Electric vehicles are becoming more and more popular in modern society. The benefits of having no (local) pollution and zero noise are also beneficial for (professional) kart racing. Environmental laws are getting  more restrictive on noise and pollution every year and kart circuits have been in trouble, even closing, due to this development.

 

Also the sport can attract more people when it becomes less technical, like eliminating the need to properly setup an engine. Of course this part of the sport, but if you may chose, you probably like to drive instead of fiddling around with your engine...

Plus the fact that there are no more fumy fuels involved, storing you kart is much easier. In theory, it can be stored in your living room as there's no grease, fuel or other stuff that can ruin your interior!

 

But, most important! The driving can be as good, or even better, than with the ICE powered karts of today!

By nature, an electric drive system has a lot more torque from zero to top speed, increasing acceleration!

 

Facts:

 

This project is a development driven by MeSwel.

It'll be the worlds' first commercial available electric kart powertrain!

 

This project started back in 2016. The first idea was to make a hybrid kart powertrain, but after making calculations, layout studies and budget forecasts this seemed to not be very interesting from a business point of view. 

It turned out that a full electric kart powertrain was more feasible both technically and economically.

 

Design of the powertrain started by the end of 2016, tests on individual components and a first prototype was build during 2017 and driven the first time on December 6th 2017 (first test video here) with a planned start of production in 2018.

 

Lots of work has been done up till today, January 5th 2020.

Although a production version isn't released yet as we did not yet meet the the goals we set at the beginning of the project. So we'll continue in 2020, testing all developed systems and try to get a commercial available system ready by the end of 2020.

 

If you have any question on electric drivetrain development, please contact us and we can provide:

• System design / architecture / layout
• Components selection
• 3D CAD design - 2D production drawings
• Part production (in-house and outsourced)
• Prototype assembly
• Testing

 Click here go to the Electric Powertrain section.