Chevy & GMC Vans

I honestly had no idea where the proper place was to put this post so pardon the error in advance should this not be the correct place.
I have a habit of sketching out crazy engineering ideas and talking at length with my father ( who is an engineer ) about methods of executing and prototyping. Well, from time to time I have an idea and then discover that someone else has already executed basically the same thing. It doesn't bug me; in fact, it kind of validates that my idea isn't so crazy or at least I'm not alone with my weird ideas.
Anyway, I thought I would share these links that I found. As you can see this may be the starting point for a diy hybrid ( or EV ) Astro. My idea was leaning towards an electric assist at lower speeds...but you get the idea.

http://www.sigmaautomotive.com/electroc ... harger.php

http://www.go-ev.com/End_User_Pricing.html

http://northstar.sierraclub.org/campaig ... hap06.html

OK, how about the 'Car & Driver' method? Take two Toyota Prius drivetrans and stuff one in the front and one in the rear of an Astro/Safari (ala their CRX project car from a million years ago)!

But seriously, the midline motor/generator seems like an interesting concept. But since it is 2010 and the last reference I see was in '09, I'm guessing it is still a ways out.

I'd be curious to know if a person could take a small diesel engine and hook it to a generator and use it to keep a large lithium ion battery pack charged. In theory, you could have a 20-50 mile battery range and then use the diesel/generator to recharge batteries and/or power the the electric motors. (It would be fully electric powered, no mechanical connection between diesel and drivetrain.)

Every year I write about the 'Clean Snowmobile Challenge' for our state snowmobile association's newspaper and the last few years there have been a few all-electric entries. If I remember, I'll post up the latest when I write the article. The tech is very similar.

I had given allot of thought to doing a pure electric conversion on a astrovan. I had thought to get the brushless motor out of a electric forklift as well as the controler panel. They will even run a hydrolic pump that can be controlled seperatly so you can have power steering. If you mount the engine back where the trans would normaly have sat you have all the space under the hood for batteries plus where the fuel tank used to be.

If it will move 20000lbs of forklift and pallet you should be able to score some huge smoke shows when you gear it up and stuff it in a 5000lbs van.

i have been wanting to do something like this for years. but never the time or money to start looking for the stuff and/or to do it.