I know a very little, a dangerous place to be...but...as I understand it...

The flexibility of modern motors and the advances in power controllers make the gearbox unnecessary.

With a bit of understand one could make use of the braking effect of the motor to aid coming to a halt.

First thoughts would suggest that putting the motor directly at the end of the torque tube and then placing the batteries under the bonnet would aid weight distribution and not overly increase unsprung weight.

My son then explained that there are motors that effectively could replace both rear hubs. He tried to explain how a differential effect could be programmed.

At this point I lost the plot but the point is that it is quite do-able.

Not sure whether I want to drive along listening to groans, creaks and rattles unaccompanied by the sounds of mechanical harmony that we are used to.

There's nothing new about hybrid or electric cars...



Peter

Well this post certainly caught my eye during my occasional lurking on this forum.
I am seriously considering a full electric conversion on my '36 Ruby as this winter's project. After some preliminary calculations it would seem quite feasable to achieve a similar performance to the original engine.
Does anyone know of another road going electric seven?

Have a look around this website...

http://www.evalbum.com/type/AUST

and ponder this lot...

http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php/want-build-ev-do-starti-6441p4.html

It seems feasible enough if one's ambitions are reasonably low key.

Seems like an interesting experiment to be done on a bare chassis project. Perhaps not an existing running car, unless it was all easily reversible.