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Today I was thinking about the weight distribution and how it relates to the center of gravity in a 3 wheeled design. Most all of my research concludes that in a 3 wheeled design you want to keep the cg as close as possible to the 2 side by side wheels and as low as possible. By doing so greatly reduces the risk of rollover and enhances overall stability.
Another very important aspect to this is sprung/unsprung weight in a light vehicle. You want to have as low an unsprung weight as possible especially in a low mass vehicle such as Tigon. With today's technology you can have larger wheels which are extremely light. This allows you to decrease unsprung weight and give better stability and handling characteristics. Larger wheels and tires will also help smooth out the ride in a low mass vehicle like Tigon.
When thinking about the Tigon hybrid design there will have to be many compromises made in order to get it completed in a practical time frame and on budget.
Today there are many different hybridization options available to the builder. We can go with a micro, mild, or full hybrid capable design. The cost and complexity go up as you get closer to the full hybridization model.
For the Tigon prototype my thought is to stay in the middle of the road so to speak. So I am adopting a more mild approach to the hybridization design. While I think it would be awesome to build a full hybrid, cost and complexity must be taken into careful consideration. I think currently the mild hybrid offers good benefits while still keeping the costs practical for the budget minded folks like myself. I think this is a good starting point and will allow me to get it up and going quicker. It also gives me a platform to test and build upon.
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