connector and count pins carefully. 5-pin resolver (2 excitation, 2 sense, 1 ground) is most common in Japanese applications. 6-pin (adds a secondary winding for redundancy) is common in European and Korean high-safety-rating motors. This is a small data point but combined with the other specs might definitively point at an origin.