Electric vehicles of all types are quickly hitting the market as people realize how inexpensive they can be to operate compared to traditional modes of transportation. From cars and trucks, to smaller vehicles such as bicycles and even electric boats, there’s a lot to be said for simplicity, ease of use, and efficiency. But sometimes we need a little bit more out of our electric vehicles than the obvious benefits they come with. Enter the electric drift trike, an electric vehicle built solely for the enjoyment of high torque electric motors.
This tricycle is built with some serious power behind it. [austiwawa] constructed his own 48V 18Ah battery with lithium ion cells and initially put a hub motor on the front wheel of the trike. When commenters complained that he could do better, he scrapped the front hub motor for a 1500W brushless water-cooled DC motor driving the rear wheels. To put that in perspective, electric bikes in Europe are typically capped at 250W and in the US at 750W. With that much power available, this trike can do some serious drifting, and has a top speed of nearly 50 kph. [austiwawa] did blow out a large number of motor controllers, but was finally able to obtain a beefier one which could handle the intense power requirements of this tricycle.
Be sure to check out the video below to see the trike being test driven. The build video is also worth a view for the attention to detail and high quality of this build. If you want to build your own but don’t want to build something this menacing, we have also seen electric bikes that are small enough to ride down hallways in various buildings, but still fast enough to retain an appropriate level of danger.
Looks like fun!
I’m from Alabama and as much as I want to like this, I can’t. Because it really should have used an inline four out of a GSX1300R if it’s meant for kids and LS1 for adults. Displacement in your state may vary… all jokes aside that looks like a nice build and it’d be so much fun.
Of course it wouldn’t. Look at all the smoke. And an awful paint job.
Don’t forget the seat for you cousin/wife (the same person)
My Big Wheel was never this cool!
Very nice build, don’t get me wrong, but if you know how gas powered drift-trikes with 10 to 15 Hp two stroke engines sound and feel, the result is pretty lame.
Nowadays it’s not a problem to build a 10+hp electric drift trike…the question is, if anyone would dare ride it at full power :P
Then it is just a matter of adding a loudspeaker and sound generator to get the needed attention by making loud noise.
Drift Trike racing would probably be the most fun sport ever.
Anyone have a link for that motor? Or a source for affordable, higher power liquid cooled motors?