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Homemade Electric Doohickey Makes us Drool

The internet is filled with videos of home made electric vehicles and other silly contraptions that follow the recent trend of green mobility, but just a few of the bunch manage to impress like George Fortin's electric kart.

Fortin had built an electric quadricycle in early 2008 and, although most of us were very impressed with his achievement back then, he seems to have remained unsatisfied. Since he posted a video of himself driving the home-built ride, more than 104,000 internauts have watched it, proving that people are interested in smart ways of cutting pollution.

Wanting to see if he can do better, Fortin built another vehicle that is sturdy enough to withstand harder cornering maneuvers. He used some heavy-duty plastic to build the frame and strapped motorcycle tires to wheels from a sand rail and voila! Add an E-Tec electric motor, 40 size chain with one jack shaft and a Comet differential, racing cart brakes with two calipers, rack and pinion steering and a seat and you got yourself a not-so-mean-looking electric powered go-kart.

Fortin claims his 300 lbs (136 kg) kart can reach a top speed of 40 mph and takes 6 to 8 seconds to get there. That's not supercar material, but it's a remarkable achievement nevertheless. In the videos below, Fortin lets one of his buddies take the Z-Kart for a spin, goes for a rather unlawful night ride in the neighborhood (good thing EVs are quiet) and teaches us how to build our own four-wheeled electric gizmo.





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