Finally Finished My All Electric Middy

Thumper · **Posted:** Tue Oct 18, 2011 11:48 am

Well after two years, it's almost finished. Still have a list of about 20 small items to look after over the winter but I finally got it on the road. Registered, safetied, insured, and plated.

It's a 1250 lb all electric with a 96V 100Ah battery pack, 50 HP AC motor putting out 130 ft-lb of torque. I don't know what the 0-60 time is yet but it should be under 6 seconds. Also don't know the range on a full charge. Waiting for some warm Indian Summer weather up here in Canada.

Here clip of my first "legal" drive.

My build log is here - http://www.szott.com/zot2/zot2.html

A word of thanks to all the locosters on this forum who knowingly or not knowingly helped me with my project. I couldn't have done it without all the information and tips on this forum. :cheers:

RoadWarrior222 · **Posted:** Tue Oct 18, 2011 12:05 pm

Congrats!

Nice here today if you get a chance to turn a wheel later, otherwise, next week looks good so far, touch wood, to get a few sunny miles before it hibernates.

horizenjob · **Posted:** Tue Oct 18, 2011 12:48 pm

Congrats, that's great news. Nice suspension work, good choices for your parts!

:cheers:

Tom17 · **Posted:** Tue Oct 18, 2011 3:17 pm

Congrats! Good to see it on the road.

Hey, how did you fix those leaky brake union joints in the end?

Tom...

Lotus19 · **Posted:** Tue Oct 18, 2011 10:49 pm

Wow! That's a very nice car! Very inspiring!

Joe

RTz · **Posted:** Tue Oct 18, 2011 11:17 pm

Stunning!

JagLite · **Posted:** Wed Oct 19, 2011 12:09 am

Fantastico! :cheers:

oddsaabs · **Posted:** Wed Oct 19, 2011 1:32 pm

Great job on the build. Really well done.

This quote from the last blog post got me thinking:

First gear is pretty well useless - all you get is wheel spin. I ended up just leaving it in 3rd gear and driving it as if it was an automatic.

I wonder whether the gear box is really necessary at all? Wouldn't running the AC motor directly through a well chosen differential accomplish the same thing?

cheapracer · **Joined:** Wed Nov 12, 2008 6:29 am **Posts:** 2592

That's shocking.

Thumper · **Posted:** Thu Oct 20, 2011 6:53 am

oddsaabs wrote:

Great job on the build. Really well done.

This quote from the last blog post got me thinking:

First gear is pretty well useless - all you get is wheel spin. I ended up just leaving it in 3rd gear and driving it as if it was an automatic.

I wonder whether the gear box is really necessary at all? Wouldn't running the AC motor directly through a well chosen differential accomplish the same thing?

Yes. Many ev builders do just that. The problem is that if you gear it for hiway speed, you have precious little torque around town. If you gear for around town, you can't get to hiway speed.

I hope to overcome the wheel spin to some extent by installing a torsen diff. I bought one from a guy in Australia a couple of months ago but was more anxious to get the car on the road than to take it all apart to install the diff. Lots of time during the winter.

horizenjob · **Posted:** Thu Oct 20, 2011 10:36 am

Quote:

I wonder whether the gear box is really necessary at all? Wouldn't running the AC motor directly through a well chosen differential accomplish the same thing?

That's what diesel locomotives do. Neither steam engines nor electric motors really require transmissions, because they have torque at 0 rpms. Different types of electric motors vary in the amount of torque they have when stopped, so perhaps there are tradeoffs theres...

IA599 · **Joined:** Sun Sep 18, 2011 3:45 pm **Posts:** 116

It looks great, any plans to auto-x it? Some more sticky tires might help with traction as well.

horchoha · **Posted:** Fri Oct 21, 2011 1:54 am

Very impressive. What type of battery setup are you using? What kind of speed controller are you using?

Thumper · **Posted:** Fri Oct 21, 2011 9:17 am

horchoha wrote:

Very impressive. What type of battery setup are you using? What kind of speed controller are you using?

I'm using 32 100Ah Thundesky Litium Iron Phosphate cells and a Curtis 1238 AC Controller.

Locost_Johnh · **Posted:** Fri Oct 21, 2011 12:01 pm

That looks REALLY nice! Where did your transaxle and motor come from? Did you do the adapter yourself? If not, what source? Seeing your car makes me want to get started on another build. I doubt it would have enough range for commuting to work, but it would be great for general around town stuff.

Congrats!

John

LocostUSA.com

Finally Finished My All Electric Middy

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