Electric/hybrid side by side?

[Aeroflot81]

So I’m looking into getting a side by side that I can do chores around the place and also hunt with. This past fall, it was crazy to see elk watch me from over a mile away, 3 hills over and take off running over the hill.

So I was wondering who has had experience with an electric/hybrid side by side. I’ve looked a little at the Polaris ranger and their new kinetic I think it’s called. Trouble finding anything on the old bad boy buggies (now under textron I think).

Brands?
Ability to climb/navigate steep and rough two tracks?
Battery life in cold weather? Climbing steep hills?
If going on a extended trip, how do you maintain charge? Generator?

Any other pros/cons would be much appreciated. I’m not a car guy and even more so when it gets to off road vehicles so I appreciate anyone else’s experience.
Thanks!

 

[Southern Heritage]

I can help with this.
I started 20 years ago with jacked up golf carts. Then I bought bad boys that where 4wd and they where better but lacked so much potential. Then I bought a Polaris EV in 2015 and holy Crap is it amazing. I have no idea how many hours I have but all I’ve done in almost 7 year is 1 set of batteries and 2 right rear axles. Then this week I ordered brakes and new water filler. I’ve taking it to Florida, Texas, Georgia , Kentucky and my state Alabama. I can hunt hilly country all day if I keep it out of 4wd. My property is flat and will hunt 3 days with out charging if I chose to.
I really like the new rangers but there unbelievably expensive. After I priced mine it was $42,000.00. That was decked out but base was in the 30‘s. My EV was $10,250.00.

I needed a buggy that had a back seat to haul kids and adults around. So I bough the textron buggy from bass pro. It’s identical to bad boys buggies. It gets terrible mileage. Rides rough and feels too top heavy. How. ever I can fit 6 people tight and 4 comfortably. So It has its place no doubt But next year I’ll probably sell my EV and order another standard EV


You can charge with a generator but make sure it has enough amps.
cold weather hasn’t effected mine until it gets single digits but even then it was terribly noticeable
steep hills it will climb better then a gas unit but use more power.

 

[Wrench]

I'd buy a side by side and a tw200. I've ridden on top of elk on the tw.

 

[Aeroflot81]

I can help with this.
I started 20 years ago with jacked up golf carts. Then I bought bad boys that where 4wd and they where better but lacked so much potential. Then I bought a Polaris EV in 2015 and holy Crap is it amazing. I have no idea how many hours I have but all I’ve done in almost 7 year is 1 set of batteries and 2 right rear axles. Then this week I ordered brakes and new water filler. I’ve taking it to Florida, Texas, Georgia , Kentucky and my state Alabama. I can hunt hilly country all day if I keep it out of 4wd. My property is flat and will hunt 3 days with out charging if I chose to.
I really like the new rangers but there unbelievably expensive. After I priced mine it was $42,000.00. That was decked out but base was in the 30‘s. My EV was $10,250.00.

I needed a buggy that had a back seat to haul kids and adults around. So I bough the textron buggy from bass pro. It’s identical to bad boys buggies. It gets terrible mileage. Rides rough and feels too top heavy. How. ever I can fit 6 people tight and 4 comfortably. So It has its place no doubt But next year I’ll probably sell my EV and order another standard EV


You can charge with a generator but make sure it has enough amps.
cold weather hasn’t effected mine until it gets single digits but even then it was terribly noticeable
steep hills it will climb better then a gas unit but use more power.

Thanks for the detailed reply. I really appreciate it!

 

[sneaky]

Big hills and cold temps will kill those batteries quick. Difference between running out of gas and someone stopping to help and getting you back to camp vs being miles from camp with dead batteries. In the last two months here we've had less than a handful of days where it ever got over 40 degrees. Everything is uphill and sustained. Those conditions kill those electric side by sides. Just get a Honda Pioneer, about a hundred times quieter than a Polaris anyways.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[Aeroflot81]

Big hills and cold temps will kill those batteries quick. Difference between running out of gas and someone stopping to help and getting you back to camp vs being miles from camp with dead batteries. In the last two months here we've had less than a handful of days where it ever got over 40 degrees. Everything is uphill and sustained. Those conditions kill those electric side by sides. Just get a Honda Pioneer, about a hundred times quieter than a Polaris anyways.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

Thank you for the response. This is my one worry is the few situations where the battery might get too low and how to potentially prepare for that. I would be curious if anyone on here has ever run out /run low and how they dealt w that.

 

[def90]

If you think the elk heard you and that is why they went running you are wrong, they saw movement and that was it. An electric SxS isn't going to help you.

