Range figures on a spec sheet assume dry, flat ground and no load. Here’s what actually moves the number, using our own Explorer range as the comparison.
We’ve written before about why range anxiety matters less than people assume with an electric quad. What comes next are the numbers behind the variables, helping you to understand what you can expect from an electric ATV across different weather and terrain.
Across the Explorer range, the entry-level Explorer is quoted at 35 to 40km, the Explorer S at 45km, and the Explorer GT, with a larger 50Ah battery against the S’s 32Ah, at 40 to 50km. The range-topping GTS, which uses a more powerful 5000W-equivalent motor, sits in the same 40 to 50km band as the GT despite the extra power on tap. Every one of those figures comes with the same caveat from us: they depend on field conditions, weight and how the quad’s being driven. Treat the number on the spec sheet as the best case, not the expected one.
This is the clearest comparison we can make within our own range. The GT weighs 245kg against the S’s 163kg, and it’s rated to tow up to 400kg versus the S’s 200kg. Despite the bigger battery, its quoted range doesn’t pull meaningfully ahead of the lighter, lower-towing S. That’s not a flaw in the GT. It’s a reasonable read of what a heavier vehicle rated for double the towing capacity does to a battery, even a larger one, once it’s actually working rather than sitting on a spec sheet.
The practical takeaway: a fully loaded trailer will cost more range than the difference between the model specs suggests. If range matters more to a particular job than towing capacity does, the lighter model in the lineup isn’t automatically the worse choice, and a buyer comparing the two on range alone could easily end up paying more for the GT’s extra 200kg of towing capacity without a proportional gain in how far it’ll actually go on that job.
Our farming-specific listings quote a similar 40 to 50km for the GT, but the wording alongside it is deliberately conditional rather than a flat promise: it depends on “field conditions, weight, and flexibility of control.” That’s terrain, not a different battery. Soft or uneven ground takes more from a battery per kilometre than a flat track does, for the same reason it takes more from a fuel tank: the motor’s working harder to cover the same distance, and every wheel spin on soft ground is energy spent without the equivalent distance covered.
Gradient behaves the same way. A quad climbing a slope is doing more work per metre than one on flat ground, regardless of how dry or wet that slope is, which is why a hilly smallholding and a flat arable field can produce noticeably different real-world range from the same model.
This part isn’t specific to Eco Rider. Lead-acid batteries, which power the whole Explorer range, generally lose some usable capacity in cold weather, in the same way a car battery struggles more on a cold morning. We don’t have exact figures for how much that costs on an Explorer specifically, so we’d rather say that plainly than put a number on it we can’t stand behind. What we’d suggest instead: on a cold day, don’t plan a job around the exact top of the quoted range, and treat a fresh charge as slightly less generous than it would be in summer.
It’s tempting to assume the more expensive model in a range will always go further, but the Explorer lineup doesn’t quite work that way. The entry-level Explorer, at £1,999.95, is quoted at 35 to 40km. The GT, at £4,999.95, tops out at 50km under the same conditional wording. That’s a two-and-a-half-times jump in price for roughly a 25 to 40 percent gain in best-case range, because the extra cost in the GT is mostly buying towing capacity, drivetrain options and rider weight allowance rather than distance. Anyone choosing a model primarily on range should look at the quoted band for each one directly rather than assuming the pricier option automatically wins on that measure.
Dry, flat, unloaded and mild is what the spec sheet number describes. Wet, loaded, hilly or cold, in any combination, will take a quad below it, and most real jobs involve at least one of those. None of that makes the figures wrong. It makes them a ceiling rather than a promise, which is worth knowing before planning a day around them rather than after. If range genuinely is the deciding factor for a purchase, it’s worth thinking in terms of the lower end of the quoted band for the model in question, not the higher one, and building in enough charge time (6 to 8 hours on the S, 8 to 10 on the GT) to make a second charge realistic within the working day if the job runs long.
One more variable worth a mention, since it’s the one most within a rider’s control: tyre pressure. Underinflated tyres generally increase rolling resistance on any vehicle, electric or otherwise, which means the motor spends more energy covering the same ground. We wouldn’t want to put a specific figure on what that costs an Explorer in kilometres, since it isn’t something we’ve tested directly, but it’s a five-minute check before a job that costs nothing and works in the same direction as everything else in this article: towards getting closer to the quoted figure rather than further from it.
Eco Rider, Isleham Business Park, Unit 16, Hall Barn Road, Isleham, Ely, Cambridgeshire, CB7 5QZ
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