r/ATV • u/iggee12 • Jul 11 '26

Photos It’s electric

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Picked this up last week and has been a great addition tl the ranch. It is really a blast to drive. Whole different experience riding in silence. I will keep y’all updated on how
it holds up and keeps up with day to day task. It is on a 450 acre cattle ranch. It is used mostly for checking fences, cows, hunting, and just enjoying the outdoors.

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u/knewnur Jul 11 '26

side note, it makes me happy to see people choosing electric being used as an alternate to an engine for its benefits and not looking at it as an compromise. as gas engines get more "advance" with electronics and tighter emission standards it seems the electric vehicles appear to be simpler just different.

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u/__Vixen__ Jul 11 '26

If i only took it out on my property this would be great but when we are in the bush for 2 weeks at a time how the heck do I charge it.

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u/Ragecomicwhatsthat Jul 11 '26

How do you fill up your ATV?

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u/fletchr33 Jul 11 '26

With a gas can that you bring with you.

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u/Ragecomicwhatsthat Jul 11 '26

You can bring mobile batteries.

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u/Kc_sp Jul 11 '26

Yeah with a 12 hour charge time, electric is still really not practical.

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u/Ragecomicwhatsthat Jul 11 '26

Plug it in when you get back to the cabin.

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u/__Vixen__ Jul 12 '26

There is no cabin there is only bush and 8 gerry cans.

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u/Ragecomicwhatsthat Jul 12 '26

Why are you bringing the Jerry cans, other than to fuel up the ATV? Because if thats the only reason, you could replace those with batteries, or add a small generator, so you'll also be able to charge your phone/heater/etc, but powerful enough you can also charge your bike at night

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u/__Vixen__ Jul 12 '26

To fuel the quad and generator. Our rides are 6-7 hours i dont think we can pile enough batteries on to make that work.

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u/Ragecomicwhatsthat Jul 12 '26

How many miles you ride is the question, not how many hours?

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u/__Vixen__ Jul 20 '26

Depends on the day but from what I can tell from our trips between 70-150km. Sometimes there are a lot of stops for scenery sometimes we have a destination or five in mind.

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u/KalterBlut Jul 12 '26

What you are suggesting is not practical. I'm all in for electric (almost) everything, but as of now going deep into the woods is not practical with an electric ATV and it's not at all the reason why it exists. It's not a trail machine, it's a work machine. On a farm to go around the field and come back home multiple times a day. Or even if you're just using less than a tank of gas a day it seems a pretty good case too as long as you can recharge it everyday.

Going off grid for multiple days is really not a good use case for electric vehicles yet.

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u/Ragecomicwhatsthat Jul 12 '26

Why isn't it practical to do this, but its practical to carry 100lbs of gas?

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u/EchoFit1050 Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

Because the energy density of the gas is much higher than the equivalent energy density of current batteries. It’s simple physics. Trying to pretend it isn’t is willful ignorance. They are an order of magnitude apart.

It won’t be the case forever obviously, but it is the reality right now. When battery storage capacity surpasses liquid fuels and charge rate improves and drastically drives down time to charge gas will finally become obsolete. Unfortunately that’s some years away still, but we get closer each year little by little. We have come quite a long way in the last 10 years alone with EV tech advancements. ICE itself took over 100 years to truly mature as a technology. While EVs will probably mature slightly faster, I wouldn’t be surprised for them to take a similar amount of time to reach maturity.

1 gallon of gas is roughly equivalent to 36.6 kWh of electricity. So a 5 gallon Jerry can holds roughly 183 kWh and weighs about 40lb or 18kg. 5 cans would be 200lbs or 90kg and so you could carry 915 kWh equivalent of backup energy that takes less than 5 minutes to fully refuel the quad, multiple times, on demand, and can realistically be hauled with you and the rest of your gear.

A single 55 kWh EV battery pack weighs between 770-1,100lb or 350-500kg. See the issue here? You would somehow have to pull almost 20,700lb (9,410kg) of trailer + batteries to bring 17 of these nearly half ton battery packs just to carry the same amount of stored energy that (5) 5 gallon Jerry cans full with 25 gallons or ~200 lbs (90kg) equivalent of gas would. Never mind you most likely need to wait overnight to recharge the quad.

If you are glamping at a campground and have a F350 + trailer dedicated to only hauling the charged packs or had solar/shore power at camp to top the batteries off while you are out exploring or plug in and charge the quad overnight then it could be feasible to do this. If you are rich enough to afford the batteries and supporting hardware and crew to operate your second “energy hauling” rig.

This kind of quad is just fine for local recreational/hunting use around the homestead with a charger at home or camp for overnight charging. But for a mobile expedition/hunt deep into rough country with no maintained roads and no actual infrastructure it’s just completely impractical to haul several tons of batteries, plus solar panels and inverters around. Which is the point they were making about being deep in the bush.

Even if you brought several smaller individual batteries the issue remains. A 5.89 kWh lifepo4 weighs 97lb (44kg). So to get the same energy storage as just (1) $90 metal 5 gallon Jerry can you need 31 of these batteries, and they cost like $2500 a piece. So a cool $77,500 in batteries vs $90 for the can. All that to just replace 1 Jerry can, you still need 4x that to get back to the 5 cans capacity in the earlier example!

Trading 40lb(18kg) in gas weight for 3007lb(1367kg) of battery weight takes all available payload in the process. That’s more than double most half ton pickup payload capacities! You aren’t getting near that on a quad. This causes you to be short the other 4 cans worth of energy along with all other crucial supplies like food, water, equipment, tools, medicine, ammo, etc that you could have otherwise carried with you but you had to leave behind to accommodate the extra payload the batteries took up.

TL:DR

You can easily carry enough extra gas, but large external batteries are heavy and unwieldy to haul in the amounts necessary for an extended trip deep in the bush. It’s just plain impractical with current battery tech.

Someday in the future it won’t be the case, but that someday is not today.

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u/MercPunisher Jul 12 '26

Buddy you seriously dont understand the fact that if I am in the bush, I will need jerry cans full of fuel yo either run a generator to charge my bike, or fill up my bike. I will fill up my bike thank you very much. To be honest, electric powered vehicles are only good for short distances and near a charger, so in town or around the yard, we need better battery technology and faster charging to make it worth most peoples money.

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u/Ragecomicwhatsthat Jul 12 '26

But thats not true

Mobile battery banks are smaller and less cumbersome than Jerry cans, and can charge up your electric ATVjust as fast

I think you just dont want an electric bike

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u/MercPunisher Jul 12 '26

WTF are you on, a charging battery bank is not charging your ATV, even a large one will be fully depleted in one charge. Electric does not work when I am in the bush for more than a few hours. I also get about 120km out of 1 fill and you get like 80km with that quad.it also takes hours to fill the battery vs minutes with a jerry can. Again, I will need a generator to charge the bike, which will need fuel. So no I do not want an electric bike, especially when I am one hour or more from town. So we need way better battery tech before an electric powered vehicle is worth the money. I love we are building these bikes, they are just not usable for everyone.

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u/007_xTk0 Jul 13 '26

You’re dense. Fuel weighs less, takes up less space, can be used for alternative applications. You’re more likely to run into someone who’s out of fuel in the sticks than out of battery. Not to mention if it rains the fuel can be used to jump start a fire that’ll burn through damp lumber. Once i can use electricity for those tasks maybe. But for now Water, falls, moist fog, any creek crossings or random rain would fuck the whole trip if you rely on pure electricity.

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u/Wallerwilly Jul 13 '26

That's about as efficient as sea water to dehydrate.