Sizing an Electric Motor to Run a Nissan Sentra?

I've got a Nissan 95 and I've been thinking (though not seriously enough) of putting an electric motor it too. Anyway, I'm not that knowledgeable about mechanical things but I would think that the horsepower of both the car engine and your proposed motor need to be the same.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

if you Google "Electric vehicles" you will get a host of hits.

from my reading, the replacement motor would be anything from 25-30 HP. this should get you around 70 MPH. if you want to go faster then a larger motor is needed, though you would be sacrificing range.

What a great question! My immediate reaction is that a motor rated the same horsepower as an engine would not be a direct substitute because...um...it would be too much torque...it would draw too much energy...and a bunch of other things, then I realized that it isn't about the motor...its about the control of that motor. Does an electric motor have a "power band", does it need a multi-speed transmission? Can it be too big? Why?

So, 30 seconds on google, I discovered this. http://auto.howstuffworks.com/electric-car1.htm

This article deals with motors directly substitued into cars, and the voltages and controllers associated with them.

Then this fellow in Aukland feels he has designed an electric motor which is more efficient at lower speeds. Take it with a grain of salt, but he may well be on to something. http://www.theverylastpageoftheinternet.com/newclaims/radial_electric_motor.htm

It would be remarkable to make a better motorcar than the Tesla Roadster. http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php?js_enabled=1

or the Welsh dream car... http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/tm_objectid=15580050&method=full&siteid=50082&headline=welsh-car-team-pioneer-electric-dream-name_page.htmlmick

Of course, Frank Didik covered all this ground on his seminar a few years ago. Go to his web site "How to build an electric car" and you can get all the information you could ever want. http://www.didik.com/ev_build.htm You would have to scale the information up though for your purposes. But thats not so much about retrofitting an old car, but rather, about building it from the ground up.

Mind you, I had to love Wayland's ideas. Like he says....a car should not look like an overgrown coacroach...it should look like a CAR! He spins his tires, cranks his stereo, and makes driving an electric car into an experience. My kind of guy! http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.03/drag.html We need more like him!

So, here I thought I knew about motors! These guys have the answers. Let us know how it turns out eh!

Hi Yusef1,

I haven't checked all the links yet but when I saw that radial motor, it reminded me of a project we did during high school. We used a solenoid coil to power a small electric toy train. The solenoid's reciprocating motion was converted to rotary motion using the same method as a steam engine. It was fun but we never thought of improving on it. Darn! That was 30 years ago.

I guess the idea being that the shaft stays stationary, and the outside turns. A way of providing power without using a highly machined and heavy crank shaft. I could see this mounted within a wheel assembly. Don't know if this would have any application other than on a rail...normally the idea is to reduce unsprung weight, not increase it. Also I would have to see the dynometer vs watt/hour ratings to see if such an arrangement would be more efficient than a standard rotating magnetic field. My gut feeling is that I doubt it. But hey...would be nice. I rather like the idea of this set up if all I wanted was half a turn, or three quarters of a revolution. But then, we would not be looking at cars, but batting cages, or some such.

Alhuey

What is the peak torque of the Gas motor that it came with, and what would be the torque and RPM at your normal highway/city cruising speeds? Use those figures as a reference and then look at www.electroauto.com - motor specs for more info, as well as www.metricmind.com and www.acpropulsion.com motor specs for comparisons. Also - look at resulting conversions in the site album at www.austinev.org for good examples of finished conversions to guide you.

You can also keep an eye on my story at www.myelectricfly.com - the conversion of a 1989 Pontiac Firefly done 10 years ago by some Grade 10 High School Students up here in Canada, Near Toronto, Ontario, that I bought a few months ago! Other good sites to see for conversion stories: www.evnut.com , http://jerryrig.com/convert , www.sparkyev.ca , www.evconvert.com , and also search out your nearest EV organization - mine is www.evsociety.ca and www.durhamelectricvehicles.com .

Robert (you can get my email from my site - on the pdf linked below the main image of my car!)

So good question! It should initiate a disscussion, but I love story of guys who DID IT! I recall that several years ago some young students had a warehouse that delivered a kit for about 6 grants with all necessary instruction to build an electric car in existing ford chassis.

Anybody knows what happened with those "overnight millioners"?