Every project starts with:
- What do I want to have at the end?
- What is new for me and how can I learn it?
- What do I already know?
- How much time and money will it take?

I wanted to learn about light electric vehicles for city environment and also for having fun outdoors. My goal was to understand what it takes to build a prototype and what the limitations are. Equally important is what I did not want! I did not want to spend a lot of time and money on body works and I did have a pretty firm budget of not to exceed $10k.

I selected an ATV as a suitable platform and found a retired model at a used equipment dealer. The decision was motivated by the light weight (weight is a major factor in driving the size and cost of the battery) and the minimum body work that would be required. For outdoor use, I wanted to have 4 wheel drive or at least 2 wheel drive with a locked differential. I will discuss electric motors in more detail later,  but the high torque over a wide range of speed allows you to eliminate the transmission.  I selected wheel hub motors as the simplest way to scale the number of driven wheels, effectively scaling the power and torque of the vehicle at different phases of the project.