davegvg wrote:

An electric Sandcar is an extremely viable. It a totally fine alternative as long as you understand the following ownership caveats-
Having had years of experience with battery operated mobility toys and having “cracked” the Segways digital key system so as to allow for 30 mph top end Ive learned a lot about battery performance and issues - most notably how draining and charging speeds affect overall life and performance of said battery. This applies to Nickel Meta l Hydrides and lithium ion/polymer batteries.

Range is 100% dependant on driving style- 2 runs full bore up oldsmobile and your 200 mile range is now probably 50 and the batteries are sizzling hot. Batteries heat up when being called on for amperage fast and heat KILLS batteries.

In a place like glamis Id bet the range is more like 25-30 miles realistically.
Batteries Heat up when being charged and you wouldn’t want to run a car down to 10% and then fast charge it – that will kill the batteries in half a season. Smart charging capability is an absolute must for longevity in a vehicle like this.
IF you cost factor in replacing batteries, the cost will be just under a gas powered car including generator gas- When charging the current draw will not peg out a medium sized genny because to throw a constant 2000 watts into them will simply overheat and kill the batteries.
Better yet if it does have onboard smart charging strap a Honda 1000 to the thing and have it constantly running while driving.
I don’t see how it could be fitted with regen braking and not weigh a ton, and keep in mind the best regen braking system can only achieve .3 g’s of decel before mechanical overrides them- on the street really cool- On a steep dune .3 is useless.
A “round of” Lithion’s for this things is going to be freaking expensive.
2 segway batteries, enough for one bike was 900 bones.
Their lifespan will be directly proportional to how you treat them. They may make it a half a season or 2 seasons, prepare to buy new ones if you want to drive this like an lS2’turbo. Better yet buy a second set and slow charge them once they’ve cooled from run 1 for added life and swap them out in “packs”- if this car is well designed you should be able to remove and replace the batteries easily preferably without tools, or with simple tools.


Performance can be astounding- as good or better than gas turbo engine rails, and it will be just heavy and having 100% of the tirque available at zero RPM will actually be harder on a transaxle (said mendeola ) than a comparable gas motor. Samarium cobalt electric motors can generate ALL the performance one could ever ask for – it’s the batteries that let you down.

The whole quiet thing is a plus to me and not a danger- I cant hear anyone around me because of my vehicles noise anyway, and if someone’s walking around in the deep dunes they’ll hear you laughing waay off in the distance.
Lets see how the car is really engineered- 100K may be a bargain.

Davegvg


04 Titan Crew Cab 4x4 Big Tow/stillen brakes
08 Kawasaki kfx450
07 Raptor 700
07 19ft nitrous Hyperlight toy hauler
2 segway gen 1 human transporters
93 21ft Laveycraft Sebring tunnel 406 sb
06 Infinity G35 coupe
05 Kalamazoo bread breaker 5 dual fuel w/ initials laser cut into cooking grate
08 HP 8600 dual quad core/nvidia 5600 w sdi os- RH2.6 linux 16GB ram.

big buford wrote:




Thanks Dave, I enjoyed reading your posts. Very informative.

FishingFan wrote:

I have not tried to sell one cow since i have been on here. But if you need beef cattle, PM and i will be glad to discuss in detail.

Really, I just spent $105,000 (putting down a sizeable non-refundable deposit) on a electric sandcar. To my knowledge, the only prototype they've ever built and one of the first ones ever to be built and on top that with only a few hours test drive. If you think i would do that without knowing as much detail about it as possible, you must be crazy.

Tesla Motorsports requires a huge deposit down and they're not even offering test drives anymore. I got in early on those.

s@ndm@n wrote:

Mechanical question; if it has no trans, are the motors direct drive, or does it still run through a transaxle? If there is no transaxle to take the torque abuse of jumping it, or hammering through a whoop section, those motors are going to be junk real fast. If it's chain or belt drive, i'd question the travel of the suspension... and reliability. A 200# bike can get away with that, but a 2-3k# buggy? Would you mount the motors direct to the wheels? or run them with swing axle or IRS ala VW style? Once again... torque kills, and i'm not talking the torque of the motors... i mean the lateral torque that will be applied to it. Locomotives, highway cars and skip loaders dont take the kinds of abuse that a sand car would... heaven forbid they build a dual sport or prerunner.