Now Trending - Electric Snowmobiles

[Deleted member 4210]

This is quite an engineering feat to get these to have good range in cold weather. It's one thing to do it for a 5000 lb car, where you can build electric heaters, and very large kw capacity. Quite another where weight and size need to be near what the competing gas option is.

Tiagamotors.ca/snowmobiles/

Apparently interest is sky high though, with significantly reduced maintenance (as any snowmobile owner knows from experience how nasty and frequent mtc is with 2 strokes) and then the environmental impact of much less pollution and noise from an EV.

Hope they succeed.

 

[goldconch]

The days of lead-acid, and lithium-ion dominance are numbered...new battery tech is on the way. Massively cheaper, lighter with, higher energy density, and better capacitation. The electrification of cars, boats, and other vehicles is going to happen very quickly - far quicker than the general public realizes right now. We are selling our gasoline vehicles while there are still full bids.

 

[Rick53]

I agree Technology in this field is really advancing in knowledge : I just think it's deceptive to present it to the Populous as Green Energy : It's not

 

[AHicks]

As a now retired snowmobiler with 40+ years of experience in Michigan's north country, I just can't imagine an electric sled off trail in deep heavy wet snow - not for long anyway. It required everything even the largest available IC engines (135-150+hp) had, and even then they would get mired down frequently by inexperienced riders. On a frozen lake or packed groomed trails, it would be a much different story. Point being, with an electric you would have to carefully limit your riding conditions. Despite serious reservations, I wish them well too!

 

[Rick53]

As a now retired snowmobiler with 40+ years of experience in Michigan's north country, I just can't imagine an electric sled off trail in deep heavy wet snow - not for long anyway. It required everything even the largest available IC engines (135-150+hp) had, and even then they would get mired down frequently by inexperienced riders. On a frozen lake or packed groomed trails, it would be a much different story. Point being, with an electric you would have to carefully limit your riding conditions. Despite serious reservations, I wish them well too!

From Michigan Myself : Spot on Comment :

 

[bob armani]

Is battery tech advancing that much that it can support a sled in sub-zero temps? I have also done some sledding on groomed trails/ice lakes etc, and I would not want to be stuck somewhere due to an outage or quick battery drain due to weather conditions, etc. I did not realize this could be supported in this space considering just about any battery will not have peak performance in sub-zero temps. Am I missing something here?

 

[AHicks]

I learned a LONG time ago to never say that will never work. It's way more productive to stand back and say show me! Despite really serious reservations here, this is one of those times where I'll just stay with show me!

They will very likely have to do something about keeping today's batteries warm for this to work at all.

 

[bob armani]

I learned a LONG time ago to never say that will never work. It's way more productive to stand back and say show me! Despite really serious reservations here, this is one of those times where I'll just stay with show me!

They will very likely have to do something about keeping today's batteries warm for this to work at all.

Perhaps they can develop a tech with a working heat element (?) to keep batteries warm that runs form a separate source or something like that. Will be interesting if it ever takes off to say the least.

 

[Deleted member 4210]

I've spoken with them, and their thermal management system sounds incredibly advanced and they are only losing at most 5% energy in extreme cold temperatures. There are no EV's including Tesla, that come anywhere near that.

The biggest obstacle I see for them is placement of high kw charging stations, as they could charge in as little as 20 minutes. That's a lot of juice flowing through any grid, so it's not like plugging into just any local outlet. 28 kWh's in 20 minutes means 90 kilowatts of capability. Your typical ebike charger is drawing 90 watts.

 

[AHicks]

Charging stations will be another issue for sure! The areas I used to frequent most often are sometimes incredibly remote. Just picturing a charging station in some of these places brought a pretty big grin on here.....

Show me!

 

[JRA]

While the snowmobile scene in the rust belt is one thing snowmobiles in mountain country that has serious elevation is a whole nother ball game.

My first thought seeing this is that it would be good at altitudes over 8000’ where ice sleds start losing power to lack of air basically. These days two stroke motors with a turbo or two rule the mountain sides but arguably the electric would be the most effective.

But while Taiga claims an impressive power to weight ratio it looks like it weighs in excess of 150lbs. over say a ski doo 850 turbo and that won’t make it very popular with the performance folks I predict. Nor anybody that has gotten stuck in a sled...

It would be a good rental sled though for packed trails due to the low maintenance factor in a less aggressive format.

In the high country anymore the sled neck crowd mainly ride timber sleds anyway. I don’t know if anyone has hooked one up on a Zero but once again weight/range would be a factor

 

[AHicks]

Agree on all counts!

 

[bob armani]

I've spoken with them, and their thermal management system sounds incredibly advanced and they are only losing at most 5% energy in extreme cold temperatures. There are no EV's including Tesla, that come anywhere near that.

The biggest obstacle I see for them is placement of high kw charging stations, as they could charge in as little as 20 minutes. That's a lot of juice flowing through any grid, so it's not like plugging into just any local outlet. 28 kWh's in 20 minutes means 90 kilowatts of capability. Your typical ebike charger is drawing 90 watts.

I was at the Taiga Motors site and their claim as follows: "An advanced thermal management system ensures the battery will always be in its sweet spot – even when temperatures get as low as -40C". Pretty remarkable IMO!

 

[bob armani]

Charging stations will be another issue for sure! The areas I used to frequent most often are sometimes incredibly remote. Just picturing a charging station in some of these places brought a pretty big grin on here.....

Show me!

Good point. Remote areas is the key issue here. Looks like they have a long way to go in this tech. As JRA has indicated, it would work great in a more localized rental space.