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Torq Roadster From Epic Electric Vehicles Puts Electric Power in a 3 Wheel Package

By Paul Crowe

Torq Roadster from Epic Electric Vehicles, 612 foot pounds of torque, 0-60 in 4 seconds
Torq Roadster from Epic Electric Vehicles, 612 foot pounds of torque, 0-60 in 4 seconds

When I first saw the Torq Roadster, it brought flashbacks of the patent drawings of the Slingshot we wrote about a couple of months ago and since Polaris does have an electric vehicle division, well, the connection seemed logical, but it’s not the case. The Torq Roadster comes from Epic Electric Vehicles, the same folks who built an electric wake boat and an electric ATV. They just decided to build something for the road.

Torq Roadster from Epic Electric Vehicles, 612 foot pounds of torque, 0-60 in 4 seconds
Torq Roadster from Epic Electric Vehicles

Specs:

  • 0-60 – 4 seconds
  • 1.3 lateral G
  • 612 foot pounds of torque
  • 300+ horsepower DC electric motor
  • range – 100 miles

It’s front wheel drive so who needs two rear wheels? The carbon fiber body over a steel chassis keeps it light, 2200 pounds, and you can get it in multiple levels of trim and power train performance. It’s very tunable, you can upgrade the suspension, rewind the armature, upgrade the brushes, modify the controller, add batteries, that sort of thing so you’re looking at the hot rodding of the future if you’re into electric vehicles. They use a lot of VW components for suspension and steering to make it easy to source parts from anywhere since they do plan to sell it worldwide.

Torq Roadster from Epic Electric Vehicles,
Torq Roadster from Epic Electric Vehicles,

Unlike the Elio 3 wheeler, this one isn’t cheap, batteries, electric motors and controllers, not to mention carbon fiber, make this a high end, high tech ride. It’s not surprising a former Tesla exec bought the first production model. I didn’t see pricing anywhere but they need a $10,000 deposit to reserve a 2013 model.

It doesn’t look bad and is probably a lot of fun to drive. Check it out and see what you think.

Thanks for the tip, Steve.

Link: Torq EV

Video below:

Posted on April 19, 2013 Filed Under: Electric motorcycles, Three Wheel Vehicles


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« Elio Motors Planning New 3 Wheeler in Former Louisiana GM Plant
What is Horsepower and Torque? »

Comments

  1. FormerTurbineGuy says

    April 19, 2013 at 7:49 pm

    Ah and Electric Tri-Hawk if you will, or a 3 wheel Super 7. Watch for clones from wrecked Volts or wrecked ????

  2. Dano says

    April 19, 2013 at 9:45 pm

    Bradley said it at the end of the video, “fun toy”. I like it and , of course, if I could swing it, as a toy, I would jump on one.
    My compliments to them on such a well thought out vehicle.

  3. todd says

    April 20, 2013 at 12:21 am

    My old boss’s electric car is quicker than that, something like 3.9 seconds to 60. But then it is rear wheel drive (both of them) and weighs around 1700lb.

    I rode one of those four wheel bicycles with some friends in Venice Beach once. We were cranking out close to 600 lb-ft of torque…

    -todd

    • todd says

      April 20, 2013 at 12:26 am

      Oh sorry, it’s 2.9 seconds.

      -todd

    • Paul Crowe says

      April 20, 2013 at 7:08 am

      todd, you have brought up before the high torque you can apply on a bicycle, but not how much can you apply as rpm rises. Anyone, at the very least, can apply torque on a bike equal to their body weight at zero rpm by simply standing on the pedals. The problem is that as soon as the pedals begin to turn, the amount of torque they can continue to supply falls rapidly, the torque curve would look like it fell off a cliff.

      In comparison, an electric motor can continue to supply massive torque even at high rpm, that’s why their torque curve is so flat. If they produce hundreds of pounds at zero rpm, they can continue to produce huge amounts at 3000 or 5000 rpm or to wherever their design eventually falls off.

      You have also mentioned in the past, when discussing the bicycle comparison, that you can add gears to multiply what you can produce on your bike, but so can the electric motor. They usually don’t because they don’t need to, but if you are comparing one to the other you have to make the comparison a true one, either both have gears or neither do.

