Finnish Company Brings eSled Electric Snowmobile to Market
Established in 2017 in Rovaniemi, in Finland’s northern Lapland region, Aurora Powertrains first began building electric snowmobiles to outfit the fleet of its own snowmobile tour business, Aurora eMotion. The company felt that a quiet, clean and sustainable vehicle was necessary for the maximum enjoyment of its guests and the future of the company. During this time, the size of the eSled fleet grew to 25 snowmobiles.
The use of its own electrification technology allowed the company to test and fine-tune the product with the feedback of thousands of users. The success of the product encouraged Aurora Powertrains to start manufacturing and marketing the electric snowmobile to other snowmobile tour operations elsewhere.
In the future, Aurora Powertrains plans to market its eSled to the public as well.
Aurora Powertrains eSled Built on BRP Chassis
Astute snowmobilers will notice at a glance that the eSled is built on what appears to be a BRP Ski-Doo or Lynx chassis. In fact, the chassis is supplied, readymade, by BRP Finland.
– Ari Karjalainen, Aurora Powertrains CEO“Our strict focus is on the development of the Electric Powertrain; we are not interested in redesigning the chassis. Snowmobile engineers have been fine-tuning snowmobile chassis for decades and we use one of the best commercially available snowmobile safari [tour] chassis.”
eSled Models - Touring and Utility
Aurora Powertrains lists two models—Touring and Utility eSleds—at the time of publication. Each offer a 9.5 kWh capacity, with a range of 40 km. Top speed of the Touring model is 104 km/h, while the Utility model will travel at 98 km/h. A third model that will offer a greater range, called Touring Long Range, is currently in development.
While the limited range and top speed of the eSleds may not appeal much to performance powersports users yet, the units certainly have great potential for use as fleet vehicles for snowmobile tour operations.
In fact, Aurora Powertrains has recently entered into an agreement to supply a Norwegian exploration travel company, Hurtigruten Svalbard, with delivery of eight eSleds for tour operations in Svalbard commencing this winter. This deal signifies the start of a new era of emissions-free snowmobiling and sustainable snowmobile tourism.
– MS