Lada Powered By 50 Cordless Drills Is The Only EV Swap That Matters
Garage 54 has given its chainsaw-powered Lada an electric upgrade and now it runs on cordless drills
Taking an old car and making it run on electricity is so hot right now, with startups the world over popping up with the aim of electrifying everything from old Jaguar E-Types to lovely little Miatas. Now, a rusting Lada has been given the EV upgrade, but instead of cribbing its power from a Tesla or Cascadia Motion, it comes from an unlikely source: cordless drills.
Specifically, the battery-powered Lada is motivated by hashing together 50 cordless drills by YouTube channel Garage 54. If that name sounds familiar, that's because we've previously covered all their crazy antics involving ATVs, exploding tires and Ladas. Lots of Ladas.
For this latest project, the bonkers Russian wrenchers worked to build a kind of electric engine out of cordless drills. The 50 battery-powered drills were mounted around a common crankshaft, which linked all fifty motors together via a complex array of belts and pulleys. It's beautiful in its complexity. It's a little like that electric-swapped Porsche that raced at Pikes Peak that one time, but more Russian.
When the drill-powered motor was first revealed, we estimated that it could produce as much as 25 hp and "400-ish lb-ft of torque," which our Brad boldly claimed "should be more than enough to move a little Lada around." It's almost like the folks at Garage 54 read his mind post, as that's exactly what they set about doing next: powering a Lada.
To do this, the team took a Lada that had already been lengthened to make space for a chainsaw-powered V16, stripped away all those nasty gas motors and dropped in the gargantuan electric motor.
It's quite the site to behold, with the bright orange arms of half the drills sticking up out of that enormous hood. You'd certainly do a double take if Garage 54 rolled past you in this on the highway.
When it comes to driving the battery-powered Lada, the motor is connected up to the car's gearbox and there's a rudimentary switch inside to control the power. On the first test, the car (amazingly) moves away from the stand under its own steam with the roar of 50 power drills soundtracking its first steps.
The rest of the tests that the garage 54 crew put the car through are, as you'd expect, a bit ridiculous and a lot of fun to watch. There's a bit of smoke and a few minor disasters, but the drill-powered car really does work. If you want to see how well it works for yourself, hit play on the video above.
Once you've done that, head here to see Garage 54 attempt to break the sound barrier with a tire or here to see what kind of abominable snowmobile the channel created out of old ATVs.