Thanks to a bucketload of software, the Drako GTE makes ice drifting look too easy
by Tudor Rus, onWhen Shiv Sikand and Dean Drako decided to build the GTE, that desire came, in fact, from necessity. The two business partners couldn’t find an EV they liked and simply set off to build one themselves. Six year later, the Drako GTE was born as a high-performance sedan than drives like an E46 M3 and packs 1,200 horsepower.
But power is nothing without control and in case you had any doubts that the GTE isn’t a finely-tuned precision tool, we’re here to shatter those.
Developed in San Jose, right in the heard of Silicon Valley, the Drako GTE is definitely not your average electric car. Not when it comes to performance, not when it comes to price (Drako is asking $1.3 million for each GTE it builds), and definitely not when it comes to specs.
This go-fast EV has four electric motors with about 1,200 horsepower between them, torque-vectoring all-wheel-drive, of course, and the ability to apply up to 225 kW (302 horsepower) of regenerative braking force to keep its 5,300 pounds in check.
If regen braking isn’t enough, then a mechanical brake setup steps in to diffuse the situation with a set of carbon-ceramic discs.
The torque-vectoring system is powered by a super-smart piece of software that can dictate each wheel’s acceleration and braking and make discrete adjustments when needed up to 1,000 times per seconds. That normally comes in handy when you’re constantly hunting for the best trajectory or really pushing the car on the track, but it’s also a useful trick to have up the sleeve as you go drifting on the icy surface of a frozen lake.
See the Drako GTE Perform on Snow Too!
