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max_frontal_area, I read through your link.
Yep, there have been all sorts of different ideas out there.
I've been a fan of Mr. Sharkey's pusher trailer for some time. It's a neat concept. I'm not interested in doing any kind of a pusher trailer right now, I have to back out of my driveway, almost into an intersection, and trailers are difficult to park downtown. For this project, I'm looking at an integrated vehicle.
For my project, simplicity is a big deal, in that I don't want to have to do any major fabrication, as in really hacking body and frame, welding in strange mounting points, etc, as I think that is beyond a typical home tinkerer. I DO like the idea of "take this axel from this make and model car, and put it on that make and model car!"
I also like the idea of two separate power systems for the vehicle (parallel hybrid) While it's a little more complicated, it means you can still drive the vehicle on the one system if something isn't working on the other. I've found that there are many times that I end up driving a gas vehicle, because I happen to be tinkering on Electro-Metro, and just can't drive it at the time.
If I had a diesel/electric parallel hybrid truck, I could still drive it on bio-diesel when I'm tinkering on the electric. I could also drive it long distance on the diesel, and run it as only electric in town.
I've had fun test-driving my wife's "New" car - the 2004 Prius with the Hymotion pack, except that there's no way to make it run ONLY in electric for in town use. (OK, there IS a way to do it, but it's a pain in the but, and then you can't drive it on the freeway, etc.)
On a manually-controlled parallel hybrid, the driver could simply choose weather to use the engine, the motor, or both.
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