I am continuing to explore Nordic innovation. Whilst visiting Rovaniemi, Finland, I met the world’s only consumer operating Electric Snowmobile company, Aurora Drivetrains. These 115HP sleds have held their ground competing against gas-counterparts in several events and I was thrilled to have a test-ride and discuss their tech. The high-performance in adverse environmental conditions give the drivetrains huge potential to be transferred into other vehicles such as ATVs, Side-by-Sides and JetSkis. I have been working with drivetrains and electric vehicles for several years so there’s a lot I could dig into here.
I took this opportunity to discuss with their lead Mechanical Engineer and Co-founder some unique design challenges:
Extreme Temperatures [-40degC to +30degC operating zone]
Batteries: Cold temps reduce max discharge, prohibit charging, and adversely affect cycle life. They’ve come up with a liquid glycol heating system integrated with the batteries and along with a standby heater to get started. Once moving and hot, the glycol system is regulated with ambient air to keep cool.
Motor: Due to cold ambient temps and using their temp regulation system, they are able to squeeze over 115HP out of a custom brushless motor the size of a gallon ice cream tub.
Traction Belt system: The rubber belts must not crack at cold temps and overly soften at higher temps. Currently they are using industry standard cable-backed tracks running on PPE sliders. Friction and deformation as it rolls quickly heats the belt snow is intentionally kicked up by the front skids to cool the belt. They are working on increasing the efficiency of the sliders.
Environmental / weather sealing
Currently using mostly standard automotive IP66 connectors but the goal is to make the entire system fully submersible… and since it’s electric it doesn’t need air to keep driving!
I was impressed they have developed so much with just 3 engineers. All the parts are made in-house. The dozen or so vehicles are already in use with researchers in sensitive arctic ecosystems and local tour companies which provide a great testing grounds for future production and exposure with the public. The upcoming challenges are streamlining/cost reduction and getting market momentum for these high torque, stealthily silent, and zero-emissions snow machines.