EV 'Engine' Made From 50 Cordless Drills Is Silly and Brilliant

Garage 54 answers the important questions nobody is asking.

Photo by: YouTube

By: Christopher Smith

Dec 29, 2024 at 3:00pm ET

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From the people who brought you the V-16 engine made from chainsaws, we have a new contraption that will inevitably find its way into a Lada. The Garage 54 team is back just in time for the holidays, and if Santa brought you yet another cordless drill, here's some inspiration for using it. Get a few more and make your own electric vehicle.

That's the plan for this bonkers build, which utilizes no less than 50 drills. We have no idea the output of each, but with all of them linked up via serpentine belts, a bit of parasitic power loss is likely. They're all mounted to a metal cradle via hose clamps—yes, hose clamps—and if that cradle looks familiar, it's the same one Garage 54 used for the V-16 chainsaw engine. Apparently, they already tore it apart. Bummer.

Metal posts are welded all over the cradle to hold the drills. A grand total of 50 aluminum pulleys are fabricated for each one. To get all the drills working in sync, the team attempts to rewire them while retaining the electronics inside. In theory, with a few changes the drills should all activate from just one trigger. However, they run into problems so it's all scrapped for a more direct route. Each battery is connected directly to a motor, with everything tied into a couple bundles of bare wires. Touch them, and everything whirs to life. Seems completely safe.

As with the V-16 chainsaw video, this one focuses solely on the build. The bevy of belts turn a single shaft in the middle, and the bench test shows that yes, the shaft spins. Whether it has enough power to actually move a car is another story. Provided they don't burn the shop down trying to get those motors conveniently synced up, look for Garage 54 to continue the saga in a later video.