Some cells can be left at zero or existing value. Other tinted cells must be filled in.

• A robot could enter a gradient of zero or some small number, with fast acceleration (like .5 seconds or less).
• A golf kart could climb a hill (like 30%) with a longer acceleration time, maybe 5 seconds.
• A train would have a small grade (like 1%), a large overall weight, and long time to accelerate.

Explore and experiment with:

1. Vehicle Speed This is the unloaded speed the machine would go with a full battery charge without any controller.
   Enter value in miles per hour, Km per hour, or Metres per second.
2. Vehicle Weight This should be the full laden weight under the worst conditions of use.
3. Passengers If the Vehicle Weight does not include passengers, enter the number of adults and children you intend to carry. If they are included in the overall weight, leave these set to zero.
4. Nominal Battery Voltage Usually 12, 24, 36, 48, 96 volts, etc., but you select the value.
5. Weight of One Battery This may be already included in the overall vehicle weight, if so leave it as zero. However, you may be toying with doubling the number of batteries, which will increase the overall weight (unless you use smaller batteries). If you enter anything here, it must be the weight of one 12v battery as that's the normal amount you will want to alter.
6. Motor current on level ground You may have to guess or measure it after you're finished building the vehicle. If in doubt, leave it as it is and experiment once you've got the feel of the calculations.
7. Hill climbing ability Your machine must be able to climb some sort of gradients. For locos, 1% is usual, 2% quite extreme. For a golf buggy, 30% is about the worst.
8. Length of hill Not required but, combined with the vehicle's top speed, tells you how long you will need the peak current. This gives a good indication of the controller you need.
9. Acceleration Time (in seconds) to have the controller accelerate the machine to full speed.

Data Entry area:

What is Vehicle Speed (at full motor speed)? Miles per Hour Kilometres per Hour Metres per second What is the Vehicle Weight? Grammes Kilogrammes Pounds Tons Metric Tons How many 175 pound passengers? What is the battery voltage? 12v 24v 36v 48v 72v 96v 220v 340v What is the weight of one 12v battery? Grams Kilograms Pounds Motor current on level ground? Hill climbing ability: Gradient in percent Length of hill Metres Feet Yards Acceleration. (Time to reach top speed) Seconds

See results below!

Total mass of all of the above is kilograms
Vertical Speed is speed/gradient(Vv) at top speed, rate of climbing is meters per second
Power for climbing. (Motor Current needed to climb)
Power= Mass x G x (Vv) where G is the acceleration due to gravity, 9.80 metres/sec2, so power for climbing is watts
And as this is at full speed the motor current is amperes
Kinetic Energy. (Motor Current needed to accelerate)
KE = 1/2 x M x V2 so in this case, KE at full speed is joules
But this speed increase took place in the acceleration time you entered. So to get joules/second, divide by the acceleration time. One joule per second is a watt. We are accelerating from zero to full speed (to full battery volts), so divide by average motor voltage (by half the battery voltage) to get the motor current needed for this acceleration amperes
Total Motor Current
Add the three currents: Level ground + climbing + accelerating = amperes
Time duration of Current
You chose an acceleration time of seconds, so you will climb the hill you specified in seconds

Thanks to http://www.4qd.co.uk/faq/ for the calcs!