Golf courses can be very expansive, and golfers have a lot of equipment to carry with them around the course. For this reason, many golfers choose to use a golf cart to get themselves and their gear from A to B.
While an electric golf cart can be very useful when it comes to carrying heavy loads, the problem with a lot of the electric carts currently on the market is that they move quite slowly. This can be frustrating when you’re in a hurry.
Luckily, there are a few ways you can make your electric golf cart faster. To find out how to do it, read on!
7 Ways To Make Your Electric Golf Cart Faster
1. Declutter Your Cart
If your golf cart is moving slowly, one of the first and easiest things you should do is remove any unnecessary clutter. It makes sense that if your cart is brimming with miscellaneous items that you don’t actually need, it will get weighed down and won’t travel as fast.
Your golf cart should exclusively be for carrying your golf equipment, and the equipment you need may change day to day. So, before taking your golf gart out, always check to see if there’s anything you can remove.
2. Keep Up With Maintenance
Maintenance is also an important part of keeping your golf cart light and fast on the course. In addition to keeping it free from unnecessary clutter, keeping your golf cart clean will also help to stop it from slowing down prematurely.
For the most part, golfers take pride in the condition of their golf carts, but it’s easy to let the cleanliness of the underside slide since it’s usually out of view. However, many of the components on the underside of the cart can impact its speed if there are dirt particles, stones, and mud embedded in them.
Make sure you’re cleaning all parts of your golf cart, including the underside, on a regular basis to ensure there’s no buildup of dirt causing your golf cart to slow down.
3. Higher-Quality Tires
Something many people don’t consider is that the quality of the tires on the golf cart can really impact the overall speed of the cart.
If you want to speed up your golf cart without having to upgrade any of the internal components, consider upgrading the tires instead. If your cart has standard, 8-inch tires, you can definitely boost the speed by adding bigger ones (ideally, between 20 inches and 24 inches).
You could get up to an extra 4 miles per hour out of this, and it’s very cost-effective compared to some of the other methods of making a golf cart faster. Plus, you won’t need any engineering experience or professional help.
4. Adjust The Torque
Adjusting the torque of your golf cart is one of the most impactful ways to increase its speed.
Admittedly, this will probably mean changing the motor or adding more voltage to your existing motor, both of which require some knowledge of electricity and will mean taking safety precautions.
Alternatively, you might need professional help with this, and it’s worth bearing in mind that modifying your golf cart might negatively impact other areas of performance unless you upgrade the power throughout the entire cart.
However, if your priority is speed, adding more torque to the cart will definitely improve the speed.
5. Swap The Motor
We just mentioned that upgrading the motor in your golf cart will increase the torque, which will improve its speed in turn.
However, if you don’t want to sacrifice speed for power (which is usually the result when you change your current motor for a torque motor), you can swap your motor for a speed motor instead.
This does decrease the torque, which means you’ll lose some power, but the upside is that your cart will be able to travel at faster speeds.
6. Upgrade The Speed Controller
Another highly effective way to speed up your golf cart is to upgrade the speed controller.
The electronic speed controller should be somewhere between the battery bank and the motor in your golf cart, and if you’re planning to upgrade the motor itself, you should absolutely upgrade the controller, too.
That’s because upgrading the motor and leaving the less powerful controller in place can lead to a bottleneck where your motor actually can’t perform to its full potential. Effectively, your new motor wouldn’t be worth the money.
We also recommend upgrading the Solenoid contactor relay at the same time if you really want to maximize the potential of your new golf cart motor and travel at top speeds.
7. More Battery Power
Finally, don’t forget about the importance of battery voltage when it comes to golf cart speed. You don’t need any expertise or a lot of time to upgrade the voltage of your golf cart’s battery and it will drastically improve the output of your motor, resulting in much higher speeds.
Before you go ahead and try to adjust the voltage, though, make sure to check the voltage written on your current battery as well as the motor voltage.
You should ideally replace the battery cables at the same time if you want to keep everything running smoothly after the upgrade – in any case, doing it at the same time will save you from having to do more battery maintenance in the future.
Consider investing in a battery cleaner for your golf cart battery since a buildup of dirt can stop the battery from functioning optimally.
Final Thoughts
There are many ways you can improve the speed of your golf cart, and some of them don’t require any engineering work at all.
Some easy speed-boosting methods include cleaning, decluttering and replacing the tires. For a more powerful speed upgrade, consider upgrading the motor, speed controller, and battery voltage.
Be sure to consult the user manual that came with your golf cart before attempting any serious upgrades to ensure your safety and your cart’s functionality. Also, consider how upgrades may impact your cart’s warranty.
Hi, my name is Garratt Shmidt and I have been playing golf in my spare time for almost a decade.
Before I found a passion for golf, I didn’t see the appeal. I thought it was slow, repetitive, and quite frankly boring.
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