If you don’t know by now, the Rubicon Trail is a chore. It tests even the most hardcore factory off-road trucks with giant boulders, tight pathways, and the occasional water crossing. You have to be brave to think you can build something from scratch to conquer the 22-miler—either that, or just plain ready to party. I’m not sure which category Nick Dey fits into, but he designed and fabricated this bespoke EV rock buggy in less than seven weeks before traversing the Rubicon the hard way.
Emails and DMs flooded my inbox in the past couple of weeks telling me I should talk with Dey because he’s too humble to make a big deal of it. I learned during a quick phone call that not only did he make something special, but he did it on a reasonable budget in practically no time at all. That’s the perk of being an expert online shopper and a pro fabricator, as Dey co-owns 80% Off-Road with his pal John Graham.
“We had a weekend wheeling trip in Cougar Buttes near Johnson Valley, and I saw a buggy guy having way more fun than me,” Dey recalled. “I called my metal supply, got a quote for the tubing, and it was 400 bucks or something. I was like, ‘Okay, well, I guess we’re doing this.’”
Dey stressed that he never drew up anything in CAD; he just went for it. The buggy started with a seat on the floor, and Dey simply built around that. The result is a roughly 1,400-pound buggy that uses three 48-volt batteries that he bought off Amazon, an HPEVS AC-20 motor that was listed on eBay, and, interestingly, a T90 three-speed manual transmission from a flatfender Jeep (more on that in a bit).
The buggy uses Samurai axles and 35-inch UTV tires to prove not everybody needs one-tons and 40s. Inside those stick axles are 4.57 gears and lockers, which work in concert with the aforementioned transmission to net some serious gear reduction. Dey tells me the electric motor only makes 30 horsepower or so, but thanks to the three-speed gearbox and two-speed transfer case, he’s able to eek out every ounce of twist. That’s the key to using a small battery pack and compact electric motor.
And it is compact, too. Dey likened the motor to a fire extinguisher that weighs about 60 pounds. The unit’s diameter is a skosh under 7 inches, while it measures 11.35 inches long. He positioned it under the floor, near the front of the rig, showing just how big the packaging benefit is when you go electric. “You can really control your weight distribution,” he added. “It made it a lot easier not having to build around a small-block [V8] or something.”
As for suspension, the buggy runs a three-link front setup and a four-link rear. Ian Lane-Lohse at Wheel Every Weekend valved the Fox 2.0×8.5-inch air shocks, which Dey picked for their affordability. None of it is particularly complex, though it is purpose-built and effective. The same can be said of the entire machine, really.
Dey estimates that he put approximately $10,000 in the whole thing, of which about half came from the EV components. While he notes that electric powertrains aren’t “super cheap,” this build is like “a drop in the bucket” compared to the Jeeps and whatnot he’s owned in the past. Plus, it’ll run the entire Rubicon without any fast-charger woes: “I just plug it into the wall for eight to 10 hours and it’s good to go.”
From a napkin drawing to a roller in two weeks and wheeling the Rubicon in seven, the buggy is “really close to its final form,” Dey told me. It doesn’t need to be anything more than it is because it already slays trails in its current form. Dey lives in SoCal, so he can trailer it wherever he wants, wheel it for the day, and drag it back home to plug in for the next trip.
I’m not sure what else you could want from a homebuilt crawler.
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