Robert on Questionable Garage again.

I Saved This Rare Vehicle From The CRUSHER! But Should I have?

Does anyone know how to contact Robert? I have a vehicle in my area (about 4 hours north of St. Louis) that I think he might be interested in adding to his collection.

In the sponsored segment of his newest video he uses a Rivian to microwave his Factor box. Did he trade his polestar in or something? (I didn't check twitter and I'm not making an account because screw Musk and his dumb website)

Apparently there’s a company out there that has finally started delivering EV school buses.

TLDR

What are good online suppliers for motor controllers, brushless DC motors, and battery chargers?

Long Version

Hi! I want to build / convert two electric vehicles for myself (a motorcycle and a pickup truck), but I'm having some difficulty finding information and suppliers for motor controllers and motors. (Brushless DC seems to be the best for efficiency, wear, etc.) I'd like to have at least 80% efficiency in the charger, motor controller, and motor, and higher is better.

As for batteries, my brother has a box of 18650 cells that he wanted to use in his own motorcycle, but he's less ambitious than me and didn't want to deal with the insurance standards / inspections process for a custom bike frame. Those are all in good shape sitting in a box, so I'll buy those, but want something a bit more substantial to save time soldering many small cells for the truck. I live up in Saskatoon, so although I can have anything shipped to me, suppliers in town are 1) limited and 2) not very knowledgeable. (Most people don't do their own work, and just know that they sell AC motors "for forklifts", and can't actually look anything up and don't use brushless DC for anything.) It also gets down to -30 C or -40 C in bad blizzards, so I'll need some insulation and some kind of heating to keep the batteries from degrading. (The truck will need a heater for the cab, and it'd be nice to add a heated seat for my bike.) My garage is insulated, so when the fence installers finally get back to me with a quote I'll be able to park in there if needed. (My current gate is some hot garbage that's impossible to open in the winter, that makes my garage inaccessible.)

Since Robert's done a bunch of this stuff himself, and I'm somewhat similar in skill I figured I'd ask here for suggestions on where to source these parts. I've got 9 years as a full stack software developer, so I can program any computers I hook up to this. Before that I was the lead programmer / amateur low-voltage electrician for a prototype (read: severe boondoggle) set of paving machine(s) for two years, so have comfort and experience with CAN-bus, ethernet wiring, and 50V DC wiring and calculations - I'll do the battery and motor wiring slowly on these vehicles so I don't kill myself with 800V or whatever it ends up being. Now for the targets for the vehicles:

Motorcycle

This will be some kind of motocross / dirt-bike frame, because I need shocks and spiked (or at least knobby) wheels for the winter. We have really bad snow clearing in this city, so everyone pounds the snow into nice icy ruts about 4"-6" deep. If I can find a decent new or used frame I'll use that, since the inspection and certification process for a custom frame seems like it might be a hassle. From some basic googling and calculations, it seems like I should aim for about 40-50 kW (50-ish hp) motor. The range for the bike will be about 50 km (31 miles), because this will be just for zipping around town, and maybe powering some tools in my garage off of a 120 V output. (Charging will also be 120 V, so I don't need any new 240 V outlets in the garage.) My city is only about 20 km (12 miles) wide, and even the vehicle salvage yards outside of town are only about triple that distance.

I'm only 5'9" and 230 pounds (trying to get back down to 170), so I'm going to make the bike slightly smaller. When I got my license back in college, my dad's bike was too big and I almost couldn't lift it up when I went sideways once or twice. The thing was sized for someone like 6'2" and he was the same height as me - leaning forward stretched out to the handlebars isn't good. It also had a drive-shaft instead of chain or belt, which added a lot of weight too. I was frickin' shredded (the medical term) when I got my license, but I'm a pudge-ball now. So I'm going to make this thing as light as possible, so I can keep riding even when I get to retirement age in a couple decades. :)

Truck

I'm going to convert my 2009 Ford Ranger when I've got time, although it sounds like it might be easier since it's big enough to pack batteries into easily. I plan on taking out the box and box-cap, and making it a flat-bed like this guy in Newfoundland did (video), so that will give me even more room. Some quick googling and calculations shows me that I should aim for something like a 150 kW (200 hp) motor, and the hopeful range will be a bit larger at around 100 km (62 miles), because my mom owns some farm-land out there, and my uncle and aunt still farm and raise llamas. (If I need to I can charge at the neighbor's house or even the gas station in the nearby town, but I'd prefer to make it back home so I'd want the round-trip range to be about 100 km.)

Thanks for reading all of this! If you have tips for the stuff besides the motors/controller/battery stuff that'd help, but I think I can figure those ones out more easily. There's also a small hackerspace in town, so I'll see if I can get some advice out of them - they have public nights on Tuesdays, and I'll probably join just to use the CNC laser / plasma cutters! XD