Hello everyone, this account is new but I've been lurking on this site for years and have always wanted to build an electric car ever since I read about the white zombie. I've recently acquired a 1989 corolla. it weighs less that 2400lbs stock and im not sure how much longer the motor is going to last. To me this seems like a ripe situation for a DC motor conversion, however I will keep the ICE alive as long as possible since this is the only car I have. Since I live in New York city, my daily driving is only roughly 30 miles, often at speeds less than 40mph. Its also a manual, which is a real pain in city traffic I don't have a garage to charge the car in but there are "Charge Point" stations all over the place, and if the charging could double as overnight parking that's a super win in my book. So to me an impulse9 or k9hv hooked up to the stock transmission seems like the perfect solution. the issue I have is that I frequently take 100-300 mile trips out of the city, and that if i were to go through the cost and effort of an electric conversion i would want a serious performance upgrade over the dinky 115hp ICE its got now (which i think any DC motor with a 1000amp controller would give me).
Im going to lay out my dream plan, and i guess you guys will tell me if its possible, reasonable, complete crap or needs serious reconsidering,,
have the kostov9 powered by a soliton controller (1000amp) hooked up to the stock 5 speed manual. This is powered by a high-output 10kw pack (i would make the pack myself with 18650s, i've done it before for an electric bike and it will give my a lot more freedom in how i fit the batteries into the car. Now the car can effectively by driven like an automatic by leaving it in second gear in 0-30 traffic, the engine rpm drops to 0 when stopped so no need to constantly take it in and out of neutral. I would be able to drive 10-15 miles on electric alone at full battery potential, and juice up at a chargepoint or other universal charging station if thats all the distance i needed to go that day. but like i said earlier, i take longer trips too often for a pure EV, so what if i were to put a small ICE mated to a pancake DC generator in the trunk, a less elegant form of the BMW i3 rex module. I know the i3 suffers severe power loss once the generator is active, often unable to maintain highway speeds, but wouldn't the available use of the 5 speed tranny alleviate much of that since the i3 is only working with a direct drive AC? I would love to have that blissful high-torque pure EV power on hand for short periods, but i feel like if i have high-low end torque i could operate the vehicle like a modern hybrid, an have the option of full EV for short trips, but also be comfortable using ICE power to maintain highway cruising speeds using a sub 100hp ICE. And since it may only take 15hp to maintain cruising speed, the ICE could be run at say 40hp and use the extra to charge the batteries if i'm not going to be anywhere near a charging station
I'd appreciate not being told to screw off since I'm not looking for a pure EV, it would still be more efficient than what I've got now and we're all here trying to make the world a little cleaner right?
There are certainly a lot of issues here to contend with, I'd love to know where I've gone wrong and what suggestions are out there.