Detroit Steel

Still doubting the capabilities of an all-electric Wrangler? Then you might want to check out this beast built by the CAD4X Laboratory at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

Read the rest on the JK Forum homepage. >>

shabbernigdo

i dont see why any one would doubt the crawling capabilities of an electric wrangler. electric motors make tons of instant torque with little effort. the only down side is the capacity of batteries. an all electric wrangler will have a very limited range of travel and off road you cant just stop and filler back up when they run out of juice.

Mike H.

Agreed. Pretty much ensures you will need a tow rig/trailer setup, and trail selection of limited distance/time... that some how gets you back to the tow rig/trailer.
Most "local" trails are a 1.5+ hour drive into back country, where there are no charging stations... 4 to 8 hour trail, and a 1.5 hour drive home.
While a neat exercise, I do not see them as relevant with current infrastructure and technology.

orangedude71

I think this is a brilliant idea as long as trailering is an option. Wonderful torque curves, quiet wheeling and on certain trails more efficient than gas. My typical run through Rubicon trail uses about 2/3 of a tank of gas to go roughly 18 miles. An electric motor will be its most efficient in crawl mode.. and all the time your "idling" you won't consume any energy. My other car is a Nissan leaf that uses about "50 miles" of range to go 25 miles.. but that is at 75mph. When stuck in traffic I get more like 2 miles to each mile of "range" Im betting you could do Rubicon on less than a half charge of a normal Leaf battery and have plenty of power to spare. But without all of the normal breaking points. An electric motor is way less problematic than a gas engine. That said, i think if i was gonna make a trailer queen, id make it an electric buggy instead..

doc5339

Really cool, wonder what it maximum driving range is 50% highway, 50% city?