Aurora Esled: Finnish electric snowmobile on its way to Norway

The electric snowmobile is perfect for snowmobile safaris and alpine resorts, according to the Finnish manufacturer.

While Swedes and Finns can mostly travel in nature from the saddle of a snowmobile, driving these vehicles is more strictly regulated in Norway.

Nevertheless, the Aurora eSled electric snowmobile attracted a lot of interest at the Nordic EV Summit earlier this month.

From fuel tank to battery

The Finnish adventure started in 2013 in collaboration with the Lapland University of Applied Sciences. The company is called Aurora Powertrains and in 2017 the first results were seen.

Then the petrol engine and tank were replaced by a battery pack and electric motor in an existing Lynx snowmobile.

It worked and eventually became the creation that was shown at the Nordic EV Summit at the beginning of April.

Just like the electric car, you get completely new opportunities when you switch to electricity. The motor is smaller and the weight can be placed where you want it.

With the heaviest battery it weighs 270 kg, i.e. about the same as other snowmobiles, but it weighs 198 kg with the smallest battery.

Naked

It has resulted in a slightly different creature than what we are used to seeing, especially in the front.

The Aurora eSled is narrow and somewhat higher than usual, and there has been room for a far more advanced design. It has far more travel and the skis have a constant distance between each other.

According to Matti Autioniemi, it should provide far better driving characteristics on the scooter. He helped start the company, is a designer and one of the managers.

The cool front has turned out to have some drawbacks as well. Because here you don’t have a windscreen. It will come during the year, assures Matti.

For fleet customers

The design also does not provide the same buoyancy in the front when driving in loose snow.

– This is a so-called trail scooter. It is made for groomed trails, not for getting ahead in loose snow, says Matti. The main target group is ski resorts and safari operators.

For these target groups, eSled must be optimal. You can control all the scooters on one and the same app, and both stop them or give them the desired speed limit. It is especially nice when driving on safari.

Freedom of choice

The scooter has an axial flux motor of 50 kW (68 hp) and 140 Nm of torque. It must be strong enough to pull sledges, track setters and the like. It has battery modules of 3.5 kWt.

They are available with a minimum of two and a maximum of six modules, i.e. between 7-21 kWt and everything in between. It gives a range of between 4 and 10 miles. It holds for both safaris and ski resorts.

You also have a choice of on-board chargers that deliver between 3.3 and 6.6 kW via a Type 2 plug. You can charge up to 30 kW via the CCS connector, if the charger meets certain criteria.

eSled can also be used as a battery bank, because you can also drain it for power, if you have a V2G charger on the wall.

The scooter can withstand really cold winters. The battery box is well insulated, and each module has a heating element of 100 Watt each, which is activated when necessary. Either the power is taken from the mains, or directly from the battery.

The first customers have already received the snowmobile, and the interest so far has been great.