The humble automotive alternator hides an interesting secret. Known as the part that converts power from internal combustion into the electricity needed to run everything else, they can also themselves be used as an electric motor. The schematic of a simple automotive alternator, from US patent 3329841A filed in 1963 for Robert Bosch GmbH. These devices almost always take the form of a 3-phase alternator with the magnetic component supplied by an electromagnet on the rotor, and come with a recti...