Right now it is 1 degree, super cold, and behind me is the World's
First Modern Electric Snowmobile. It's taking battery power places it's never been before.
Right now we are in Vermont snuggled super close up to Canada so you know it's cold.
And you're probably asking yourself, 'Hey Jerry, how do electric batteries handle in such cold
weather?' And that's a fantastic question. This video is sponsored by Audible. Let's get started.
[Intro]
So I'm no expert on snow machines, but my family is from Wyoming and so I was around them a lot
growing up. And infallibly every year it is a fiasco trying to get them started and going.
Cold metal and icy gasoline aren't the best combination. There's a myth that goes 'to be a
snowmobiler you have to also be a mechanic.' But that myth is not true with this fully electric
snowmobile. Electric snowmobiles just like electric cars have virtually no maintenance.
There's no oil, no fuel injectors, no CVT. Plus, with an electric motor and electric batteries,
this has an instant 170 newton meters of torque. And while the no maintenance is pretty awesome,
I want to hear what it sounds like. Let's put the key in.
Any background noise you might hear are from the gas powered sleds with all that smoke over there.
The way the snowmobile turns on is with this guy,
an RFID magnet that gets put into place here, then we press the green button, listen close.
The clicks are the contactors closing just like what happens with my Hummer. And just
like that the machine is on. We can still hear the birds and nature and we are ready to go.
So I promise I didn't plan this but a bunch of non-electric snowmobiles just showed up
and now we gotta go find somewhere else to film. But I forgot about the exhaust fumes
that come off of these things as well. It's a totally different experience.
Let's go somewhere we can be alone. That escalated quickly.
[Music playing]
That thing is so fast, and one thing that I was not ready for
is that this actually has regen, so as you're slowing down it's taking the energy of the
sled moving forward and putting power back into the batteries.
On the right side of the display you can see how much power we're using while accelerating
or slowing down. One of the perks of electric vehicles, cars and this snowmobile now, is that
you'll end up with more power at the bottom of the hill than you had when you started up at the top.
The sled we're on today is called the Nomad. Taiga has 3 different models of snowmobiles.
There's the Echo, the Nomad, and the Atlas. This is the utility version that can tow 1,100 pounds
as it's going through snow. The motor and battery packs are proprietary to Taiga. They are using
the pouch-style cells. It's a 23 kilowatt hour battery pack which will get you around 60 miles
of range. You might be curious how much it weighs. I would say right around 750 pounds give or take
a few. And while the motor and battery might be proprietary, the skis on the front and the tracks
on the back are off the shelf. So if those ever need replacing it's super easy to find parts. And
as far as charging goes, it uses a standard J1772 outlet, the exact same one I have on my Hummer.
The charge port is located exactly where the fill nozzle would be on a regular snowmobile and it
gives you a couple different options. One, you can charge it up with just your normal standard
wall outlet which takes about 12 hours or so. The second option is you can pull up to an electric
vehicle charger, whether it's installed in your garage, or you know, where electric cars go to
charge. That same plug can charge us up in about 3 or 4 hours. But, if you find one of the DC fast
charging plugs, these two little circles down at the bottom, means you can go from 0-80% in just 30
minutes of charging. And like I said earlier that gets you to about 60 miles of range.
My first impressions driving this thing is I was just surprised at how
easy it was to move and how non...I guess threatening is the word...just getting on
there's nothing to rev up. You just press the throttle and it's instant acceleration,
instant torque and it's just quiet, which I'm a huge fan of. Also, since it's 1 degree right now,
you might think that the batteries would struggle in cold weather because lithium batteries like to
be in the same temperature range as humans do and it's super cold right now. Taiga has developed a
special thermal management system that warms up the coolant and puts it through the batteries
to keep them at that optimal temperature. And as you're powering through the powder,
obviously the motor and batteries are going to heat up and it can use the snow to cool down
a radiator to bring them back down to the temperature that batteries want to be in.
If we take a look underneath the sled right here, the 15 inch wide track tosses snow up onto
the radiator which cools down the motor and the battery pack. It's also interesting to see that
these are metal spikes embedded into the tracks, and the studs, I assume, give it more grip on ice.
The battery enclosure is also made of full carbon fiber. So let me walk you through how to operate
this thing. There are no pedals on the sides like you would find on a motorcycle. All the controls
happen right here at the hands. Right here is how we adjust the different modes. We have range mode
off to the left, and sport mode off to the right. And then here's how we adjust the regen. We have
low and high. And obviously we have the brakes here, throttle here, kill switch here, and we saw
the key in the on button before. It's super simple to use and all of the controls are in the hands.
The snowmobiles are passing up over here on the side. You can hear these guys from a mile away.
One thing I think is interesting and one aspect these could be really used for is
search and rescue because you can go up into the woods searching for someone and still hear them
at the same time, where if you're riding one of these other sleds, there's no way.
Taiga is starting deliveries of these snowmobiles this year,
the fall of 2022. I'll leave a link down in the description if you want to learn more.
Personally I'm a fan of where this powerful, quiet, maintenance-free revolution is headed.
Apparently Taiga has an electric jet ski as well, so let me know if you want to see that in action.
Before coming out here my wife told me that I was not
allowed to buy one, but I'm hoping when I get back I can renegotiate with her. Help me persuade her
in the comments down below. Leave any questions down there as well, I'll try to answer them. Come
hang out with me on Instagram and Twitter. And thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.