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BorgWarner turns Ariel Nomad into electric off-road beast

BorgWarner used an Ariel Nomad to showcase its electric vehicle components and turned the vehicle into an electric off-road beast.

The Ariel Nomad is a lightweight, buggy-like vehicle.

BorgWarner, a major automotive supplier known for its powertrains, decided to use it as a “comprehensive electrified demonstration vehicle” for the latest electric components.

They equipped the vehicle with their latest traction inverters, a torque-vectoring rear drive unit, an electric coolant pump, vehicle and traction control software, a DC/DC converter, and a high-voltage battery pack.

The battery pack is liquid-cooled with 350V 30 kWh capacity capable of delivering a peak power of 200 kW to two separate BorgWarner High-voltage Hairpin (HVH) 250 electric motors on the rear wheels.

It results in an all-electric off-roader with some impressive capabilities:

Hakan Yilmaz, vice president and chief technology officer at BorgWarner, said about the vehicle:

Our new high-voltage demonstration vehicle illustrates BorgWarner’s leadership in electrification and gives us a fantastic tool to showcase our extensive capabilities, collaborate with industry partners and evaluate BorgWarner’s current and future technology at a system-level. We will continue to embrace projects such as this EV demonstration vehicle that help us validate next-generation products and, ultimately, propel the industry toward a cleaner, more energy-efficient world.

BorgWarner partnered with their subsidiary Cascadia Motion for the electric motors and Romeo Power, a battery pack startup founded by former SpaceX and Tesla engineers, for the battery pack.

Electrek’s Take

Unfortunately, this is just a test and demonstration vehicle for BorgWarner’s latest electric powertrain technology, but the vehicle looks like a ton of fun.

Hopefully, Ariel takes note and decides to partner with BorgWarner to offer a production version of the vehicle.

That would be a blast to drive.

We have seen a few startups trying to bring fun off-road electric vehicles to the market.

The most notable effort is probably the Nikola NZT UTV. We were impressed by their prototype, but we have since lost a lot of confidence in the company over the years, especially since their patent trolling lawsuit against Tesla.

They have yet to bring the vehicle to production.

I think there’s a great opportunity to electrify the off-roading world.

In my opinion, electric powertrains are so much better suited to enjoying nature than loud combustion engines.

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Avatar for Fred Lambert Fred Lambert

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