Making a Tundra Buggy Electric
Turning a diesel-powered Tundra Buggy into an electric version is no small feat. It requires a new motor and battery packs to replace the internal combustion components, something in other vehicles can be quite costly. For the buggy conversion, Frontiers North got a $149,000 grant from the provincial government’s Conservation and Climate Fund.
That helped it procure used battery packs from a company that was working to pilot electric buses in Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba. The buggy uses four banks of batteries, each with seven batteries apiece, to keep the wheels turning. Red River College Polytechnic in Winnipeg provided technical support through its Vehicle Technology and Energy Center.
“The EV Tundra Buggy project is a quintessential made-in-Manitoba story,’ Fred Meier, the president of Red River College, said in a statement in August when the team was putting the finishing touches on the buggy.