 

[Tedhunts]

I also have a 2015 Polaris ranger EV... It has many benefits but also it has limitiations. The EV works great for me because I live on the property I hunt and can charge it every night. After the 1st bank of lead acid batteries degraded ( almost 5 years) I upgraded to Lithium Ion battery system ( about $5,600 upgrade) which saved almost 500 lbs of battery, eliminated any battery maintenence and now charges in abt 1/3 the time. The EV will do almost anything the gas version will do, climb hills , pull trailers full of feed, get deer out of field or whatever... Hills do eat up charge a little and the biggest downside especially with lead acid.... when it dies your stuck... its tooooo heavy to push ( on flat pavement). Had to recover mine more than once with cat 2 tractor , and im not sure about in field charging as the lead acid takes a long time to charge. All that being said i love mine and would buy again for my farm/circumstance. I use it almost daily and have done little beyond the battery swap, greasing some nutserts, spraying blood out of the bed... You can sneaky-sneak up on some stuff too!!!!!!

 

[Like2hunt]

The noise isn’t what’s gonna scare then away. The girl that won the big buck contest this year at school hunted out of one of the loudest Cummins I’ve heard and she killed it about 200 yards off the road. I would just go with a normal gas sxs. We have 3 on the farm and I wouldn’t trade gas for electric.

 

[Aeroflot81]

I also have a 2015 Polaris ranger EV... It has many benefits but also it has limitiations. The EV works great for me because I live on the property I hunt and can charge it every night. After the 1st bank of lead acid batteries degraded ( almost 5 years) I upgraded to Lithium Ion battery system ( about $5,600 upgrade) which saved almost 500 lbs of battery, eliminated any battery maintenence and now charges in abt 1/3 the time. The EV will do almost anything the gas version will do, climb hills , pull trailers full of feed, get deer out of field or whatever... Hills do eat up charge a little and the biggest downside especially with lead acid.... when it dies your stuck... its tooooo heavy to push ( on flat pavement). Had to recover mine more than once with cat 2 tractor , and im not sure about in field charging as the lead acid takes a long time to charge. All that being said i love mine and would buy again for my farm/circumstance. I use it almost daily and have done little beyond the battery swap, greasing some nutserts, spraying blood out of the bed... You can sneaky-sneak up on some stuff too!!!!!!

Thank you for your detailed reply. It’s very helpful. That’s my main worry w the electric is running out of battery in cold weather/steep country far from home!

 

[Aeroflot81]

The noise isn’t what’s gonna scare then away. The girl that won the big buck contest this year at school hunted out of one of the loudest Cummins I’ve heard and she killed it about 200 yards off the road. I would just go with a normal gas sxs. We have 3 on the farm and I wouldn’t trade gas for electric.

Thanks for the reply! I agree that animals have grown accustomed to noise of machines. Also, being in an electric machine doesn’t change the fact that if they see you, they will get out of the country as well.

I wish you could have seen these elk. I’ve hunted deer and elk for 28 years so I’m not a novice. We were hunting on private land and the elk had been pushed down onto private from public which probably contributed to them being skiddish. We were over a mile away, glassing w the engine off. There were several hills in between us and them. As soon as we started the engine, before we were moving, their heads were up looking at us. Then before we started up their way, they took off. On a different day, I drove my truck up there and likely being somewhat used to rancher driving his truck around, I was able to get close to start a stalk.

This experience got me to thinking. I’ve hunted bears for 15 years and we used to see bears all the time driving around, even in the middle of the day. It’s been many many years since we saw one while driving, despite the fact that there’s still a ton of them around hitting our baits/cameras. I think game in general have really gotten used to the sound of a UtV and that has changed hunting when you’re around logging roads, etc.

I hate road hunting, so this isn’t my reason for thinking about an electric vehicle. I also like to get from place to place quickly if I am moving. Certainly a side by side is faster than a truck in a lot of these places. But if I can move quickly while also having a chance to get in position for a stalk (after spotting something) or even seeing game while moving would be nice.

Anyway, I guess I’m trying to weight the potential pros of quiet vs the headache of dealing w electric batteries in cold or steep terrain.

