1. Open source AC drive . Some students at Camosun college built a 100 kW EV AC drive. Also, an article appeared in Circuit Cellar about this. See AC motor drives. Choose the second article, near the bottom "Electric Vehicle Inverter Design ". If you dig deep, this comes with code for a VFD. More.

2. Here is an automobile hub motor. These guys are DIY'ers who decided to build one.

3. For those with an EV with a transmission, a display to help them "see" the shift point would be useful. It would be useful to build a microcontroller that somehow displayed, in bar graph form, the following: The bar on the left represents the motor speed. The bars on the right represent the motor speed depending on the vehicle speed for a particular gear. Both bar's height changes. The steps in shifting would be to take the transmission out of gear and rev the motor to match the speed it needs to be, to re-engage a particular gear. Presumably, the synchro would see less wear.

4. AC Induction Motor Reference Design Kit. If you look at the code that comes with the microcontroller, it helps you understand how a variable frequency drive (VFD) works.

5. Battery Monitor. The bar graph on the laptop is designed with National Instruments software . Each battery voltage is sensed, and sent, through an opto isolator to the A/D converter, LabJack, thence through DB-25 cables to a laptop USB input. The opto isolator is used to transmit analog information. The opto output is is calibrated with a pot on the electronics board. I can provide the program and the electrical schematic. Thanks to Mike Hancock. Additional enhancements are to sum the voltages (mathimatically)to get a pack voltage. The battery pack current, as measured through a shunt, in milliVolts, could also be displayed. Not only that, peukert's equation could be implemented, to show range remaining, based on amps already drawn. Here is a picture of the schematic. The exexutable is here. A necessary file from National Instruments is downloadable here. The executable will run on operating systems previous to Vista. Here is a photo of the PCB up close. If you make one of these to take multiple optos, the total PCB area can be reduced. If I am missing something, let me know. The system weakness is that an opto isolator is not a linear device. That is, Vo is not equal to Vin x Constant. If this were implemented with a linear opto, it would be better. Also, see Gordon Stallings implementation Another display is one that shows battery energy remaining. This involves sampling the current draw, and estimating the watt hours remaining in a battery pack. It needs to consider the Peukert law. Here is another battery fuel gauge. And a link to a detailed explanation in Spanish. Thanks to Juan W. Dixon, Ph.D.

6. A huge opportunity is combining electric vehicles with photovoltaic panels. I have done an analysis here. Also look at the link "Further discussion of EV versus ICE" on that page. Bottom line, the rate of return of a $4625 inventment is PV panels, and not paying $1160 per year on gasoline, can represent represent a rate of return of up to 25%, for a 25 year period. I have not included the cost of installation, as I am a tinkerer. If you double the cost of the panels, the rate if return is 14%.

7. Balancing a set of batteries while being used, so as to get the best range. The Lee Hart implementation is here. In this balancer, a DC/DC converter makes 13 volts from the pack, and the lowerst battery in the pack is charged from this voltage, while in operation. I have not investigated, but it seems that an ultra capacitor could be used to transfer power from a good battery to a bad battery.

8. Lithium battery balancer. Here are a couple of examples of projects underway in the Houston area. Kevin is using Thundersky batteries. and Adam is using Headway batteries. This a deep subject, but critical to the development of lithium packs.

9. A data logger to combine miles driven with watt hours expended, to see how well the driver is doing.

10. A possible research project is to investigate whether a ultra capacitor across a battery pack might extend the battery's life (charge cycles).

11. Cable lug crimper. When I was helping to crimp 2/0 cable to lugs, we were using a hammer crimper with a 10 ton press. The crimper has some marks on the plunger, to be used as a guide for the amount of lug deflection. For 2/0 cable, going to that deflection, was done consistently, with 11,000 pounds force with the press. In the next link, I show the design of a press, using a 7 ton auto jack. You have to machine some parts. Description and 3-D model.