Electric Go-Kart Racing near me!

[dozentrio]

I just discovered that there is a place that uses electric go-karts.

http://www.gpkartways.com/karts.html

These things seem to be fairly high performance... definitely better than the typical gas go-karts. I am wondering what kind of batteries and motors these things use. It seems to me that they'd be a fair bit more expensive than ICE karts. They say 48V dry cell batteries, that they can charge in 6-10 minutes. Are these SLAs? And apparently the engine produces 20 hp. Anyone care to venture a guess about the parts they are using?

 

[spinningmagnets]

For Christmas 2 years ago, my boss paid for the crew to race indoor karts. I really enjoyed it a lot, but they were two-stroke ICE. At the end of a run, my eyes were almost burning from the indoor exhaust cloud. 4-strokes would be better, and propane would be even better still, but...

I think there's a relatively unexplored business opportunity for indoor electric Karting. It would probably do best in a cold snowy/rainy city where outdoor activities are restricted by weather for half the year. Perhaps someplace environmentally conscious? like Portland Oregon, or some other similar city? hot-swapping batteries would be easily viable for exposed Kart packs...