[Duncan]

Hi Metal

There is very little difference in efficiency with the different motor types - AC motors can use re-gen which will give some advantage

Taxi drivers find a substantial advantage - the rest of us just a few percent if that

Your options are

Aftermarket AC motors - expensive and very wimpy or extremely expensive and powerful

DC motors - basically repurposed Forklift motors - cheap and powerful - but a little unsophisticated

Motors from production EV's - Tesla/Leaf....
Powerful, inexpensive, sophisticated

I went the DC route - when I started building 10 years ago that was the best way
If I was building a car now I would go the crashed EV route - try and get a complete EV with minor damage

BUT that would involve getting deeply into the electronics - if you don't fancy that then DC is the way to go

 

[Duncan]

Hi Metal

I'm a Scotsman - and well known to be "careful" with money!

You can buy a Warp 11 - for oodles of cash

Or you can get an 11 inch forklift motor for about $200 and simply advance the brush timing

As far as I can see the "DC motors for electric cars" are simply forklift motors with a nice coat of paint

I'm using a Paul & Sabrina high voltage controller - about $1000

For a big heavy machine I would suggest two 11 inch forklift motors!

I'm using a Hitachi 11 inch - my first one cost me $100 ten years ago
I blew it up at the 1/8th mile drags in March so I had to get another one (8.6 seconds - 85mph)
It cost me $150 - needed a bit of work

I also bought a complete spare - it cost me $200

If you go down that route you need to find out who repairs forklifts locally to you

An electric forklift normally outlives one battery - when the second battery dies they tend to scrap the machine and the motors are still perfect

 

[Duncan]

Hi Metal
there is a long thread in the motors section on using forklift motors

Basically I advanced the brushes by drilling and tapping four new holes so that the end plate with the brushes was 8 degrees advanced to it's old position

My Hitachi motor is RATED at 10 kw - 200 amps 48 v and about 1500 rpm

I'm feeding it 1200 amps - 340 v (400 kW - 540 hp) -and I'm using 4700 rpm so far - that is in a light car

In a heavy van that would kill it quickly!

In your van I would suggest two of my motors in parallel with the same 340 v and the 1200 amps shared between the motors - maybe three of those motors!