Golf cart hauling capacity vs ATV
A few months ago the golf cart was broke and Bradley brought his ATV to
haul in some particle
board.
It was a good chance to
compare hauling capacity between the two.
My rough estimate says the
golf cart can haul a little more than twice what you can load up on a
medium sized ATV.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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An ATV would be less prone to getting stuck. It would have more ground clearance, for one. I've driven one on the beach (wet and dry sand) and through streambeds in NZ without problems.
But you could combine the two (for a price). A 4x4 gator has 6 inches of ground clearance and can carry 1000 lb.
It's true that an ATV will be less likely to get stuck, but we don't get stuck all that often in the golf cart, and when we do it's usually not much work to get free.
Those Gator vehicles look like they can go anywhere, but I think most of them are gas powered and we prefer quiet electric motors to the internal combustion engine.
There can be little doubt that electric motors when considered by themselves are much better than internal combustion engines.
Unfortunately, the technology to store electrical energy hasn't kept up (although it is improving).
But if you get your electrical power from a fossil-fuel power plant, the picture is a bit different. Consider the efficiencies in the chain of your golf cart:
The total efficiency from fuel to mechanical power output is 0.4×0.98×0.55×0.70 = 0.15, or 15%.
A car with an internal combustion engine would get 20-25%. So you are burning as least as much, and probably more fossil fuels with your golf cart than with a car.
This could be improved; the engine technology used in a golf cart is ancient, as are the batteries. But that new tech isn't cheap yet.
Heath-You're right about that comparison being unfair. I'm sure someone could make a similar type of rack on an ATV to haul more then a few sheets of particle board, but I'm guessing the bigger wheel base on the golf cart will still put it ahead on pounds being safely transported.
Roland-Yes...we get our electricity from fossil fuels, and your number crunching makes a good point on how far there is to go in improving electric transportation.
I've always thought the easiest way to make the golf cart feel more "green" would be to use solar cells to charge up the batteries, which should bring our efficiency percent to a more respectable level. Maybe we'll get around to that project next year.