Remember the world's first all-electric monster truck?
If you're at the AutoRama Car Show in Kansas City, Missouri this weekend, you'll be able to see it in action.
We're told it'll be "participating in two car-crush demonstrations per day", which sounds like a polite way of saying it'll be causing total mechanical carnage as it pulverises a selection of old (gasoline-powered) clunkers.
Manufactured by BIGFOOT 4x4 Inc, the #20 Monster truck is powered by 36 Odyssey PC1200 batteries.
Each one weighs 38.2 pounds, but provides all the power needed to drive right over other cars. There's a modest 350 horsepower available from the custom-designed traction motor, but it's the 850 pounds-feet of torque that do the turnin'.
The Tesla Model S might be quick, but even that car can't crush others into metal pancakes. Sometimes, bigger is better.
Six of those batteries power #20's other systems, such as brakes and steering.
Odyssey has actually provided batteries for BIGFOOT trucks for years, helping the team to win over 30 monster truck championships--but #20 is the first all-electric truck they've produced together.
Jim Kramer, vice president of research, technology and driver development of BIGFOOT 4X4, Inc, says "Developing a custom electric monster truck is part of our ongoing efforts to keep up with ever-changing technology. The Odyssey Battery BIGFOOT #20 Monster Truck started off in static displays, but it is now ready to perform car crushes.”
Looks like good old-fashioned fun to us, but if it helps develop better batteries too, then who are we to argue?...
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