$19,000 in Canada, significantly higher than the average price for a snowmobile at $15,000. However, the company says that the savings in maintenance costs more than makes up for the difference. During an interview on Friday (18 March), Taiga’s chief executive Sam Bruneau revealed that the company is having “a very large” backlog in demand for its vehicles. “We’re working to ramp up production to make sure we get customers their units as soon as possible,” he added.
Bruneau declined to reveal the exact quantity of orders saying it will be disclosed in the firm’s financials which will be released at the end of the month. Meanwhile, a November press release shows that as of October 2021, customers had pre-ordered 2,632 units.
Taiga was founded by Bruneau and two other engineering students at McGill University. Having grown up in the province of Quebec, where snowmobiles continue to be ubiquitous, the three founders set out to produce the world’s first electric snowmobiles, jet skis and other powersport vehicles. “We started wondering why nobody was working to electrify these off-road vehicles where it makes so much sense for it to be electric,” Bruneau said. “These are vehicles that pass through some of the most pristine environments: mountains, trees, and lakes.”
According to the firm’s CEO, creating an electric off-road vehicle is not the same as creating an electric car, since the former should be lighter, but equipped to withstand harsher terrain. As a result, there has been a steady rise in the company’s research and development costs. Taiga is currently present in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, but hopes to expand into other parts of Canada as well as the United States.
