Electric Drive

Dual Zilla motor controllers (which I build) in a race car.

The Electric Questions:.

12.14.04 Update. Chances are that I will never make this a electric Hybrid. Now that I have a Honda Insight to drive I really don't think it's worth all the time and money to do. I'll probably just convert the Insight to pure electric and run the Stretch on biodeisel.

5/2/02 Update. I been most fortunate to come across a couple of EV-1 drive motors with gearboxes. Thanks Rick! It looks like just the thing for the front of the Stretch. They weigh about 150 lb. This is better than I was hoping for. Also it looks like I'll be able to push them to the 150 HP I was wishing for. Light, efficient, powerful. What else can one want?

EV-1 Drive Motor with Differential

So now the probable arrangement is this:

One Gen II EV-1 drive motor. Mounted where the front differential now sits. It may require losing the walkthrough between the seats and replacing the passenger seat with a bench model, but I've been wanting that anyway. 10:946:1 stock reduction ratio good for 89 mph at 13,500 RPM. This is perfect because the Stretch rarely sees over 90 mph.

Does anyone happen to know if the CV joints on a EV-1 are standard of any type? I'll need to make custom axles to connect them to the Syncro outers.

I will build the 3 phase AC controller based on my current Zilla. It should handle at least 500 phase amps, and possibly as high as 650 in the same package. Plenty of power to overheat the motor. Unfortunately it looks like it may not spin the tires, but it should be peppy anyway.

I'll planning to run about 600 lb. of lead acid AGMs at 312 volts or so. I'm guessing under 400 wh/mile power use around town and 600 lb. should give me 18 miles of range on pure electric.

Unlike production hybrids which you can't plug in, (sorry Honditty, that's a most counterproductive advertising slogan) this one will be able to do short trips in pure electric mode and still recharge off the solar panels on my house.