What's the difference between a traction motor and a normal electric motor?

Question

Is there a mechanical difference in the make-up of the motor itself? What are the pros and cons of a traction motor? I've been doing some research on electric vehicles and have noticed that the new production models state they use traction motors and DIY sites on how to build an EV don't really mention too much about "traction motors", rather they suggest using various DC motors. Not sure if this is something that should be really obvious in differences or what, but I haven't had much luck finding out what the benefits or lack there of of the two types of motors. Thanks for your time and help.

Answer 1

A traction motor is a type of electric motor used to power the driving wheels of a vehicle such as a railroad locomotive, electrical multi-unit train (such as a subway or light rail vehicle train), a tram, or an automobile.  In other words there is a motor directly powering each wheel.

A normal electric motor would have one motor powering many wheels through a driveshaft or some system to tranfer the energy.

Traction motors are more efficient.   They are more complex though, so DIY are going to stick with the simpler to build model with one motor.

Answer 2

Traction motors are used to move a vehicle, and need to be quite reliable at 100% duty cycle, pretty efficient and powerful.

Many electric motors wont quite fill the bill on these requirements, but are considerabley cheaper.

some motors assume operating from a wall outlet, and dont worry about wasting power.  If you are running off of batteries, this has to be a primary concern.  Weight for traction motors is somewhat of a concern, although not a real high priority.  Stationary motors care little about weight.

DIY'ers try to find less costly motors that will fill the needs of a traction  motor, sometimes succesfully, sometimes not.

Answer 3

A traction motor is simply an electric motor used to move a vehicle.  It isn't a completely different kind of motor, just one that has been matched in design to the demands of the application.  The motors used in EV conversions, such as Advanced DC, Warfield, and General Electric are all designed for these purposes too, so they could certainly be referred to as traction motors, but they are more commonly described by the winding, such as series wound, shunt, or compound.