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LukaEV
Build a road legal electric car powered by hub
motors
MW Motors

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Buildingthebody
04/01/2015 at 23:14 2 comments

1. Get the 3D file right. Make sure you have considered everything.
2. Get a very huge piece of foam !. Cut the foam according to the dims on the 3D file. If you have
never done this before, start with very small models & practice a lot.!!..

3. Use the foam cut to make the master mould for the FRP body... Again, if you have not done this
before, find a friend who knows what they are doing..
4. Do all the prep work needed before making the mould form the foam cut..

It eventually starts to look better !

It is absolutely essential that you choose all your accessories, lights, door handles & everything else
before you start !. They all have to fit on the body...

Do not forget to make your doors, book lid & Bonnet cover !!

After the foam cut is perfect, it is time to get to the making the mould.. Unless you have serious
experience, try this with small scale models first. I would advise getting an experienced friend to help
you or ask advice from any local companies who make fiberglass / FRP / or GRP products.

Once the mould is complete it time to start making the actual car body. Hare we go with the first pics
below. Weight is critical in this project. Using FRP gives us structural strength & lightness without the
need for expensive materials like Carbon Fibre.

Now is the time you can really see that advance planning is critical. We selected all the lights & other
accessories at the start of the project. All the components will slot perfectly into the body. We can now
really see the outline of the car.
Everything was going a bit too well. Hit the first design issue. Installing the automotive glass in the
door was easy. Installing the window winding mechanism was not too hard. But, the base of the door
is too small to allow the window to roll down !.

Seems we will have to change the slip direction or add a frame. Changing the slip direction is likely to
work well short term but long term it will cause issues. So, lets add a frame like this.

I thing the frame can become an aesthetic plus feature !.

Frame idea worked !. Here we are installing the winding mechanism

We also completed the bonnet lid & the boot lid. As you can see, we have re-enforced these. This is
not for cosmetic reasons, it is for functional reasons.
Boot lid >

Bonnet lid >

I will explain about the front & rear windows next....Windows are on a separate project log.
At the start of the project, we bought 'off the shelf' period parts from UK based classic car sites. All the
parts are available at a number of sites. The parts come from old UK cars like MGs, As we planned
this early, the parts actually fit the body !.
1. Front view showing headlights, wing mirrors & door handles

2. Side view. Close up of the door handle & wing mirror

3. The boot / truck handle & rear lights..

4. Close up of the boot handle & all the rear lights. The back of the car looks great !

5. Sorry. Same pic. Not sure how to delete it !

6. The opening mechanism for the boot/ trunk....

7. With the bonnet open...

Overall, it is starting to look like a car. The blue color probably does us no favors. We will take all the
parts off now & put a primer color on the body.. All the parts function well. Opening & closing is quite
smooth...

Buildingthe'componenttesting'chassis
04/02/2015 at 22:58 3 comments

Before building any chassis there are few essentials to think about. If you ever want the car to be road
legal, read up on legislation in your area. This will vary from country to county, state to state. Europe
has one law applied by all member states. However, there are entirely different interpretations in all
EU member states. In some member states, getting 'type approval' is nearly impossible. In others, it is
fairly straightforward. Best if I write a separate log about regulation & approval.
We designed 3D chassis to fit our body. However, the project has some severe deadlines so we
decided to build 2 chassis. One is for 'component testing". The other is the actual chassis.

Remember the basics a road car has.

A. Very stiff chassis
B. Keep all the weight low to the ground.
C. Balance the weight equally over the 4 wheels
D. Great steering, Great Brakes & Great suspension.
E. A decent amount of power.
F. Keep it safe. (safety deserves another project log all to itself)
In the case of the LUKA EV, we also have to live within the project goals so we need to keep
everything very light. The chassis also has to accommodate in wheel motors & 2 battery packs . (Bat
packs will also have their own project log)
Lets start with the 'component testing' chassis....
Keep it as true to the actual design a possible. But, do not bother getting it milimeter accurate & leave
out any parts that are 'non essential' for component testing. We got help from a company in the UK.
They build street legal kit cars. We took their basic 'approved' chassis overall structure & used the
same principles in our chassis build. It starts out fairly simple.

This outlines where the 'not entirely usual' bits like the Bat packs & hub motors go.
Fabricating this is not rocket science. Lots of straight lines & easy welding. There will be a lot of
project logs so I will not go into all the details & bore you to death. Sometime later, the chassis looks
like this.

