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I thought about the 5th gear shaft or using a rear wheel to drive the electric. But it pretty much came down to keeping it simple, reliable, and easy to work on. If I modify the trans and something happens later on I will have to remake a lot of parts. Or at least have a huge mess trying to take it apart when I have to work on it in the future. Same thing with finding a euro awd swift and using the rear drive. When I need a part it will take a month to get it shipped so maintaining it in the future would suck.
The main thing about attaching the drive to a cv axle is that it really won't make anything else harder to work on. At most I would have to swap the axle shaft over to a different halfshaft assembly to keep from having to remake the sprocket mount. If I do make it then it will be on a new half shaft so I should be good for 150k miles before having to deal with it. The sprockets and chain will wear about like any good O-ring chain and I figure 25k miles out of it. If I use a master link on the chain I could also just take the chain off if anything happens to the electric drive and it needs disabled to get the car home. Making the sprocket mount should be pretty easy. Just find a non cushioned drive motorcycle rear wheel hub that has an axle shaft size big enough to stick the cv axle through and center and weld it solid. The sprockets are big enough to slide over the cv joint and bolt to the hub when they wear enough to need replaced.
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