[NTLK] A programming question (Newton as a controller for an electric motor)

Greetings everyone,

So while using my eMate and watching The Daily Show one night, a movie
entitled "Who Killed the Electric Car?" was being talked about. To sum
it up: GM made the "EV1," an electric car that complied with the ZEV
(Zero Emissions Vehicle) act California approved in 1990. The car came
out in 1996 and was revamped in 1999, they were 3-year lease only
vehicles with no buy out option. GM reposessed their cars and are now
in the process of crushing and shredding them, and refuse to every
bring them into full production.

Well, needless to say I began poking around reading on electric car
conversions. I'm a VW guy at heart, and I've seen an electric Ghia or
Bug before but never paid it much attention. After all, it's got to be
plugged in at some point. My, how age changes you. I drive about 48
miles daily to and from work, and that's well within the range of even
the most limited production, test or conversion electic car that I've
come across.

So onto my question now that the preface is fin ;)

I have considered converting my seized engine 1973 Super Beetle into
an Electric car. From what I can tell, the gauges for speed are not
changed, and you can wire up the fuel gauge as a state of charge gauge
(i'm guessing it works on the voltage and the needle drops as the
voltage does). Alrighty, here's my wild idea and I need real hard
answers:

I'd like to adapt and eMate or MessagePad 2k as the dashboard. I'd
like it to display the farm charge (all battereies), bank charge (I
plan to group the batteries, and figured if it's simple voltage then a
voltage meter adapted would work for this), current speed from the
speedometer cable /or/ via the speed of the engine, and lastly I'd
like to have it act as a cruise control, applying the same amount of
current that the pedal is presently pressed to, allowing me to just
cruise.

Tall order, eh? From my limited point of view, everything seems to be
a +/- voltage signal reading; in THEORY my buddies who work on car
ECUs can devolpe the necessary circuit boards and a dongle for the
eMate/MP to interface with the desired devices. The question is how
complex of an Application will have to be written to understand and
give me the readout I'm desiring?

This is all very preliminary planning on my part; gas prices keep
going up and I need to do something with that bug. I don't want to
sink $1200 into another engine if I can convert it to electric power
for about $2300 (and at less than $4/day to charge it, it would not
only save 300+/- miles a week on my car from going to work, grocery
store, etc but it is also only about $25/week to fuel up vs the $38 I
just spent to tank up my 02 Beetle). Any and all information on the
subject of Newton programming, EV conversion or electric motors is
highly highly appreciated.

Take care everyone,

Chris B

-- 
This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries
Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/