Electric Probe?

[varneraa]

Between my desire to get back in a probe and talking to my wife about an electric car, I'm starting to wonder about the feasibility of making an electric probe.

Obviously this isn't at any serious phase. I would need to have a much better idea of what it would cost, before I could consider it. As well it would be good to know if anyone in the norcal(sacramento) area would be interested in playing with this or providing expertise. (Yes I'm looking at you Dan. I know you have tons of free time. ;-) )

What do you guys think?

[mtsmb]

I guy across the pond did this. He called the car Probatron. I'm sure an internet search will pull up info on it. I read about it a couple/few years back.

[stoker100]

expect approx $10K minimum for an average setup. If i was going to go down this path i would use something like a hi-pa drive (if thats what theyre called) hub motors to power the rears. If your not electronically inclined then its not a good/safe project IMO.

the best method would be to purchase an existing electric or hybrid car and use that parts from that. expect to add a lot of weight with batteries, have poor range but great low speed torque.

i myself have pondered the project (and have an electronics background) and at the end of the day other then being something different it wont have any added benefits in a probe.

obviously you will have to provide more info to help us guide you like:
what range do you expect to get between each charge?
how much power do you want it to produce?
will it be hybrid or full electric?

[dillinr]

Might as well make it RWD while you're at it.

[varneraa]

Glad to see a few replies.

stoker100, yeah I was thinking about the cost yesterday and figured it would be 10-20k depending on the battery(mostly) and motor(s).

I'm a computer engineer, with enough background in electrical engineering to know how not kill myself when working with the battery pack, etc. I was on a team working on a hybrid suv in college(anyone else heard of Challenge X?). I was focused more on some very early RT controller platform, but I was around for other things here and there.

My daily driving is about 6-7 miles total. Although my wife may occasionally make that 60 miles. Ideally I would want to get closer to production car levels, so a 200+ mile range would be nice.

Honestly, I'd love to make this a monster and hit Tesla level performance, but I doubt I'll ever get the budget out of the leaf/prius range.

RWD? Yeah I was was thinking about it, but I want to keep the back seats and trunk space is always nice.

[yellowrob]

There was also a white electric ( SE I think) probe for sale on craigslist not too long ago. Took like 20 batteries and need some kind of flux capacitor or somthing to work again.

[Placid PGT]

Here you go, hope this helps.

I think he is part of our owners club here in the UK too.

http://probatron.blogspot.co.uk/

[KLZEEscortGT]

^^^^attention post bumping!!!