| Summary: | Electric vehicles have been becoming more popular with the advancements in battery technology and increased emissions. Electric vehicles have the advantage of being quiet, efficient, powerful and produce no emissions. This has been very beneficial in the automotive industry and is starting to make its way in to off road power sports vehicles. The aim of this research was to determine the requirements and benefits that an electric utility terrain vehicle while keeping performance and usability comparable to the internal combustion engine drive train. The research vehicle was a 2015 Prowler that was donated to the university by Arctic Cat/ Textron Off-Road. This UTV was used for a platform to determine the requirements for the electric drive conversion. With the testing benchmarks such as top speed, range and sound tests were used for the design goals for the electric UTV. Surveys were created to help determine the wants and requirements of a consumer that would be interested in buying an electric drive UTV. One of the largest parts of the research was determining the energy required to reach the target speed of 50 MPH and a 50 mile range while being at 350-volts for the electric motor. An energy requirement calculator was used determine the appropriate battery size for the vehicle. Some of the inputs the calculator included were vehicle weight, tire diameter, rolling resistance, aerodynamic drag, desired speed and gear ratios. This provides the amp-hour requirement that was needed in a system that has an output of 350 volts.
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