Lada ‘EV’ Powered by Cordless Drills Actually Works

How much horsepower does a cordless drill make? How about 50 cordless drills combined? Perhaps we’ll never know. But at least we know it’s enough to move a full-size Lada.

Such a feat can only come from the geniuses behind the Garage 54 YouTube channel. We already covered their video on creating this peculiar powerplant, though extensive modifications have been made since then. Chief among them is an entirely new mounting system for the drills. It might surprise you to learn that hose clamps—while effective at holding rubber hoses to metal pipes—offer little support for bulky drills on a small steel frame.

Several custom pipes were fabricated to hold each drill securely in place. A complex pulley system was also created, allowing each drill to contribute its power down the pipes. The end result is something resembling a radial engine from a World War II bomber.

Fitting the contraption into a Lada was a completely different challenge. Garage 54 used the same car from its V-16 chainsaw experiment, which had already been lengthened. But the Frankenstein motor required even more stretching at the front, and just for the fun of it, they chopped the roof and gave it a spiffy paint job. If you’re building a drill-powered EV, may as well do it with some style.

There isn’t a singular battery pack powering the motor. Every drill has its normal battery plugged in, and if you think 50 of those tied together sounds sketchy, you’re right. Plenty of sparks fly during the bench test, but they go ahead with the engine install anyway. It’s connected to a traditional manual gearbox at the back and welded to the car up front—way up front.

Instead of using the accelerator pedal, power is applied with a lever that’s basically a big circuit breaker. Push forward and it contacts a metal plate, completing the circuit and engaging the motor. The initial indoor test goes well, until it doesn’t. The excessive current ends up melting the wiring.

With upgraded wiring, however, it rolls outside smoke-free. And with a theoretical combined torque output of 737 pound-feet, it should be pretty quick off the line. Of course, there is a bit of parasitic loss in the system. The car never gets above walking speed. But it actually works.

And the story doesn’t end here. Garage 54 says they will be doing “more tests” in the future. Here’s hoping they have more heavy gauge wire in the shop. They’re going to need it.