      Having high torque available as the rpm rises means an electric has the ability to accelerate strongly even at those higher speeds, you on your bicycle, not so much.

      It’s the combination of high torque and flat torque curve of an electric motor that is so appealing. The drawbacks of short range and long recharge times are a big problem for electric vehicles as a whole, but as far as torque of the motor is concerned, they’re pretty sweet.

      • todd says

        April 20, 2013 at 10:12 am

        Right. The difference is called power, horsepower in this case. I am merely illustrating that torque has no indication whatsoever of how powerful a motor is or, ultimately, how hard something accelerates. This has always been a common misconception and, for some reason, it is a pet peeve of mine.

        I recently helped build an electric class 6 truck with two motors cranking out all of 65 ft-lbs of torque. That thing was twice as powerful as it was when it had a big diesel in it – putting out around 500 horse. It would pull loads harder and accelerate faster.

        Touting torque figures just seems immature and, well, ignorant.

        -todd

        • todd says

          April 20, 2013 at 10:25 am

          I admit I am also being immature by always arguing my point about this. I am sorry for that and don’t mean to suggest you are immature nor ignorant. The kneeslider is a site I enjoy daily especially because of the great insure that you’ve always provided.

          -todd

          • todd says

            April 20, 2013 at 10:27 am

            “Insight”, darn auto correct.

        • Paulinator says

          April 20, 2013 at 1:20 pm

          Hey Todd, I enjoy your comparison to pedal-power, having designed and built several HPVs in my life. A 300hp vehicle has 1200 X the power of the average week-end cyclist. I’d be more impressed by a “people-mover” that can safely hit freeway speeds with 20hp on-tap.

        • Tom Lyons says

          April 20, 2013 at 4:56 pm

          I might point out that it’s a bit of a stretch to declare torque to be “no indication of how powerful a motor is” because there is no horsepower without torque.
          Torque is included in the actual definition of horsepower:
          HP = Torque x RPM/5252

          If there was zero torque, you could rev to 20 million rpm, and you’d have zero hp.
          Torque is just as important as rpm in the hp equation.

          • todd says

            April 20, 2013 at 11:47 pm

            Of course but so is 5250. Does that mean anything to you? If you want to know how powerful something is torque tells you very little, just like in my bicycle illustration above. Horsepower tells you everything there is to know about how much power a vehicle has.

            I’ll try not to beat this into the ground again.

            -todd

            • Tom Lyons says

              April 21, 2013 at 10:37 am

              Okay.
              I’m doing 3773 rpm.
              How much horsepower is the engine making?

              Torque is irrelevant, right?
              Tell me the answer.

              • Adam says

                April 21, 2013 at 11:31 am

                What you don’t understand about torque it is not expressed over time – there is no time unit in the definition of torque. You understand that, you’ll understand what power measures.

          • Adam says

            April 21, 2013 at 12:59 am

            Tom,

            There is a fundamental error in your statement. With zero torque, you could not rev to 20 million RPM. In order for rotation to occur, the torque must be greater than zero.

            Furthermore, torque x rpm / 5252 is not a definition of horsepower. Power (horsepower) is equivalent to work done over a period of time. Understanding that statement is the key to Todd’s argument. A simple example – you apply 1 lb ft of torque to a bolt requiring 2 lb-ft of torque to turn. The bolt does not turn (accelerate), yet the torque applied to the bolt is greater than zero. No work has been performed, despite you exerting a force on the bolt.

            Torque is a fantastic marketing term. It just sounds cool. The better measure of a performance engine is a power output.

            • Kenny says

              April 21, 2013 at 5:57 am

              To say that torque is merely a marketing term shows a degree of ignorance to what it means.
              To put it your way,. Torque is the amount of work that can be done at any point in time. Power is the amount of work that can be done over a period of time. Emphasis on the over. Power, for rotating motors, merely describes how often the torque can be applied.
              As Paul stated earlier, the torque that a motor produces at a given speed determines how that motor will react to inputs. If you floor the throttle of a motor that makes a lot of torque at a certain speed it will leap forward immediately, whereas a motor with less torque but more power under the same conditions will build up its acceleration more gradually.
              Because electric motors produce a high torque from zero and hold it over their operating range, if you were to stage a drag race between a EV and an ICE vehicle with the same power output and the same weight and traction. The ICE would get smoked every single time.
              Oh and 5252 is a conversion/correction factor, it changes the rpm to rad/sec plus whatever correction factors you Yanks use to keep your units straight. It has no massive importance in the torque:power relation

              • todd says

                April 21, 2013 at 11:15 am

                Torque is not a measure of work it’s a measure of force. Power is the only measure of work done.

