Sheepdog- Ok, so maybe it won't save me money, but that doesn't deter me! It's half a pursuit of design and efficiency anyway. Regardless of the lack of serious long-term savings, it is still a very attractive vehicle to me. Hopefully battery prices will drop in the coming years as the design progresses.
mloveland- Thank you. I am actually on and off sketching it. A guy I work with wants to build a performance tadpole so we've been talking about them. One idea was to move the motor in front of the driver to reduce the length of wires between it and the battery- there would just be added losses in drive shaft torsion and the rear differential. We think these would sap less energy than the extra few feet of wire.
I actually do digital sculpting for GM right now, so I am quite experienced in Autodesk Alias. If need be, I may be able to learn UG as well, for the engineering parts. However, I'd rather build some mockups instead because it's easier to visualize when you hold stuff in your hands.
Feel free to endow me and any visitors with any info you feel is pertinent! I plan on using some form of three axis mill to create prototypes, and perhaps even the full size buck over which fiberglass can be laid. Of course everything has to wait until I have a house. That could take a couple years, but so could the wooden mock-ups and engineering.
Anyway, thanks for reaching out and I'd be glad to hear any suggestions/wisdom/warnings you may have!
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