Canadian startup Taiga is on a mission to make the thrill of exploring the great outdoors more sustainable. To that end, it launched the TS2 at the weekend – an all-electric snowmobile that can zoom from standing still to 100 km/h in 3 seconds.
The Taiga team started the design process for the TS2 with a blank sheet of paper. Of more than 3,000 parts used to construct the snowmobile, 844 of those were designed and built by the company, including the chassis, body panels, suspension, brushless electric motor, battery and boards.
The TS2 is reported to have an operational weight of around 500 lb (226 kg), which is comparable to loud and polluting ICE-powered models, and has been built to survive rough terrain. There's up to 250 Nm of torque on tap and the Li-ion battery pack should be good for about 100 km (62 miles) per charge, even in sub-zero temperatures. Regen braking is in play, too, and a DC charger option will be available to get the battery up to 80 percent capacity in 20 minutes.
The belt-driven, low maintenance snowmobile is 3.126 meters (10.2 ft) long, 1.16 m (3.8 ft) wide and 1.11 m (3.6 ft) high and sports an unusual single shock design to the front, which is said to offer improved aerodynamics than two shock flavors and increased stability for high speed carving.
Built-in smarts include GPS, LTE mobile network, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Riders can configure settings and parameters using a mobile app, there's a bright 7-inch digital dash mounted in front of the handlebars and software updates will be delivered over-the-air.
Taiga Motors is currently taking reservations for the TS2, and is aiming for a starting price of US$15,000 with delivery taking about 12 to 18 months. Four model configurations are on offer, with single or two-seat options available.
Source: Taiga
