How about a Ford Probe? Great shape, and if you gut it to achieve max weight reduction it can probably carry a large amount of batteries.

I bet Jerry would be a proud source of tech info :D

Get your wife to look into Schwinns new elctric bikes. The motor is barely visible, the only thing you realy see that stands out is the small lith battery on the back. They are also cheap by electric bike standards.

I've heard bad things about schwinn's non-bike vehicles. Then again, schwinn has been going downhill too. Wish I looked at the branding on all those e-bikes in japan, :p

For only 3 miles, you could do wonders with an Xtracycle bike with an electric assist.
I really want to buy a Surly Big Dummy when they come out in January and build it up like that. It would be so awesome to be able to haul that much stuff on a bike, and the electric assist would be super helpful under some of those conditions.

I looked at a lot of cars before I found my victim.
1995 Ford Aspire!
Stock I could get 47 mpg out of my 94 so I opted for a hybrid.
The plan is to use electric for the 0-40 mph which is 70% of my driving.
At cruising speeds I can use the stock engine for drive and recharge.

I am basically converting the rear wheels to electric for now with tweaking as time goes on.
I am the mechanic of the bunch so my electric details are kind slim as I have some college kids that baffle me with the hookups.

One big lesson...that little electric motor is stout..STOUT!!!
I recieved the motor already attached to a Ford 9" rear end from an airport baggage tram..48 volts?!!

I remounted it to a Mazda RX-7 independant rear for the first test and got about 15 feet..broke the differential housing.
Moved to a 95 Thunderbird indy rear and it lasted 3 weeks of tests and broke a few axles.
I really wanted the independant rear with the disc brakes and may cobble it together later but I am back to a stout 9" live axle for a while.

The kids I work with are big on electric stuff and tend to get pretty exotic on some of their stuff. I have been working to simplify the schemes.
I am happiest when they take my rear frame unit and cut 70 pounds from it AND compact the electronics from 5 boxes the size of a VCR to 2 boxes that allow for plug-in charging.

Different needs require different strategies.
Our first goal was to get a 15 mile one-way comute for up to 2 people with a
reserve for some shopping.
Whipped that one 15 ways to Sunday with recharging at the workplace.

Second and current goal is for 100 mile per day delivery of up to a half ton basically nonstop in city environment. Think pizza delivery!

The exotic guys goal is 6 passenger, 300 miles nonstop.
My purpose seems to cure them of tunnel vision..they seem to want to reinvent the wheel for every minute aspect rather than use 99 existing technologies to refine one.

Bruce

I don't want to promote another forum but if you check out this one wiki entry it gives a good comparison of the stats of some potential donor cars. You might find it useful...