[ai4kk]

Looking at various vehicles for conversion I thought about taking a diesel VW wagon and using a forklift to convert it to EV a la forkenswift. That part's pretty straightforward. I chose the wagon because of storage room for the batteries and possibly a stiffer suspension.

Where this starts getting freaky is: use the removed ICE to power a generator on a trailer.

I noticed that Forkenswift's donor forklift provided 2 (or was that 3?) small motors and 1 big one. They used one of the small ones for around town poking around. If I'm correct, a DC motor will also act as a generator.

My thought is to build a trailer (that could also double as an aero-boattail for the wagon) that would hold the ICE-big motor combo as a generator, and the other small motor would drive the trailer wheels (or at least one of them...maybe make it a single-wheel trailer) as a helper motor. The trailer could also be used to carry an additional battery pack or luggage as needed and allowed under the weight ratings.

The idea would be to use it as a plug-in EV under normal use, then hook the trailer up for longer trips, like to other towns. The motor would only be started when a charge was needed, and for that time would only run at the most efficient RPM until the batteries were topped off, then would shut down until needed again. This would overcome the biggest single practical issue with using EVs as DD cars: range.

Am I totally crazy?