Fish, Hunt & Ride | Spring 2017 FHRSPRING-2017 | Page 19

Electric ATV in What’s trending? the works The electric snowmobile BY SHEILA ASCROFT A TAIWANESE COMPUTER firm called Acer has moved into the electric all-terrain vehicle business bigtime. In 2015, it established a subsidiary called MPS Energy develop batteries and power systems for cars and other electric vehicles. MPS (Mobile Power System) also plans to develop other new systems, intelligent power management, sensors and data analysis. What does that mean for the average ATV rider? It means you might soon be able to drive a “smart” battery-powered ATV that would eliminate the motor noise that scares off game and connect you via wireless to the Acer Open Platform cloud, so you are never lost. The weather-and-waterproof X-Terran (and other models) will use an electronic module called Car IoT, to track onboard and external statistics and location. Modules will be available with variations for touring, recreation, and high speed to maximize the electric ATV experience. If you rent or run a fleet of ATVs, such a module would collect diagnostics data that could lead to savings on maintenance, time and staff. The X-Terran’s MPS battery is actually 256 industry-standard 18650 lithium-ion batteries, combined into one box. There is no set date yet for production. Future electric cars have to make noise! IT MAY be ironic, but while designers of electric snowmobiles and ATVs are promoting quieter machines, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has new rules mandating noise in electric motor vehicles. Last November, the safety bureaucracy ruled that new hybrid- fueled and electric cars must make noise when travelling at low speeds so pedestrians – especially blind ones – will hear them coming. The rule could help prevent about 2,400 pedestrian injuries a year, according Traffic Safety officials. Manufacturers have until Sept. 1, 2019 to build in sounds that meet the new standard. Currently, electric cars make hardly any engine noise. The only noise they usually generate is caused by wind resistance or tires, and there’s not much of that from a slow-moving vehicle. The new rule requires all new electric vehicles weighing 4,500 kilograms or less to make audible noise when traveling forward or reverse at speeds of 30 k/hr or less. The new rules don’t set out what kind of noise automakers devise, so whether it’s a fake engine noise or “beeping” will be up to the manufacturers. www.fishhuntandride.ca EVER WISHED YOUR snowmobile was quieter so you could enjoy the silence of the snowy woods? Ever wished any winter recreation vehicle didn’t cost so much to fill up and spewed less pollution into the crisp clean air? Be patient. Help is on the way – the electric snowmobile. Three McGill University engineering graduates have founded a company called Taiga Motors to build and sell electric snowmobiles. Gabriel Bernatchez, Samuel Bruneau and Paul Achard, all 25, hope to produce 20 of them for commercial demonstration this winter. If all goes well, there will be a limited launch in the spring of 2018. By 2020, they plan to scale up production to 5,000 units. If everything works, riding future winter trails may get a lot more peaceful for riders and furry creatures alike. Taiga Motors (named after Canada’s boreal forest) is the serendipitous evolution of an electric vehicle building hobby group at McGill. The three Taiga founders were on teams that won top accolades in the Society of Automotive Engineers electric snowmobile and race car competitions in 2013 and 2014. A series of unexpected but encouraging phone calls after graduation spurred them into calling 100 ski hill operators across North America to see if anyone was really interested in buying electric snowmobiles. They were. As it dawned on them that their complete lack of business training was a handicap, they sought help from McGill’s Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship. It convinced them to make the whole vehicle not just the power pack, and connected them to mentors and investors. Taiga then won a $15,000 prize in the Dobson Cup’s innovation category. “It gave us legitimacy in the eyes of a lot of investors,” Samuel Bruneau, one of the owners, said. The company then moved Shawinigan, a town halfway between Montreal and Quebec City. The town had more government incentives in place, and it was a good place to test vehicles and connect with suppliers, and some of them provided free parts for the production prototype. Ever since Quebecker Joseph Armand Bombardier designed the first snowmobile in 1937 (a seven-seat snow coach) and became the name behind the 1959 Ski-Doo, snowmobiles have revolutionized transportation in wintry, remote communities, and become a popular sport along the way. So popular that it created a problem, according to Bruneau. Put simply, snowmobiles are worse polluters than automobiles. According to some studies, two-stroke snowmobile engines produce more smog-forming emissions than a car driven 160,000 kilometres. Although four- stroke versions are more efficient, an electric snowmobile would be even better – less pollution and a quieter ride. People who want these features are Taiga Motors’ target market. “The goal is to make it a no-brainer to get an electric snowmobile,” Bruneau said. The company thinks it can set a price at about $15,000, similar to a higher- end Ski-Doo. And, “You’ll save over $1,000 a year with