Electric Racecar

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Johannesr95
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Joined: Wed Jul 21, 2021 2:11 pm

Electric Racecar

Post by Johannesr95 »

Hello everyone !

A little backstory to by project.

I'm competing in rally cross open class in a buggy that me and my dad built. It has a 1600 vti engine in it and it works great! I'm keeping up with 4wd cars with much bigger engines. But my little Honda engine is not enough to win races consistently. So instead of building a 4wd ICE buggy we wanted to go electric.

I've been looking on the forums here at all the projects and talking with friends and I'm leaning towards getting motors from a Prius but I have a few questions.

1. Ideally I want two motors on each wheel at the back and 1 motor for each wheel at the front. How difficult is it to control 3 motors in unison.

2. Is making custom battery packs something people do ? As ideally I'd just want the battery to last for about 10-15 mins and just 5 mins under high loads so a battery pack from a OEM vehicle would be too big.

3. are there any documentation of the size of the Prius motor to use as a CAD reference ?

4. Is the Prius motor a stupid idea and is there a motor that is better suited for a project like this ?

Thank you in advance. I'm sorry if these questions sound really stupid but I just have no idea where to start in all of this.

I've also posted a picture of my current race buggy :)
69586075_893655881000549_1185436125024485376_n.jpg
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Bratitude
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Re: Electric Racecar

Post by Bratitude »

a Prius transaxle is a very experimental choice.

Your plan is extremely ambitious...

I recommend taking more time reading and study the projects folks in the industry are working on.

a leaf transaxle with the 160kw inverter would be a good budget option.
And a small hybrid battery pack - volt or pacific pack.

That would render good power to weight.
https://bratindustries.net/ leaf motor couplers, adapter plates, custom drive train components
Johannesr95
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Joined: Wed Jul 21, 2021 2:11 pm

Re: Electric Racecar

Post by Johannesr95 »

After some more research I figured that was not the best option, I'm looking at having two of the smaller front wheel drive tesla motors now. One for the back and one for the front.

Regarding the batteries I'm looking at a Prius battery pack as range is not really a worry now. Finding it really hard to find the dimensions of those batteries for my CAD work
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Bratitude
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Re: Electric Racecar

Post by Bratitude »

A Prius pack is tiny, and won’t handle the high current draw. Maybe a few in parallel
https://bratindustries.net/ leaf motor couplers, adapter plates, custom drive train components
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