Car #843 · 2026 season · 3rd in the feature race
WarRig X2
A rebuild driven by race data: same proven frame as X1, all-new drivetrain and electronics. At the 2026 EV Challenge it finished 3rd in the feature race, 4th overall, and took 3rd for the Multimatic Engineering Design Award.
As-built specifications
- Frame
- 6061-T6 aluminum tubing, carried over from X1
- Drive motors
- 3× Kraken X60 brushless, integrated Talon FX
- Total reduction
- 11.46:1 — 12:60 gearbox stage, 24:55 chain stage
- Top speed
- 55 km/h GPS-verified in testing
- Battery
- 12 V lead-acid, 55 Ah
- Main breaker
- Bussmann HI-AMP 120 A waterproof
- Control
- NI roboRIO + Raspberry Pi driver station
- Telemetry
- CAN bus — current, voltage, RPM, temperature, GPS
Figures from our 2026 Engineering Design Report, submitted to the University of Waterloo EV Challenge.
Built on data
Every change traces to a failure we measured
Drivetrain: one brushed motor → three Krakens
X1's single brushed motor lost torque as it heated and capped out around 373 W. X2 runs three Kraken X60 brushless motors into a shared gearbox at a retuned 11.46:1 reduction — predicted 0–50 km/h in about 14 seconds, versus roughly 60 seconds to 40 km/h for X1.
Motor mount: the prototype that failed on purpose
The first mount was 3D-printed in PLA and bolted down through a centerline bolt pattern. Bench testing showed the plate edges lifting under gearbox reaction torque — so the final machined-and-welded aluminum mount moved the bolts to the lateral edges, cutting predicted edge deflection by roughly 87% before any metal was cut.
Electrical: from two breaker trips to zero
The 2025 race ended with two unexplained 40 A breaker trips and no data to diagnose them. X2 carries a correctly-sized 120 A breaker, three-tier cabling, and a live CAN telemetry stream — zero trips across all 2026 test sessions, and one chain alignment issue caught by the data before it became a failure.
The shared-gearbox drivetrain: three 12T pinions into one 60T output gear, then a 24:55 chain stage to the rear wheel.
The foundation
WarRig X1 — one full season of data
X1 ran the complete 70-minute endurance race at the 2025 EV Challenge — winning the Dennis Weishar Engineering Design Award — and its telemetry log became the blueprint for X2. The aluminum chassis and front end carried over unchanged: post-season inspection found no cracks, no loosened fasteners, and no fatigue anywhere.
For 2027, we're going clean-sheet at last: an all-new frame built from scratch — lighter, more aerodynamic, and designed to go faster on less energy than anything we've raced before.
Read the full engineering story
The complete design report covers the drivetrain math, the motor-mount FEA, the electrical rebuild, and the telemetry system — written and engineered entirely by students.