This is a bit more than the 'bare bones'. This has various key components attached. The drivers seat is
attached, the steering wheel in place & the front suspension complete. We used bought in parts for
brakes, suspension, steering because they are not expensive, they are safety certified & they are
tried & trusted. If you are not a car person & do anything like the steering geometry or suspension
yourself, get an expert to check it... Remember, you will probably have to test drive the car yourself !!
On the 'component testing' chassis, we are not bothering with non essentials like a passenger seat.
We are also omitting the 'top half' of the chassis. While the top half will add extra stiffness, the idea
behind the component testing chassis is to ensure hub motors function well, the bat backs fit in their
compartments, we can set up the BMS, we can set up the motor controllers, Regenerative braking
works etc. Of course, also test 'normal' systems such as brakes, suspension & steering are suitable.
The cross beams are essential. Without them, the car will just flop all over the road.
Next, we completed the rear suspension, added some wheels & we have a 'rolling chassis;
This is a front view of the rolling chassis.

We added a floor. You can see the steering geometry, front & back suspension, brakes etc. If you look
closely, you can see that this car is designed to have no front or read axle. There will also be no drive
train, no gears, no exhaust. This is all possible because we are using hub motors. The next work is
pipe the brakes & fill / bleed the system. Once that is done, take you 'car guy' hat off. You are going to
need to become an electrical engineer. The future steps are about connecting up the hub motors,
programing the motor controllers, building the battery pack, configuring the Battery Management
System (BMS) & making sure the BMS & motor controllers all communicate well together...
Here are some of the components for Electrification of the vehicle.

& one half of the battery pack. The car has a front & rear battery pack.

Parts of the BMS.

Still more BMS parts !

After a lot of time & effort, the motor controllers & both battery packs are installed in the car.

Next, a drivers seat !.

The chassis is now ready for its first test drive. We are testing each motor. In this video, the chassis is
only driving with the left side motor.

One motor drive-2

One motor drive-1

We learned a lot from the first test drive. It is our first proof of concept. All the bits work. Interestingly,
the chassis performs relatively well driving on a single hub motor. This may be an interesting
'contingency feature' for the production car. Similar to an aircraft, if a single engine fails, the vehicle
will still be able to drive. Next, we will get the car back into the shed & start the process of tuning the
systems. The various noises were expected & will be eliminated by aligning motor controller & motor
settings.

SelectingtheGlass
04/04/2015 at 15:50 0 comments

Selecting glass is something you need to consider at the design stage of a project. If you intend to
just build one car, you should compromise your overall design to allow 'off the shelf' front, rear & side
windows to be used. Remember, you must use certified auto-glass for safety & certification reasons. In
our build, we intend this as a production car & the shape of the windows in critical to the overall
appearance of the car. Not knowing the first thing about glass & not knowing anyone who knows
anything about glass, the only route to go here was to get a contractor to make the glass.
Unfortunately, I still do not know how they make the glass !. However, the glass was made & it fits
perfectly. The down side of getting glass made is that the tooling costs a lot. The upside is that the
glass for all future cars is much cheaper than 'off the shelf' parts from existing car models. Apart from
cost concerns, getting custom glass allows you to stay true to your original design principles.

Here is one of the machines at the glass factoty

& more factory pics

& the final pic

Suspension
04/15/2015 at 14:12 1 comment

I was asked in a private message by a project follower about the welding on the suspension. Below
are 4 pictures that might show it in a little more detail. I will try to get better pics later on if these do not
answer the question

IVA(IndividualVehicleApproval)

04/17/2015 at 19:50 6 comments

Getting the car street legal.

