Thread: Electric Defender on Fifth Gear

To add to what Ron said,Diesel-Electric Locomotives have been around for a lot of years,and if they weren't cost effective they would not still be in use,and they can haul quite heavy loads.

Here is something of interest.
it is old hat now being Lead acid batteries.
These are pictures of a Enfield electric car I used to own.
I ended up fitting new batteries and doing a few mods to sort things out and then played with it.
It was sold to QLD and I think it ended up in Giltraps Museam not long before it closed down.
it had a compound wound motor with direct drive to the diff.
It was a steel space frame tube chassis with all alloy panels.
Speed control was by voltage switching and series/parallel switching of the motor using Albright contactors.
Built in battery charger.
In one of the pics you should be able to see a house hold 240 volt power meter( behind the front seat in the back) so you know exactly how much the thing costs to run.
I had a large volt meter to tell you the state of the batteries.
It could spin the drive tyres on hard standing start acceleration.
It went OK on the flat, but died very badly on any reasonable hill due to the weight of the batteries.
These days why electric vehicles are now a possible option is not so much about the energy density of modern ....say lithium batteries ,but the reduced weight compared to old lead acid.

I did a google and found this.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPBJpuz7qfM]Old Top Gear Enfield 8000 - YouTube[/ame]
Interestingly my Enfield was one of two imported and used by the Victorian electricity commission.
I could get over 48 mph on mine.
I never had google when I owned it and have learnt more about it now in the last 20 mins.
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enfield_8000"]Enfield 8000 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
I was a fun piece of kit and got some weird looks.

To further add fuel to the fire, say a 2.4puma puts out 400nm, and the crawl ratio is is 70:1, thats way more than 400nm; and if its triple locked that puts that whole amount of torque at any wheel (it's not always usable though).

Haven't volvo made a diesel electric? It was something like a 3cyl 800cc tuned to beyond belief for a fixed rev and torque load and achieved something stupid like 1.7 ish l/100km. I'll try to look it up.

Yes a motor where the gearbox is, coupled to the transfer case, and the smallest of the puma motor series running as a stationary engine.

Unless it's indepenant you'd have to consider unsprung weight too.

Sent from my GT-I9305T using AULRO mobile app

I hear what you're all saying and thanks Mark , I do understand moments and torque quite well ( I teach it at TAFE from time to time) and thanks Pedro for smashing me with that electric motor link ,
however here is what I was thinking would be possible and I don't understand why it wouldn't be but am happy to be corrected.
Very small diesel spinning a set of generators/ alternators that will power an electric motor at each wheel. They are all independent of each other but could incorporate clutches to allow slippage and electronic speed controllers to each motor to facilitate traction on the dirt and cornering on the tar. Lifting a wheel wouldn't cause all torque to go to that wheel because it is independent of the others. Obviously it would need to be computer controlled but when you can buy flight controllers for quadcopters for $65 that control 4 motors I'm sure a car company could come up with one for a car to control four separate motors as desired. Standard battery set up to start the diesel.
Get rid of axles, diffs, gearbox and transfer case - what does all that weigh? So, where am I going wrong?
I need to know before we start this new car company, raise some capital,smash the Japs and retire in a year or two as squillionaires :P

Is there a reason why they haven't covered the roof of that Defender with solar panels to extend its range beyond 100km? Just asking...