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Just starting out

6904 Views 14 Replies 8 Participants Last post by  Duncan
I have been doing some research for about two months now just trying to get a ground of where to start a new EV and could use some help. I am going to make an EV from scratch. I am expecting this project to take about 3 to 5 years or so, thus I am in no rush at all. I still have tons to learn about a variety of things for this undertaking and I am pretty optimistic about it. I have been thinking about a good place to start, and after much deliberation I have decided to start with a motor and plan on from there. I definitely want to go with an AC motor. My budget that I plan on spending for the whole car is about 50,000, give or take 20,000 if need be for everything that i want in it. So back to starting with the motor I would like something around 250-300kw. Anyone have any suggestions? Again, I am just starting out, thanks for any help!

-Jake
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Since you say you want to build from scratch, and not convert an ICE car, you may want to read the following report that I found for a small EV.
http://www.ohio.edu/mechanical/design/projects/team2_design_report_final.pdf

You can scale up to meet your desires. 250-300 kW is a lot of power for an electric motor, and is equivalent to a 1000 HP (peak) ICE. So that is the realm of serious racing cars and dragsters, or heavy trucks and buses.

If you are really just starting out with little experience in electrical and mechanical engineering, I would suggest first "cutting your teeth" on a small test project, which could be a bike or a tractor or golf cart. You should be able to get something up and running in a few months and the experience will carry over to your main project. You can afford to make mistakes and start over a few times if you are building a $300 bike or a $600 tractor, but for a monster like you are planning, mistakes can be costly and quite dangerous! :eek:

Good luck, have fun, learn much, and be safe! :)
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