 

[Centralcoastca]

I don’t know anything about the electric version of the ranger or if it shares a lot of the drivetrain, but I have a few buddies that had the gas versions a couple years ago and got rid of them after about two years. They use them on a big ranch pretty much every weekend, basically all hills and mostly cruise no real abuse and all had to replace brakes often since they don’t hold a low gear or downshift down hills, axels, bearings, u joints, and one had to replace the whole rearend. By our estimation, they are probably great for ranch work and occasional hunting trips but constant hilly terrain killed them. They all got replace by Honda pioneers and have had no problems. As for the electric part, I see the beauty in being quiet while cruising around, but as others have said everything is used to the noise now and they’ll definitely see you and the crunching of rocks under the tires is enough to let them know you’re around from plenty far off. I don’t think that the extra cost and future cost of replacement batteries which are probably expensive Polaris proprietary batteries and not just golf cart batteries (worth checking out if that’s true) would be worth it. A well maintained gas engine would outlast batteries by a lot.

 

[Tmac]

Look up the Starkey Experimental Forest in Oregon and the study on deer and elk movement from atv’s, mt. biking, hiking…. Was done in the early 2000’s iirc, they collared some elk and deer in the enclosure and tracked their response. They hate ATV’s based on their flight response in the study. Matched what I have seen too, get much closer in a truck than an ATV when I am tooling around, not hunting. My guess is the traditional pop pop sounding exhaust is more alarming and carries well. One could probably muffle it and be more like a regular vehicle if desired, dunno.

 

[Archerichards]

Just noting a lot of resistance here to electric side by sides. I understand all of the downsides. Still, I sure would like to have one too (though not at the $30K price point). I am tired of the noise of my Kawasaki Mule and want to move more stealthily; I want fewer moving parts, and I want to get rid of the pollution that comes from burning gasoline. So, just noting that there are some of us here who are eager to be in new generation ATVs without all of those problems, and hoping that manufacturers will give us some solutions at reasonable price points. Reading between the lines, I think that that’s what the OP was asking about.

 

[Centralcoastca]

Just noting a lot of resistance here to electric side by sides. I understand all of the downsides. Still, I sure would like to have one too (though not at the $30K price point). I am tired of the noise of my Kawasaki Mule and want to move more stealthily; I want fewer moving parts, and I want to get rid of the pollution that comes from burning gasoline. So, just noting that there are some of us here who are eager to be in new generation ATVs without all of those problems, and hoping that manufacturers will give us some solutions at reasonable price points. Reading between the lines, I think that that’s what the OP was asking about.

I agree the idea is nice and not against electric stuff, teslas are pretty awesome, but there’s a reason used hybrids are cheap and used gas cars still have some value. New batteries are stupid expensive and there’s still a ton of pollution involved in making batteries and getting rid of them, they’re not 100% recycled. Less moving parts is not bad, but a decently maintained gas engine in most popular atvs will get you many years if not a couple decades of reliable use, the rest of the machine is basically the same. For what’s currently available or for what’s maybe in the works with currently used materials I don’t see any advantage other than being a lot quieter for a ton more money with a guaranteed expensive battery replacement much sooner than a gas engine replacement. There’s also the charging factor, if camping with it you’re going to be running a generator for hours for the next days use. I don’t know how those batteries perform in freezing conditions, but another potential issue when in the mountains. The prices will eventually come down but they still won’t be cheaper than the gas rig and the other disadvantages will still remain.

 

[Aeroflot81]

I agree the idea is nice and not against electric stuff, teslas are pretty awesome, but there’s a reason used hybrids are cheap and used gas cars still have some value. New batteries are stupid expensive and there’s still a ton of pollution involved in making batteries and getting rid of them, they’re not 100% recycled. Less moving parts is not bad, but a decently maintained gas engine in most popular atvs will get you many years if not a couple decades of reliable use, the rest of the machine is basically the same. For what’s currently available or for what’s maybe in the works with currently used materials I don’t see any advantage other than being a lot quieter for a ton more money with a guaranteed expensive battery replacement much sooner than a gas engine replacement. There’s also the charging factor, if camping with it you’re going to be running a generator for hours for the next days use. I don’t know how those batteries perform in freezing conditions, but another potential issue when in the mountains. The prices will eventually come down but they still won’t be cheaper than the gas rig and the other disadvantages will still remain.

You sum up my concerns well.

 

[Aeroflot81]

Just noting a lot of resistance here to electric side by sides. I understand all of the downsides. Still, I sure would like to have one too (though not at the $30K price point). I am tired of the noise of my Kawasaki Mule and want to move more stealthily; I want fewer moving parts, and I want to get rid of the pollution that comes from burning gasoline. So, just noting that there are some of us here who are eager to be in new generation ATVs without all of those problems, and hoping that manufacturers will give us some solutions at reasonable price points. Reading between the lines, I think that that’s what the OP was asking about.

Wouldn’t it be great to have the best of both worlds!

 

[MtnMuley]

The new Polaris's sold out during the first 15 minutes of presale. If you decide to go that route, I'd be getting in line.