# Electric UTV Off Road Vehicle



## PatG (Jun 12, 2009)

I like to take trail rides with my wife and two little ones (7 and 4). We really enjoy the birds, squirrels and other wildlife. Of course the usual crop of UTVs is ICE powered and generally not very quiet. It also seems kind of wrong to use vehicles that are probably the worst polluters per HP of any on the planet to view nature.

So the choices available in electric UTVs were simple; any golf cart I wanted. They really aren't too bad, but I didn't like the idea of my kids riding on the back of a cart, facing the rear. I wanted my kids to be facing forward which means a shuttle. Unfortunately they are really LONG and skinny which makes them less than great off road vehicles.

So, time for something a little different. I salvaged an aluminum frame and the IRS out of a Ford Think. I stripped everything including the body and all of the electrics out of it.

So I started with the bare frame and lifted it about 2". I had a body made by a friend's fiberglass shop and hacked up the rear portion of it. I built a sub frame to set the rear body work on and formed a forward facing seat for the kids out of sheet metal and diamond plate. The center "pod" is a custom unit with a foot well in the rear face, allowing a close fit between the pod and the rear body, but it still allows adults to have enough leg room to ride comfortably in the back. 

After getting the body pretty much how I wanted it, I installed 12" aluminum rims and 27" tires. The roll cage was taken from a Polaris Ranger and stretched and narrowed. 

Most trail rides are ten miles or less, and aren't generally high speed events. I decided I would use a 48V system and wanted it as simple as possible. I chose an Alltrax 400 amp controller, a Contact Industries 400 amp contactor and four group 31 Gel Cell EV batteries. I called Luna Industries in AZ and asked them to build me a motor. 

I've put this together over the last few years. I finally got it to the point where I could actually drive it. 

It was very cool. Just the hum of the motor and the rattling of the body that I don't have properly secured yet! The cart has enough power to throw dirt with the 27" rear tires. I have clocked it on satellite at 25 mph, which is fine for my use.

I took it up a hill that was a few hundred yards with a few places that had grades over 50 degrees for thirty feet or so. After a few runs up the hill, which it did easily, I smelled some burning. It ended up being the F-R switch. I had used a golf cart switch and 4 gauge cable and the cables were burning the insulation at the switch.

So, now I rewiring everything with 2 gauge and using a four contactor setup for the F-R control. I'm using 400 amp contactors, so hopefully that will correct this issue.

I'll try to update when I get the new wiring installed.


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