This is for sure the least exciting & possibly most difficult part of our car build. It is also something we
had to spend a lot of time on before we even started. When you look at it first, it is daunting.
Although I a based in continental Europe, I decided early on to go for approval in the UK. The UK has
a tradition for 'small series' vehicles that many continental countries do not have. The actual rules are
the same in all European countries. However, different countries have different ways of looking at the
rules.
In the link below, you can find the simple 299 page document telling us what we need to do to get
approval. Yes, that is not a Typo.. It really is 299 pages.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/354071/M1_IVA_inspect
ion_manual.pdf
In the knowledge that no one will actually read the document, below I give a summary as to how it
related to the LUKA EV. Once you get trough the nonsense, it is broken into sections. We have to
comply fully with all sections.
Section 1. Noise. All about exhaust systems. We do not have an exhaust so we skip this section
Section 2a Visual emissions. We are electric so no worries for us
2b. Metered Emissions. We are all electric so we can skip this part too..
2c. Diesel emissions.. Not for us !
3a. Fuel Tanks. Not for us, we do not have one !
4. Rear registration plate space. Tells us how big the reg plate has t be, where it has to go, tht it has to
have a light etc. Easy, just follow the rules.
5. Steering effort. All the rules about the steering. We use bought in parts. The steering is form Mazda
MX5 so we know we will pass on steering.
6. Door latches & hinges. Our doors are custom as is our car but the latches & hinges are bought in
parts so no worries on this section.
7. Audible warnings. In a nutshell, the car must have a horn. Easy...
8. Indirect vision. All about mirrors. How adjustable they must be, what size they must be. etc. Not
rocket science, just follow the rules even if the rule is dumb..
9a. Brakes.. The brakes should work...Must have a handbrake too.. We have bought in parts (again
Mazda Mx 5) so no worries with the brakes

9b. Brakes. Mechanical components. As above, bought in parts so no worries.

9c. Parking brake.. Must have one.....no problem
9d. More brakes... This time about hydraulic & vacuum components. Again, no worries as we use
bought in parts.
9e. Brake performance. They will test the brakes. Ours are very good because the car is very light..
10. Electromagnetic Compatibility. They probably put this section in just to confuse anyone who got
this far. The HT ignition system must be fitted with radio interference suppression equipment.
11.. Section 11 does not exist. Weird but true.
12. Interior fittings. Quite complex rules about the distance things should be from each other, details
about the 'specified zone', bluntness of objects. Nothing difficult but great attention to detail required.
Section 12 is a minefield !.
13A. Anti theft / immobilizer . The car must have one. Surprising but not difficult.
13B. Anti theft / Alarm. Must have one of these too.
14. Steering. Must have good steering. We use bought in steering so no worries on this front.
15. Seat strength. We are using Mazda MX 5 seats so no problems here.
16. Exterior projections. Loads of rules about everything on the outside of the car. Badges, emblems,
handles, bumpers. Like section 12, nothing is difficult but huge attention to detail is required to ensure
you do not forget anything.
17. Speedometer & reverse rear. Quite interesting rules about the speedo. Th speed it tells you does
not have to be right, just within acceptable limits. If the speedo tells you you are going 70km/h, you
must be going at least 57km/h. Wonder who makes the rules up !. Speedo must be back light. Car
must have a reverse rear.
18. Statutory Plates. Basics stuff about having a VIN number etc on the car. Easy..
19. Seat belt anchors. Details about anchoring the seat belts. We are using a non-standard (but ultra
safe) anchor method so we could face some issues on this point but we should be OK.
20. Installation of lights. Another minefield. Absolutely nothing difficult but every box must be ticked.
Many of the rules are unexpected. It is simply a case of following the rules to the letter. There are
many lights you might forget. The fog lamp, the reverse clear light etc..
21. Retro reflectors. There must be enough of them & in the right places. Some of the specific rules
are good like "rear reflectors must face predominately to the rear'. & Jes, I was gonna have them
facing to the front.....
22. More lights... Another minefield going into details about things like daytime running lamps..

23. Indicators. Must have them, they must make noise & you must be able to see them on the dash
inside the car. Easy stuff.
24. Rear Reg Lamp. Must have a light over the read registration plate. Easy...
25. Headlamps. Rules about headlamps. No particular worries for us. We have 'retro' headlamps but
we replaced the actual lights with LEDs to save electricity. Should be OK for certification purposes.
26. Front fog lamps.. Car must have them.. Easy...
27. Like section 11, it simply does not exist !
28. Rear fog lamp.. You have to have one... Easy...
29. Reversing lamps.. Car must have them. Easy...
30. Parking lamps. Car must have them. They must emit red light to the rear. Angles of the light
emitted etc. Easy stuff.
31. Seat Belts. We use bought in parts from another car so no worries on this score.
32. Forward Vision. The driver must have a clear and un-obscured view of the road ahead and to 90
each side of straight ahead
33. Identification of controls. Another nightmare. Simple stuff but every switch must have the correct
symbol on it....All those little symbols you never notice like the one for the headlamp beam.. A lot of
our switches re bought in parts so they will have markings. Te laser etching machine will be busy on
the ones that do not have markings.
34. Defrost / Demist. W mush have demist / ventilation. Not a problem !.
35. Wash wipe.. Details about windscreen wipers. Bought in parts so no problem.
36. Heating system. Approved bought n part. No problem.
37.. Wheel guards. Car must have wheel guards... Easy.
Sections 38 to 43 do not exist, like 11 & 27...
44. Masses & dimensions. Gives the max size & weight of allowable vehicles. Definitely not a problem
for us....
45. Safety glass. Specifications for the glass to be used & the markings on the glass. We had our glass
made to these specifications & it has all the markings so no worries here.
46. Tyres. Specs of tyres. No problem.
47, 48,49 do not exist.

