We’re building a high performance electric trike from scratch | Hacker News Reader

We’re building a high performance electric trike from scratch

akotrike.com

48 pointsjurrgis39 comments

Hey guys, we are a team of five engineers and over the last 6 years we’ve been developing a high-performance electric three-wheeler. We’ve built two prototypes up to date.

It’s a futuristic looking vehicle with a new kind of body tilting system. We made the system completely mechanical which means there are no complex actuators, etc. The trike weighs around 400kg, it’s equipped by a 24kWh battery with 200hp output and 300+ km of range.

It will also have two seats, airbags, sportish seat belts, room for luggage, and it’s extremely fun to ride! Our hope is to turn it into a commercial product.

Let me know what you guys think

This trike is awesome! Love the way it looks open and closed.

I have an electric motorcycle and it's crazy fun. I've driven t-rex trikes before and those are so much fun too so the combo has to amazing!

One thing I'd like to see are door bars like you see in a roll cage. The exposed area is pretty big and even with the enclosure the door doesn't appear to be structural. The door bars can be swing out not fixed which is also approved in most racing specs for roll cage design.

What's the battery swap process on this? I'd like to see it designed to be a quick swap so it this is used on a course it could be swapped out for a charged spare but I understand if that isn't feasible.

Also as far as price goes, you're positioned cheaper than and Ariel Atom and a t-rex although it is smaller so that is expected. But I think it's a good price target for people who might cross shop those toys.

Yeah it's like a good premium motorcycle

oh it will have full doors, we shot the video when we did not have one for the prototype, haha. It's a good idea to thing about quick swapping of the batteries, thanks for that. Not sure if it is viable enough, looking from engineering perspective.

Great work guys. The design looks modern and travel range is impressive. How does it compare other three wheel scooters?

that's the fun part, there are not many options on the market that would be even close. We're positioning it more on the electric sportsbikes category due to it's tilting & performance. Latest calculations shows 3s for 0-60mph

How do you make the body tilt system work well with a wide range of driver weights?

The systems I've seen are spring-balanced, which can only work smoothly for drivers of a certain weight. Too light a driver and it's hard to crank the wheel all the way. Too heavy and it gets wobbly at low speed.

That's the cool thing about it. We've built it based on pure mechanical solutions, not hydraulics, not actuators (MB had a concept of F300 life-jet that would be the closest option). And to answer your question - we've tried it with two full sized guys and it's smooooooth. We've actually posted a video on our social where two guys are in it, and the driver even touched the ground while tilting. I mean, you can really have fun with this thing no matter the weight

I’d love to see a diagram or patent filing for the tilt mechanism if one can be shared. I’m only used to ones that can be described as “fussy” and “high maintenance.”

How does it handle with a single, light occupant (say, 100-130 lbs)?

Flawlessly. The center of mass is low, so really no problems. The physics is on your side, that's the fun. Whenever you push the throttle, it will always want to keep you straight (not tilted). And I've just understood how difficult it is to explain the experience by text haha

What price range are you aiming at?

we're thinking of introducing several models, that would break down into three main costs: ECO - 12K EUR, PREMIUM - 24K EUR. Both of these will have few options to select from (like range, power, rims, etc)

It says on the website "TARGET MARKET PRICE: €24000 PRICE IS A SUBJECT TO CHANGE DEPENDING ON SELECTED VEHICLE CONFIGURATION".

At that price point it’s going to be competing with the Tesla Model 3 once Musk gets the price point closer to his $30k mark. It’s a great idea, but it needs to be 50% cheaper.

It’s probably banner blindness. Not a best place to put a price near “as seen on...” section. Had to actually use “find on page” functionality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banner_blindness

You say 200 hp, website says 200 kW. Which is it?

The specs do look fantastic.

The specs on the website are target and may change a bit. Latest tests (yesterday) showed that we're having extreme performance at 150kW already, so we may stick with that. I mean, it's only around 400kg in weight

This can't be a Show HN, because the product isn't out yet. Signup pages and fundraisers are explicitly excluded: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html.

Also, upvotes from friends and (especially) planted comments from friends are super not ok here. This is in both https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.

Just out of curiosity, how do you know some comments were planted?

Looks similar to https://carver.earth/en/ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carver_(automotive_company)), but that has one front and two back wheels. It also has much lower range and price.

That brand is ancient, by the way. They had a gas-powered one in 2003 (Top Gear review: https://youtube.com/watch?v=TK4wzBYmTIo)

Edit: just notice the electric one is _slow_. It has a top speed of only 45km/hour. That’s a completely different thing, and explains the price difference.

I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw this in a mad max convoy. But in a good sense. Love the minimalist industrial design.

I’m sure it would raise some eyebrows if I rode this on a street where I live. I’m not sure however I’d ever want this as my main vehicle (unless I’m in a postapocalyptic mad max scenario where this would be a must).

haha love this, thanks!

An electric trike that doesn't exist yet and seats a single person, for only the price of a Tesla.

It could be fun, though I think 3 brand new high end motorcycles would be a better use of money for that.

Nice job guys. I imagine Dubai police as first customers:)

that's actually not a bad idea

If the use case is for the cities - that's the reason for more complex lean-into-turn design?

not only that. we've kind of merged two physics - motorcycles and cars, and both of these are not connected. For cities at low speed you can simply steer (traffic), but on a bit higher speeds you simply tilt by counter-steering. We wanted to keep the 'naturalness' and found out that for some reason nobody has done it before like this

Is there a single selection of battery size? What other pats can be tweaked?

There will be options to choose from later on. Right now we kind of need to get a glance if the trike is really a product that people would choose. Right now it's default at 24kWh (+~2kWh for accesories) and the consumption is around 8kWh/100km

That's really not bad, I get roughly 35-45wh/mi on my electric downhill bike, and this is ~120wh/mi for vastly higher top speed, acceleration, etc.

Wait until we introduce a snow-bike conversion kit (but don't tell anyone)

7.8 miles/kWh. That’s interesting. A Tesla Model 3 is 4miles/kWh or 15kWh/(100km) (for standard range plus). Or almost precisely half.

and eventually it breaks down into your driving style

Any plans for an urban/cargo model?

yeah this may be a thing, why not!

Room for surfboards?

haha, we'll definitely have to come up with mounts for boards outside, most of our teammates are kiteboarders

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