40 hp motor is huge for that application.   That would be a
peak (5 minute rating), which is still about 100 pound motor,
needing 400 Amps @ 72V....  even with high efficiency batteries,
about 80 pounds (minimum).  Catch with AGM batteries is they hate
going to full depletion mode, as the 1000 cycles will drop into
the 10's of cycles... meaning 160 pounds of batteries. I wonder
what battery it is using? LI-Ion most likely.

So figure out what an extra 180 to 240 pounds of dead weight does to your
performance!

I used to follow the Electric Vehicle programs very closely with
the old job, but haven't been active with it in 8 years. Lots of
progress with batteries, but like my Sister who bought a hybrid...
but commutes on the freeway I told her to buy a smaller 4 cyl
vehicle to save gas (you have to drag around an extra 300 pounds).
My '82 Datsun 210 still gets 47mpg.

Old vehicle (long since history):
http://www.evalbum.com/121f.html

Tom

I discovered a real interesting characteristic of hybrid cars
on the freeway. They don't recover the energy required to climb
a hill on the freeway. I always assumed it would recover the energy
required to climb the hill when it coasted down the other side  but I
was wrong. As an experiment put your car in neutral and coast down the
next freeway hill you come upon.

What happens? The car does not exceed the speed limit because
the rolling resistance and aero drag prevents the car from exceeding the
speed
limit therefore there is no energy recovery. Actually it is a net loss as
the hybrid car weighs several hundred pounds more and it takes more energy
to climb the hill in the first place.

Paul Lamar

-
Perhaps I'm confused, but it has always been my understanding that the
energy recovery from all current hybrid architectures relies on regenerative
braking to recover energy, not "coasting". I got this impression from
reading all the descriptions of the various systems, and the fact that the
disparity between highway (lower) and city (greater) driving was so great.
C. Smith