Section 50. Couplings. If we were towing anything.. Does not apply to us..
Sections 51 to 59 do not exist.
60. Frontal protection (bull bars). Must have an e mark
It finishes at 60.. BUT... There is a section about 'general construction'..This is mush less specific but
states than things should not leak etc.. This is probably where they can fail you if you have met all the
requirements 'to the letter' but they think you have not met the spirit of the regulations.
Overall, none of the requirements are very difficult. There is just a lot of them !. Success just needs a
detailed check list to be checked again & again. I am sure no one will ever read this project log but I
thought I would write it just in case anyone wanted an overview of requirements......

Primer
04/20/2015 at 19:33 2 comments

To meet the very tight self imposed deadlines, we will be making some compromises. One will be in
the final paint quality of the first vehicle. We intend to do a quick & dirty paint job. Our eventual hope
is that we can 'car wrap' vehicles. Painting is difficult, time consuming & not especially environmentally
friendly. It is also costly. We have put a primer on the car. This will be followed by roughly marrying the
chassis & body. After careful measuring, we will remove the body & do a quick 'final' paint job & add
various connectors to the body & chassis to allow for easy final assembly.
Primer 1.

Primer 2

Primer 3.

The body is 4mm thick. It is very strong & solid. It total with accessories such as lights, mirrors, door
handles, front & rear bumpers, glass & anything else you can see, the shell has a weight of 126 kg.
This is slightly below our expectations so all is on a good path.

Primer on the back of the car body.

Little details like the air struts the rubber stops & the drainage hole make a difference.

Also, we have now rubber sealed all the windows.

Overall, the build quality is pretty good. Bonnet & boot open with a lovely action. Doors open & close
very well.

MarryingtheBody&Chassis
04/22/2015 at 14:31 0 comments

Well, actually, it is more like a first date than a marriage !!. But, to our amazement they do seem to like
each other...
Adding a little video that nicely captures some key moments..

Matching the body & Chassis

The body... Two big men can carry it but to follow Health & Safety rules, we used 2 forklifts !

We then strapped it to a single forklift & lowered it onto the chassis.

The pics do not show it but we sort of had to pull the FRP body to make it a little wider to fit over the

bottom edge of the chassis. .. & hey presto !.. It is on...

Well, if you look closely, it is not 'on' the chassis. It is more resting on pieces of foam..

This is the deep analysis stage.

Someone had to get in to check if the seat position is right, if we can see out the windows, if the
mirrors are in good places.

Nothing in the engine bay !

Checking the door handles & window winders..

Side view.....

Front view with the doors open.

Overall, we are very pleased. This was just a 'fitting'. We took a bunch of measurements & we will now
make the 'connectors'. At front & rear, these will be lighter metal about 10cm long. These bars will form
the 'crumple zones" at front & rear. We are going to add what is best described as a 'roll cage' to the
chassis. This is to give additional strength & stiffness to the car & also allows us connect the roof of
the car to 'something'. As you can see in the pics, the bits of foam are what currently supports the
body.
Next up, we will send the car off for a 'quick & dirty' paint job. We have opted for a one day, proof of
concept paint job. We will then add the roll cage to the chassis, make the 'connectors' & we should be
nearly ready to go...
As the body & chassis were made in different locations, we were truly worried that they might not fit.
The first date was a great success !

MWMotorsLOGO
04/22/2015 at 18:09 0 comments

As we are making a car, we need a badge..

