Current Challenges and Outlook of Electric Snowmobile Technology - Lessons from Clean Snowmobile Challenge

Abstract

Although an electric snowmobile can be constructed, there are several technical challenges to make it viable for end-users. The energy requirements are extremely variable and depend on the weather conditions. Both temperature and snow conditions add to the complexity. The battery life will be shortened in extreme conditions. For example, the snow conditions cause changes to the rolling resistance as shown Figure 1. Current electric snowmobiles have not been able to use less than 200 Wh/mi. The snowmobile can be designed to take on energy denser batteries that will be developed eventually, however currently there is limited volume contained within the snowmobile to store the batteries.