go ahead with a 'real car', it won't cost all that much more and about the same amount of time. I gotta tell ya, it is WAY more fun to drive a 120v LiFePO4 with 8" than to go with golf cart power..... you'll get real acceleration and a 50 mile range with 38 x 100 ah cells.

the swift makes a great EV, check my site out (in sig below)

 

Agree that higher voltage systems are better for a variety of reasons.

If you want to keep budget down, in a suzuki swift (geo metro) you should be able to get by with 120v or 144v, 60AH LiFePO4 especially given your modest range and performance goals.

with the 60Ah cells, the battery won't take up much more space than the original gas tank did.

If you really want to stay with a low voltage system, at least do two things: 1) 72V, no less and 2) leave enough room to double the battery pack size to 144V and for higher voltage controller, charger, etc. (In other words, leave room to upgrade)

Good luck.

 

... you should be able to get by with 120v or 144v, 60AH LiFePO4

with an 8" motor, you really should only go up to 120v. you will also find that if you stick to 120v lots of the components are much less expensive than if you step up to 144v. In the Swift an 8" fits very well... with a 9" you would have to do significant fooling around with motor mounts and CV joint bracket and you really don't need the extra HP or cost of a 9".

regarding batteries.... I would argue hard that you are MUCH better off to go a little over your range requirement than under with LiFePO4 for best life. You also need to keep in mind that you want to avoid pulling more than 2C for any extended length of time; you can burst to 3C or even 5C for short periods with Thundersky/CALB, but over 2C for long periods in not good. 60ah, especially at less than 120v, might fit your minimum range requirement but would likely not last well if you pull more than 120 amps very often.

so.... since you are going to be putting in a lot of time converting, I would HIGHLY recommend saving up enough to build a car the first time that is reasonably fun to drive and very likely to have a solid 10 year life; 8" motor, 120v (38cells) of 100ah.

 

My advice would honestly be to go 72v to start with and look to move to 96 later on.
And get decent batteries or at least get AGM or Sealed Lead Acid to start with to put less strain on things. Your amp draw is the big thing here not your range so if you wanna save some cash first up, use cheaper batteries with 100Ah ratings so things dont go pop.

Then when you see the results, you can save for Lithium later on, save weight and get back some space, plus you'll have some cheap batts to sell to the next person wanting to undertake a similar project.

Just my 3 cents (inflation)