Be Excellent To Each Other

Let's say you were building an electric car, and you had two motors driving the rear wheels.

You decided, obviously, that a 4x4 was better, so added two more motors, the same as the rear ones, to the front wheels.

Now, would the battery last half as long, or the same, or somewhere in between?

Hi.
[kissyfur]You can recharge the battery off the front motor as you drive along?[/kissyfur]

Consider a "normal" gas powered 4x4 vehicle compared to a 2wd equivalent. They get around 10% less range due to the added mass and losses in the extra bits of drivetrain, right?

It's pretty much the same story for electric - you have extra windage losses in the additional motors, but it's not going to halve the range.

Now, are you really considering two motors per axle? One plus a LSD is going to be 'better' for most cases.

It depends why you've chosen four wheel drive too though, if it is operating on rough ground then the batteries might even last longer or at least make it go further due to the car spending more time moving forwards than sat with wheels spinning uselessly.

Typical hippy.

Instructive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSV_46y6ufs

The plan (which, right now, is entirely theoretical) is to build a little Tomcat for the Grimlet.

Awesome.

Excellent. How little exactly?

Look at the tyres on that Range Rover! What a pussy

[edit]And the electric Land Rover has air lockers, the bloody cheat. Still, it's interesting stuff. Can you waterproof an electric car?
[editedit]They're doing a suspension test with a coil sprung Range Rover vs a leaf sprung Land Rover

Dunno. I'm thinking six inches, if only to make the maths simpler.

LOL. The last challenge is worth watching. Yes you can waterproof it - Rod's one has open DC motors and he just lets them run underwater, doesn't seem to do much harm. Modern stuff is sealed though and doesn't care about water.

6" tomcat? 1:6 you mean?

What is this? A TOMCAT FOR ANTS?

It'd be worth watching if he was made to run the electric one without the lockers (which they even shouted about) - the advantage would be huge. But then the coil sprung Range Rover would have the advantage... Of course, it'd be better still if they put the electric series one up against a standard series one, as you can't really take much away from "Two totally different cars, but one is electric and one is not! Which is best?"


6" in a foot, so 1:2. Although that'll probably be too big, so maybe it'll end up at 4".

If it has a roof then 1:3 would surely be a bit of squeeze for the wee fella wouldn't it?

Can you make me one too.

Ta.

Yeah, that's the main problem.

It's only in my head at the moment, I'll get a tape measure out if I decide to do it properly.

If it was me I'd find a 4x4 quadbike with a knackered engine (quite common) and chop it, add bodywork and your motor and batteries.

edit: like this only finish it - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/quad-bike-win ... 500wt_1040

I was thinking of modifiying a Toylander, but they're too small if I want to put a roof on it.

Yeah, it's surprising how small things get once you start scaling them down, I mean the interior. I've seen a model biplane at 4:5 scale, it looked massive, real from a few yards away, you'd think you'd nearly be able to squeeze into it but the cockpit looked tiny.

Ah, but plane cockpits are about as small as they need to be anyway. Imagine an f1 car scaled down 20%. You need to be Mr Dave to even stand in the cockpit.