Well, I have been busy and missed this thread until now. I might have missed something in the previous discussion.
What type of motor: 3-phase AC induction. I think that it would be impossible for the general public to come up with the magnets needed to build DC or BLDC motors. Those magnets would have to be formed to the shape of the motor and not just cow magnets. The are other benefits also like regen.
Mechanical brakes: Yes. I am pretty sure that every state requires mechanical brakes on the car (State Law). The brakes could be setup to only apply after a certain amount of pedal travel and upto that point it would be all
Regenerative Braking.
Controller location: Out external to the motor. This would minimize the unsprung weight and also allow the controller to be isolated from the road vibration. You would only need the three power wires and the speed sensor wires going to the wheel.
Motor Configuration: I was thinking that it would be cool to have a inside-out motor, but I think that it would be the lest costly to have the normal configuration with the squirrel cage on the inside. This way the rotor could have a hub mounted to the outside and the brake rotor could be mounted to that with the wheel - in the current configuration. The the brake caliper could be mounted to the stator housing.
The back side of the stator housing could be designed in a generic fashion to allow different attachments to different suspension systems.
Suspension: This might be an issue. If a front wheel drive car is used the rear suspension might not be strong enough to handle the acceleration forces. The do see braking force, but that is much less since the rear lifts during hard braking. The only way to find out is to try it.
Mechanical Design: I currently have a fully licensed version of Pro/Engineer WildFire 3.0. So, I could do a lot of the mechanical design for this project. If you guys want. I do want to inject a thought here. If someone were to have an none licensed version of some software and they used it for a project like this that software manufacturer would have the right to sue and maybe get the designs destroyed.
Controller Design: I have been working on a 3-Phase AC controller design - slowly. I think that the best option would be to use the Microchip controller that they have specifically designed for AC motors. I could share what I have so far.
Something for me: I would be willing to do this in return for your guys help getting the design together. I would probably be less inclined to contribute to this project if it had a strickly non-commercial clause. I would like to put together kits for various cars and be able to sell them.
Manufacturing the Parts: In order to get good deals on manufacturing it is very important to have larger quantities together in one run. If we could pull this off and have group buys that would help us lower costs.
Education/Experience: I have an Electrical Engineering Associates Degree(Skagit Valley College), and a Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Technology/Vehicle Design from Western Washington University. At WWU I was the Team manager for the Viking32 Government project - Natural Gas/Electric Hybrid.
http://www.hybridaction.com/viking32/general.htm I then went on to be a Design Engineer, Manufacturing Engineer and Liaison Engineer for Kenworth Truck Co. (only automotive company here in Seattle). I am currently the CAD administrator for Philips Ultrasound (huge layoffs in the trucking industry last year).
I am not the best Electrical engineer, so would like help on that part of the design. I have some embedded systems programming experience, but again am far from an expert.
Hopefully we can get this project moving.
Paul