It turns out that my brother-in-law's dad works at a place that rewinds electric motors. I'm gonna get my brother-in-law to ask him if they have any motors lying around that I could use. If so, having an "in" like that might be just the ticket.
As far as batteries go, I still haven't looked in the battery core shed at work. Here are the batteries we deal in:
http://eng.trpparts.com/files/part-f...atteriesEN.pdf
I can buy them at cost as an employee. I wonder which would work in my potential EV....