An all-terrain vehicle (ATV) is defined by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) as one that travels on low-pressure tires, with a seat that is straddled by the operator or the operator and one passenger, along with handlebars for steering control. Most ATVs are gas powered, but replacement of gas-powered ATVs with an electric equivalent could reduce emissions output, fuel consumption, and other petrochemical byproducts resulting from operation of these vehicles. An electric ATV offers all of the benefits of a standard electric vehicle, such as low noise output, zero emissions, high torque, and towing capacity. Within the last few years, EPRI has become aware of new products in the ATV market, the Barefoot Motors Earth Utility Vehicle (EUV), a non-road, heavy-duty, electric ATV, which has been designed to meet the performance requirements of existing gas-powered ATVs for applications in agriculture, ports, state and local parks, industrial facilities and campuses, utility fleets, and military installations. In 2009, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) acquired two Barefoot Motors Model One Earth Utility Vehicles to test and demonstrate. The 2009 demonstrations are documented in EPRI report 1018970.

This report describes additional demonstrations projects held in California and Florida in 2010 at farms, vineyards, utility facilities, a lawn products company, and a military base. Southern Company cosponsored some of the demonstrations. An IntelliLogger data acquisition (DAQ) unit was used to gather near real-time charging and operational energy usage information and convey it to a webpage for detailed analysis. Data were also collected manually at one location to provide additional data.

Battery problems, including full depletion of the battery, which appears to have been related to long periods of nonoperation, occurred during the demonstrations; and relatively low data efficiencies and the absence of data on vehicle speed limited the ability to fully analyze the performance of the utility, performance, and energy consumption of the EUVs. It is recommended that the DAQ system be improved and that a comparable gas-powered vehicle be acquired and tested along with the electric ATVs in future demonstrations to provide real-world data for a comparison between electric and conventional ATVs.