Electric Horseless Carriage

This last summer of 2007, while taking a break from home renovations, I was cleaning out an old filing cabinet and ran across a forgotten set of plans for a gas powered replica horseless carriage that I had sent away for about ten years ago, thinking that it would make for a great retirement project some day.

Deeper in the filing cabinet, I found a copy of my University Thesis that I wrote back in 1969 on the feasibility of a Hybrid Electric Car.

What fun it would be to combine both concepts into an Electric Horseless Carriage!

So I started collecting all the special parts I would need - heavy duty bicycle wheels from the U.S., a 4 quadrant regenerating DC controller from England, electric motors from China, along with numerous sprockets, chains and hardware.

I have to give a plug here for Ian Hopper whose design for the electric drive I copied almost exactly. He has a lot of experience with electric drive vehicles and that saved me months of experimentation. Detailed plans for some of his projects and a wealth of other information about electric vehicles at http://buggies.builtforfun.co.uk.

I also have to mention Jimmy Woods, who provided the design for the carriage itself. For some interesting background on Jimmy, please see http://www.smallcarplans.com/jimmywoodspage.htm

If you are thinking of building (or converting to) an electric carriage, I've put together some technical information here.

I actually started construction in August. Here are some pictures of the progress.

I started off easy with the axle spindles.

Drive sprocket and brake drum mounted on wheel.

Another view

Steering kingpin tacked up, ready for welding

Front axle pivot

Rear axle with spring bracket

Basic frame is complete

A "rolling chassis"

Now for the 'fiddly bits'. Secondary reduction sprockets.

Two 500W 24 volt permanent magnet DC motors and primary chain sprockets.

By using 2 motors, I avoid having a mechanical differential.

The whole drive train (upside down for assembly)

Controller and batteries fitted.

Now for some woodworking. Floor is 1x6 oak boards.

Side pieces also had to be joined.

Fitting parts before gluing.

Front is on.

Tricky taper at the front spring support.

Complete body.

Bench seat.

Quick check to see if my butt fits....

Now, back to the ironmongery. Here is the partially completed pedal cluster.

Here it is mounted on the body. Notice the linkage to the potentiometer that feeds the speed signal.

Pedals and steering tiller.

One of the problems I had was reversing the steering from the original design. This was my solution.

It seems to work well.

Ready to go for the inaugural run.

On my first run, I bent the jack-shaft. 1/2" is much too small. Need to replace with 3/4". There is a lot more power to those electric moors han I ever thought.

3/4" shafts installed. This looks better.

Test drive was successfull. No chain hop or shaft deflection. Here is a short clip (1.5M).

Fenders installed.

And a few accessories.

The finished(?) product.

Time to fix the crappy drum brakes. Had to machine up some adapter hubs in order to install disk brakes.

The caliper adapter plates took a lot of fiddling to make fit right. Disks and calipers are from the local bicycle shop.

This looks better. And it works better!

Next step is to add a gas engine and generator to make it a true hybrid. The trick is going to be to control the gas engine so that the generator supplies just the right voltage and current to charge the batteries. Not sure how I'm going to do that.

Well I figured that there was no use trying to reinvent the wheel, so I decided to go with a 24 volt alternator and a small gas engine. Here is a link to some more details.

All assembled and ready to mount under the rear of the car. Wiring and throttle control next.

More to come.....