12/28/23 Tons of progress, so much that I haven't had time for a post.Here are a few highlights.

First, on the batteries - this is the gating factor, as I've mentioned. After doing the full BMS layout for a 400V module, I realized that I don't want to do a separate 800V one so we will just pair up 400V ones to make the 800V system.

It has been a long road figuring out all the manufacturability, processes, detail design, fixturing, and so forth. But we're getting there.

So with that going on, time to start to build physical hardware. First, I finished the frame design and ordered the tubes. Had to validate full supension travel, clearances, and such.

As part of the process, I fed the frame pictures to Vizcom AI for rendering. In the first two below, two wheels are in the air and it interpreted this as the car moving at high speed.

So I decided to try and just move wheel shadows and see if it understands. It does! Yes, UNDERSTANDS. A whole other topic - just mentioning it here for completeness.

Next I had to figure out details like steering rack, additional hardware, and so on. Then order the parts. And get couple more AI renders.

With upright design finalized, we used our new 3D printers to make some prototypes.

Then time for final clearance verification and machining the actual metal parts.

These are not small. Below is a comparison with some of the previous upright designs I've done.

Next, the frame tubes. And to weld them.

Mark flew in from Colorado for a couple weeks to do the welding. He did an awesome job, as always.

So now that the decision has been made to use the 400V modules, I can start figuring out how to actually mount and connect them. This is fun :)

There will be 52 modules, separated into 10 packs that are removable as a unit. These are all experiments with granularity, packaging, and so on. Much has been learned, much more to go.

I'm probably forgetting something, but this will do for now. Onward!