Hello! Great forum! I'm posting here instead of the "non-road" forum because my car is a late 90's Elantra, or it used to be anyways.
It is now a "mutant vehicle" that is taken to the Burning Man festival in Nevada every year. It's a manual transmission/steering car so it should be somewhat straight forward. We usually drive around barely on the gas in 1st gear, or if we're feeling brave I might idle in 2nd gear.
I've been interested in converting it for quite a while and now have all the space and tools to do it. I'm pretty handy and the general process doesn't sound too hard, also picking up a welder shortly.
The speed limit is 5mph, it's all flat hard ground (dry lake bed, some soft spots), acceleration doesn't matter, looks don't matter, but range and charge speed is important. We can probably clock 30 miles in a day no problem. The car isn't that heavy initially but can take on 1500lbs of passengers and gear at any moment.
It seems like forklift motors are a good start, and I've been reading about Volt/Leaf batteries but I'm not sure for my needs if that is overkill so I thought I'd ask before going down that rabbit hole any further.
What would you guys steer me towards as I put my plan together?
It is now a "mutant vehicle" that is taken to the Burning Man festival in Nevada every year. It's a manual transmission/steering car so it should be somewhat straight forward. We usually drive around barely on the gas in 1st gear, or if we're feeling brave I might idle in 2nd gear.
I've been interested in converting it for quite a while and now have all the space and tools to do it. I'm pretty handy and the general process doesn't sound too hard, also picking up a welder shortly.
The speed limit is 5mph, it's all flat hard ground (dry lake bed, some soft spots), acceleration doesn't matter, looks don't matter, but range and charge speed is important. We can probably clock 30 miles in a day no problem. The car isn't that heavy initially but can take on 1500lbs of passengers and gear at any moment.
It seems like forklift motors are a good start, and I've been reading about Volt/Leaf batteries but I'm not sure for my needs if that is overkill so I thought I'd ask before going down that rabbit hole any further.
What would you guys steer me towards as I put my plan together?

