[Blue Bomber Man]

I have to admit the engineering that I will need to learn along the way is daunting but I am very capable of self educating myself in various subjects.

Unfortunately for most that are interested in where this is going is that it will be fairly prolonged, many might be interested for a while, but the time period that this will involve will probably be longer then most people's attention span.

My first task to actually start designing is to buy a program (probably SolidWorks for students:$150) and a new computer that has the horse power to run that efficiently (Perhaps spending around 9-1200).

The first real topic I need to research is how much hp my motor needs to be drive various masses. Compounding that researching is estimating how efficient the vehicle will move. For example by modeling the probe v can I actually get it drag coeefficient, or perhaps even better? Then I have to consider rolling resistance. The heavier the car the more it compounds various problems like motor size, battery size, and frame strength.

I need to learn more about battery tech. The leading possibility that I've found so far is Lithium Ion Polymer batteries. Very weight efficient, supposedly great life span, still reading up on charge cycles (some manufactures quote 300 cycles which is probably too low to be useful, others claim 700+) I think earlier a calculated that a 16kw pack equivalent to the chevy volts capacity would only weigh around 350 pounds (I think the price was $9000, and was actually like 500 cells that I would have to wire together, incidentally, 500 cells was the MINIMUM order lol) There are other difficulties that I might not be able to over come with these batteries such as reliably balancing the charging of all the cells.

I hope to kind of make this whole thing some sort of "Open Source Engineering" project. btw I am laying claim to coining that term *grin*