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Volatile oil prices and increased environmental sensitivity together with political concerns have moved the attention of governments, automobile manufacturers and customers to alternative power trains. From the actual point of view the most promising concepts for future passenger cars are based on the conversion of electrical into mechanical energy. In-wheel motors are an interesting concept towards vehicle electrification that provides also high potentials to improve vehicle dynamics and handling. Beside aspects concerning the electric system (e.g. motor type, energy storage, and control strategy), there are also some open questions related with the mechanical design of in-wheel motor driven vehicles that need to be solved before series production.

Volatile oil prices and increased environmental sensitivity together with political concerns have moved the attention of governments, automobile manufacturers and customers to alternative power trains. From the actual point of view the most promising concepts for future passenger cars are based on the conversion of electrical into mechanical energy. In-wheel motors are an interesting concept towards vehicle electrification that provides also high potentials to improve vehicle dynamics and handling. Nevertheless in-wheel motors increase the unsprung mass worsening vehicle comfort and safety. The paper analyses potentials and limitations of innovative passive concepts as well as of new mechatronic suspension systems in order to assure appropriate levels of vehicle comfort and safety when using in-wheel motors with different torque requirements. To reach the mentioned objective, the weight of synchronous and asynchronous electric motors is computed for different torque requirements.