Ok folks, newbie warning here.
I've had an interest in the ev line for a long time but only dipped in and out of forums and websites over the past 3 years without honing plans.
That has to change with petrol now over £6.50 / $11 a gallon here in the UK and my car only getting 14 mpg around town, lol.
I want to build a three wheel trike but on the lines of a 2 wheel rear drive / 1 front wheel steer. I don't want those that looks like a childs pedal trike, whilst very good they are I want to have one similar to an occ motorcycle / trike http://www.orangecountychoppers.com/chopper-gallery#.
I'm not at all good at metal fabrication mainly because I've never needed to work in metal so this job would be farmed out to a pro welder fabricator. Electrics I can work my way through drawings and descriptions / diagrams etc and glass fibre / body panel I'm brill at.
It's no good saying what I want as I am never satisfied. What i need is mainly around town so speeds up to 50 mph and distance as high as possible but around 30 miles per charge would surfice I guess. I'd prefer not to discharge the batteries lower than 50% and hopefully not less than 20%.
As it would be rear wheel drive I was thinking along the lines of some sort of diff set up with a propshaft and then motor similar to normal rear wheel drive cars.
I've seen an alternative method of an english front wheel drive mini with the engine removed leaving the gearbox in place with a blanking plate on top of the gearbox and then the motor fits into the gearbox and drives the car this way. I guess there would be too much torque for a motor direct into a diff mechanism.
I appreciate that I'm in the UK so things will be different so any answers will, I appreciate be towards the American way of doing things but, I'm sure, all will help me as a novice.
I need to do research on the corrolation between motor size and power it gives. Also batteries but as lithium are supposed to be the best on the market these will be the ones I will probably go for.
Money to be spent... as much as it takes and over a timescale of how long it takes. It's not a cop out but genuine as if I had $10000 in an "EV Pot" then it would probably get spent on the wife or the house etc. so little by little I'd get it built without too much of a stringent eye on costs.
One other thing that will have bearing is that at present I don't have a full motorcycle licence so for my licence qualifications a trike will have to have a maximum weight of 450kg / 990 pounds. I need to check this out for certain as I hope that doesn't include the rider... as I weigh the thick end of 288 pounds...
I don't know theset up of the electrics but presume that the batteris are wired to a controller then wired to the motor.
I'd be using led lights and a twist grip throttle / controller but again the seperate set up of an ancilary battery [ and charging system] to charge the batteries for lights horns etc needs more research as it's not getting lodged in my tiny grey cells at the moment.
Ok, where do I go from here, all advice greatly accepted and thank you in anticipation.
Chimpchoker.
I've had an interest in the ev line for a long time but only dipped in and out of forums and websites over the past 3 years without honing plans.
That has to change with petrol now over £6.50 / $11 a gallon here in the UK and my car only getting 14 mpg around town, lol.
I want to build a three wheel trike but on the lines of a 2 wheel rear drive / 1 front wheel steer. I don't want those that looks like a childs pedal trike, whilst very good they are I want to have one similar to an occ motorcycle / trike http://www.orangecountychoppers.com/chopper-gallery#.
I'm not at all good at metal fabrication mainly because I've never needed to work in metal so this job would be farmed out to a pro welder fabricator. Electrics I can work my way through drawings and descriptions / diagrams etc and glass fibre / body panel I'm brill at.
It's no good saying what I want as I am never satisfied. What i need is mainly around town so speeds up to 50 mph and distance as high as possible but around 30 miles per charge would surfice I guess. I'd prefer not to discharge the batteries lower than 50% and hopefully not less than 20%.
As it would be rear wheel drive I was thinking along the lines of some sort of diff set up with a propshaft and then motor similar to normal rear wheel drive cars.
I've seen an alternative method of an english front wheel drive mini with the engine removed leaving the gearbox in place with a blanking plate on top of the gearbox and then the motor fits into the gearbox and drives the car this way. I guess there would be too much torque for a motor direct into a diff mechanism.
I appreciate that I'm in the UK so things will be different so any answers will, I appreciate be towards the American way of doing things but, I'm sure, all will help me as a novice.
I need to do research on the corrolation between motor size and power it gives. Also batteries but as lithium are supposed to be the best on the market these will be the ones I will probably go for.
Money to be spent... as much as it takes and over a timescale of how long it takes. It's not a cop out but genuine as if I had $10000 in an "EV Pot" then it would probably get spent on the wife or the house etc. so little by little I'd get it built without too much of a stringent eye on costs.
One other thing that will have bearing is that at present I don't have a full motorcycle licence so for my licence qualifications a trike will have to have a maximum weight of 450kg / 990 pounds. I need to check this out for certain as I hope that doesn't include the rider... as I weigh the thick end of 288 pounds...
I don't know theset up of the electrics but presume that the batteris are wired to a controller then wired to the motor.
I'd be using led lights and a twist grip throttle / controller but again the seperate set up of an ancilary battery [ and charging system] to charge the batteries for lights horns etc needs more research as it's not getting lodged in my tiny grey cells at the moment.
Ok, where do I go from here, all advice greatly accepted and thank you in anticipation.
Chimpchoker.