                I’ll use another illustration; torque = number of coins, RPM = the value of the coin. Horsepower = the sum value of the coins. If you have 100 coins do you have more money than someone with only four coins? You might have pennies (low RPM) whereas the other guy has quarters.

                any motor that has more torque at low RPM requires taller gearing to reach the same speeds as something that is spinning high RPM. Does your bike accelerate harder in first than it does in fourth? Why is that? The bike produces the same amount of torque regardless of what gear you’re in but it makes more power in the lower gears because you have more RPM. power is what gives you the kick of acceleration.

                -todd

              • Adam says

                April 21, 2013 at 11:26 am

                Kenny,

                Please don’t try “to put it my way” as you’ve shown that degree of ignorance you mentioned (really, is there a need for derogatory terms in a peaceful discussion?). Torque is not the amount of work that can be done. Torque is an angular force. A torque applied through degree of rotation would be work done.

                The problem with electric motors is that their torque generally isn’t constant over the operating speed of the motor. The torque falls off at higher operating speeds. Look up a Tesla Roadster’s torque curve.

                By marketing term, watch a Ford Commercial, especially this one:

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaE3UrE3uOU

                My favorite quote: “Torque is power”

            • Tom Lyons says

              April 21, 2013 at 10:45 am

              Akay.
              The “20million rpm” was a just an illustration.
              You gave the proper answer to it, which was “for rotation to occur, the torque must be greater than zero.”

              Therefore, it is an indispensable element of the equation.

              I rest the case on that.
              Thank you.

  4. Tom Lyons says

    April 21, 2013 at 12:03 pm

    Adam,
    (moving down here from above where room ran out)
    I certainly do understand. I understand very well.

    What I understand is that HP is a “result” of the multiplicative factors of “force” and “time”, and that the manipulation of EITHER “force” or “time” will influence the “result” of HP.

    So therefore, to discount torque as a factor would be tantamount to saying that rpm should also be discounted as a factor.
    The crux of the matter is that these factors are required to produce HP, so they are equally important to the result. If you have no torque, then you have no power, as you so eloquently described in a few posts above

    When I want to increase the power of my engine, I aim to increase the torque production as well as the rpm range, within the physical constraints. I don’t tell the customer, “Well, torque isn’t important, so we’ll just work on rpms and forget about the torque curve part of it”.

    The simple fact is that if I increase the amount of torque, and do it in such a manner that I can also raise the rpm range, it makes more HP on BOTH counts.
    But if I’m making 50hp at 5252 rpm and I increase my torque production to 52 foot pounds at 5252 rpm, then I’m making 52hp. So increasing the torque would be very important in that, would you not agree?

  5. Paul Crowe says

    April 21, 2013 at 12:29 pm

    Please move the horsepower and torque discussion to the next article and confine the comments here to the Torq Roadster.

  6. todd says

    April 21, 2013 at 3:27 pm

    it’s interesting that the VW parts they are using for this conversion come from a 1700 lb car (Bug). What did they remove or simplify to add 500 pounds?

    -todd

    • BloodyTomFlint says

      April 24, 2013 at 12:32 pm

      The current Beetle doesn’t weigh 1700 pounds.

      • todd says

        April 25, 2013 at 1:05 am

        I guess I assumed they were using parts off the old beetle. That’s a fairly common thing to do with kits and trikes. I didn’t realize they were sourcing parts from the new beetle. Did you get that from their site?

        -todd

  7. Hooligan says

    April 24, 2013 at 1:53 pm

    Kilowatts of power. That’s how a bikes power is now categorised within Europe.
    I have to say it does not really have the emotive resonance of Newtonian foot pounds or computations of how many horses it took…

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