I think the cost is what it is and there’s probably not a lot we can do in karting to influence it. I think the mistake that gets made is many of the projects are shooting for TaG\Shifter performance where the sweet spot is more like what Matt is going after here.
Kid kart is another way to approach it.
Maybe this could be a value-add for tracks that are equipped for it… Bank of charged battery packs available for rental at $5/pop. ($5 cost being a kinda arbitrary guess based on value to the driver rather than what the sustainable cost might be for the track)
James you nailed what I’m trying, as light as possible and keeping it a step up from 206, with optimistic hopes that its equivalent to KA speed. Keeps the battery drains within reasonable levels and battery heat levels in check.
Also what I guess i forgot to put in the comments is my setup scaled at 375# with me in it weighing at 195lbs.
This is in hopes to try to kick this off the same way 206 racing did, have a spare chassis laying around? Drop in an EV package and the weight is low enough to allow the chassis to flex and handle like its supposed to
Those are the problems - weight and costs. And club rules…
Weight because batteries are not energy dense and you are using them to create strong magnetic fields that take a lot of amperage to maintain. Gary Little (Vertex) said he is going to two batteries, one on either side, to try and balance out the kart better and reduce cell heat issues. I’m not sure if he is staying with the same size (22s20p 18650 93v) or adding a little more capacity. At about 46 lbs for just the cells before bus bars and a case, that’s a lot of weight. The battery (42s12p [email protected]) for the motor that never arrived was to be even a little heavier still at 51 lbs before bus bars and casing (and mounting). And that was just for about 16 minutes of 125cc tag-ish performance runtime with quick recharges (from a gas generator) in-between sessions.
Cost because the mid-size motors and controllers we want are still not in high production numbers like the smaller e-bike ones or larger automotive ones. And then the BMS and battery costs, none of which is small either.
Rules because once you get past all that you have to convince your local club(s) to allow you to run it in an actual race (not just practice days). At which point mine flat out said no way - too much voltage, we don’t know what to do and don’t want to even try. I do have a preliminary agreement that 48v or less would be allowed on a trial basis, thus the complete motor concept redesign I’ve been working on.
Hopefully the Ghost crew can make it all work and get support from their local clubs - as that’s a real sticking point for many of us now. I’m rooting for you.
With electric being standard for indoor facilities now it would appear that commercial karting will pave the way. The clubs desire for electrics will have to change, soon. I will be very surprised if we are still running fuel in a decade.
Those of you who have being engineering your solutions for race Karting, my basic question is what brought you here. Why?
Our local track has allowed Top Kart’s EV kart race the past year or so when they bring it out. They also own an indoor kart facility which utilized EV karts, so I believe they are more than open to an EV kart class for racing. (Cant say enough good things about Andy/Sarah Ogara, they just love racing and it shows in how much effort they’ve put into WRP).
As to why, partially to see if it could be done. I dont believe fuel will ever be eliminated from racing, but I do believe there will be a class for EV karts which will catch on in popularity over the next 10 years. I/Ghost racing want to offer an affordable package which utilizes a standard kart chassis.
So, general interest and possibly a first-mover advantage, commercially. It sounds like your situation for development and testing is not at all like Mr. Hall’s who has a series that would rather not deal with change.
Thats the beauty of where evkarting is right now. Theres room for everyone. What Bryan is doing, what Gary (Vextrek) is doing. Plenty of R&D to go around. Ultimately, the market will decide what (and if) it wants in evkarting. We are obviously based in the 206 world and our business model for evkarting reflects that. We’ll see if it catches on!
Also this is electric and it’s plenty fast for the right layout:
Nice facility. Looks like they can reshape the track easily.
My goal is really road race karting, not sprint. I’m getting a bit old for the small tight track work. 
I have a CR80R kart that I ran in 2019 in sprint to learn the ropes. But the summer races above 90F with the shifter kart workload about killed me. Our local road race org is K.A.R.T. which allows 125 shifter karts, so I looked at upgrading. At that time the SSE 175s were out and I thought that looked like a better option maintenance wise than an IAME 125 or long-in-the-tooth CR125. But they told me nothing over 125cc (other than some rare vintage engine) would be allowed for insurance reasons. I also suggested 4-strokes, but that was shot down as well. So then I started looking into what an EV kart could do and learning all the math behind it. I then calculated that I would need about a 35kWh battery to run at 125 speeds for 47+ minutes (44 and change plus a lap). How much does that weigh? Ah nuts! I’ll just have to put up with sprint for a while longer…
But after a eureka moment thanks to a history detectives episode, I now have a solution to that - which is what my weird prototype motor and controller are all about. If all goes well by May/June I will be able to run a full length road race with a tiny battery. And then patents and production with 401k money to follow.
I found someone else using that same motor although with a different controller:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=114391
Had a chance to get some testing done on the kart and am really happy with the results so far.
I did 15 continuous minutes of laps at race pace to see how the battery faired. The typical time for a feature race at our local track is ~11 minutes, heat races ~5 mins
Battery started at 95% charge and ended at 25% so I am very happy with how the testing went. I do need to adjust the low voltage protection on the controller as my last 2 laps the power draw was reduced.
Hey Matt,
It was fun to read about your project above. The P42A seems to be the bomb… How do you like them so far? Did you manage to find a place to buy them at a good price? They seem particularly pricy…
FG
Also, I wonder, how did your testing progress? Did you get some good race times on the Molicel pack when charged at 100% and driving it hard?
FG
Batteries:
Pricey but best bang for the buck i think and form factor you can get.
It’s been a while since i’ve updated this thread but i spent all season running practice sessions with anyone and everyone that wanted to drive the kart at the track. It held up wonderfully, not to jinx it but it went better than i anticipated all year. I set it up to run standard mode at i believe 150 amp draw, which puts it about 1-1.5 sec/lap quicker than the 206 or about yamaha can speed. i also put in a sport mode button that brough draws up to 320 amp which made it quicker than Ka100’s. Longest stint from 100% -~20% (when the battery would noticably start pulling power and you’d pick up 1-2 sec a lap due to power loss) was about 20 mins of continuous running. Never when we took it out were we just putting around, always at race pace.
That sounds great! Was the 20 minutes in sports mode or in standard?
Standard, sport mode would be about half of that, maybe a tick more
Sounds like progress!! Can you re-charge at the track or change batteries or go home when the batteries die? How long does it take to charge the batteries?
This thread got me thinking about the new K1 1 mile track in SoCal. Their rental karts are electric and I’m wondering if they will charge batteries other electric karts.
We have a couple of garage spots with electric at the track so recharging is no problem. from full dead to full charge is about 1.5 hrs. Typically you can put the battery on charge in between sessions to keep it topped off. Less of a concern in a race day, but practice days where you want to get 100ish laps in you’d want a 2nd battery to swap to keep downtime to a minimum. Swapping out takes all of about 10 seconds
So could do a 25 lap race with boost once or twice sounds like.