THE TECH DIARY: New e-kart for 2022

Technology Team

Total Karting Motorsport

Our Arrive & Drive electric race karts are undergoing an upgrade!

Based on data, knowledge and learning from the e-kart that you have been racing (RSM 1.0 EK), come exciting new upgrades that will be adopted on a new fleet of e-karts, the RSM 1.6 EK. The upgrade is set to provide improvements in robustness and an increase in the quality of components used on the electric race karts.

Here’s a sneak peek of some of the changes you can expect, including on the pedal and switch systems, vanity covers and an expansion of classes available.

1. THE PEDAL SYSTEM

This features a new design that sets to increase robustness, especially on the potentiometer installation side, and provide more flexibility for seat fitting.

In fact, we know that in the e-kart are the so called “drive by wire”, meaning that there is a sensor (the potentiometer) that measures the position of the pedal that is the function of the torque demanded by the driver. In the RSM 1.0 EK the installation of this sensor was positioned further forward in the kart which proved more sensitive on impacts than ideal.

2. THE SWITCH SYSTEM

Showcases an improved and simplified procedure, that will no longer require the e-stop to be regularly used. The switches will be more integrated into the vanity cover and easier to access. There will also be less switches that the driver needs to use, these being only the main switch and the throttle switch. Below are images of the current model that will be changing:

Image: RSM 1.0 EK Control Panel
Image: RSM 1.0 EK Battery Pack with E-stop

3. VANITY COVER

With a better design, robustness and general quality. Switches will be integrated within the cover.

4. TELEMETRY CAPABILITY

Addition of a telemetry system that can be used for reliability and performance purposes. These will be used by the team for problem detection to enable them to quicker provide a fix. The telemetry can also be used for detecting performance improvements.

5. ADDITION OF THE JUNIOR E-KART

Taking all the lessons learnt from the Bambino and Cadet classes racing the RSM 1.0 EK, with the RSM 1.6 EK we have also scaled up to the next category to expand electric Arrive & Drive racing to ages 12 – 16. It will feature: 

  • New and bigger motor with roughly double the power of our Cadet e-kart
  • New controller
  • Improved battery management for higher power
  • 3 batteries (compared to 1 in the Bambino e-kart, and 2 in the Cadet e-kart)

Your racing of the RSM 1.0 EK provided essential information to how and where the next generation of e-karts could be improved, the upgrade comes with the drivers in mind and their dedication to push our electric race karts to the limit.

Bookings for the 2022 season will open soon, you can sign up to the waiting list here to be one of the first to receive the booking link and read more about the 2022 race structure.

To be informed when our Technology team shares more on the RSM 1.6 EK and other technological developments, sign up to the Tech Diary mailing list below.

More from the Tech Diary

Blog | September 2021

Author: Rob Smedley

The biggest challenge we have faced as a group of engineers lies in understanding and perfecting the Control System. This is effectively the brain of the kart and dictates how each of the principal drivetrain components communicate with each other, across the almost infinite number of possible input scenarios.

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