The MW Motors team consists of 4 or 5 guys & girls. We all work on the project in our spare time. The
project has no full time employees... So, MW Motors today is just a team, not a legal entity.. If all goes
to plan, maybe there will be a legal entity some day & maybe things can become commercial.
Zuzana L, our most artistic, designed the "brand' for the car.

The Luka EV is our "main" out of hours project. But, we have 3 other projects we are half working on.
Our ideas tend not be to new. Rather, we revisit past ideas. Using hub motors for the Luka EV may
sound new & high tech but the first car with hub motors appeared in the year 1900 !.. It was a Porsche,
specifically the LOHNER PORSCHE. It made its debut at the 1900 world expo in Paris & was a
'sensation". 300 were sold to 'wealthy' buyers. Ferdinand Porsche apparently raced cars with electric
motors in 1897 in Vienna..
The Logo tries to capture the 'revisiting old ideas' theme by using the Bi-plane in the top corner. If you
look closely, the M & W have become something that looks like electricity - to get across the fact that
this is an electric car. Finally, the 'otors' is at the bottom of the "M" to make the word Motors...
The Bi-plane was not just chosen out of the blue. It is, in fact, the logo of the company where most of
the team members work.. Additionally, the team leader is the owner of the company who uses the biplane logo & has no objection to us using it in the MW Motors logo..
Martin K prepared the logo in 3D & we have printed it on our 3D printer. The plan is just to 'chrome'
the printed plastic part so the logo is designed & produced in house....
More about the team will follow in future blogs.....

Testingthemotors&componentchassis

04/24/2015 at 14:22 2 comments

There will be lots of testing !. We have to start somewhere. In an earlier log, we showed the car driving
on just one motor. Now, time for testing 2 motors.
The 2 motors are mounted in the rear wheels. Before taking it out on the road, we lifted the rear end
onto some pallets. Both motors working well & it sounds great.....

Motor test

We know the driving components (brakes, suspension, steering etc) should be more or less OKish. So,
time to take the car for a spin.
It was a bit windy but the drive was very successful. (poor sound quality in the video)

First drive-1

Note the driver is smiling when he gets back !... The little test went very well !

First drive-2

We recorder details of this first real test drive on a tracker on a cell phone. The details are below..

In total we drove 1.36km. This was up a very steep hill ! The hill we have helps us because one of our
concerns about hub motors is climbing ability. But, no issues !.. Average speed was 37Km/hour & we
got a top speed of 76km/hour... Later in the day, we achieved 93km/h & there was a lot left.... but the
car is new & we are not professional drivers so we did not really have the nerve to drive any
faster...This is not a test track, it is just a private road going around some warehouses.. We have to be
somewhat sensible as the speed limit is 20km/hour !!.. (& as you can see, there are lots of trucks
around)...

Ride & handling were very good. The brakes were very soft, we need to look at them. The 1.36km did
not even register on the battery. There was a weird noise coming from one of the motors. After a few
more drives we will remove it & have a detailed look inside.. There is a bit of a 'wobble' in both
wheels. We think the parts we fabricated to connect the motors to the chassis are not strong enough..
Overall, a very good days work.. The basic data does not tell us much. We will start gathering real
data after we connect the body. Weight is critical to the project so we are not going to start detailed
measuring till we can drive with the extra body weight attached..
Until today, we were unsure if future test would be with 2 or 4 motors. As the vehicle seems to go well
on 2 motors, we will continue testing just with 2 motors. Adding the other 2 will be easy enough but
we see no particular merit in adding more complexity just now... If we were to achieve our target with
just 2 motors, it would be huge bonus (but, we are fairly sure real world driving may need 4 motors
with the back 2 being for normal driving & the front 2 kicking in for hard stuff like overtaking, climbing
hills etc....

FirstPaint
04/28/2015 at 07:52 2 comments

The very quick & dirty paint job is really just to show us what the car will eventually look like. It is
anything but a high end paint job. But, the car does look very cool. Even the MW Motors logo looks
great.
Obviously, details like the headlight rims are missing, bonnet not closed, front grill missing etc.

Door is not closed properly either.

Visually, wheel choice will eventually become important.

The 'detail' here is just silver/ grey. In the real thing, all the detail will be chrome.

The position of the brand name / Logo...

The body will now be removed. We prepared a bunch of chassis modifications. Once there are
complete, the body will be properly married to the chassis. If it drives as good as it looks, we will be
very happy !

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