Drako Motors — San Jose's Quad-Motor Electric Car Maker

Drako Motors at a glance

Dean Drako and Shiv Sikand

Both founders came from Silicon Valley software. Dean Drako grew up in Detroit and studied electrical engineering at the University of Michigan and the University of California, Berkeley. Drako paid for his studies by selling a bulletin-board software package written at school. He founded Design Acceleration in 1992, sold it to Cadence Design Systems in 1999 and in 2003 founded Barracuda Networks, the security company he led until July 2012. In 2003 he also co-founded the design-management company IC Manage with Shiv Sikand. In 2012 Drako founded the cloud video-security firm Eagle Eye Networks, which merged with the access-control company Brivo in December 2025. He holds 53 patents, as of 2020.

In 2013 Drako and Sikand founded Drako Motors in San Jose. The company describes itself as an automotive software platform provider, and its first product was not a car but a control system.

DriveOS: one computer for four motors

In August 2015 Drako announced DriveOS, an operating system that handles four-wheel torque vectoring with a single vehicle control unit (VCU). According to the company, one multicore computer runs all vehicle functions and measures responses in nanoseconds rather than the milliseconds of most high-performance systems. With one motor at each wheel, DriveOS can vary the torque at every corner independently. Drako says this also lets its cars perform a "tank turn" and spin on the spot.

The Drako GTE

The first car to use DriveOS was the GTE. Drako pre-announced it in June 2019 and presented it in August 2019 at The Quail, a Motorsports Gathering. The GTE is based on the Karma Revero GT, the plug-in hybrid saloon that Karma Automotive developed from the Fisker Karma after buying its tooling in 2014. Instead of the Karma's hybrid drive, the GTE has four electric motors of 225 kW (306 PS) each and a two-speed transmission. Together they give 895 kW (1,217 PS) and a quoted 8,800 Nm.

The GTE seats four. Its 90 kWh battery gives a range of 402 km, and the car weighs 2,404 kg. Drako claims a top speed of 332 km/h and 0–60 mph in less than three seconds. The body was designed by Lowie Vermeersch at Granstudio and keeps the long bonnet, large wheel arches and short rear overhang of the Karma. The cars are assembled in San Jose. In 2020 Drako announced a limited run of 25 GTEs. For that 2020 series the Drako Motors article gives a base price of US$1,250,000 and the GTE article about US$1.2 million (2020). The car's technology is described in the Drako GTE article and its quad-motor system in the GTE quad-motor piece.

The Karma connection

The donor car has its own history. Fisker Automotive introduced the Karma in 2012 and went out of business in 2013 after building about 2,667 cars. In 2014 the Chinese group Wanxiang bought the tooling and moved it from Finland to Moreno Valley, California, where Karma Automotive relaunched the car as the Revero in September 2016. The Revero GT of 2019, launched in 2020, replaced the original GM range-extender engine with a 1.5-litre BMW three-cylinder; Karma later renamed it GS-6. Drako's GTE is based on the Revero GT but is a fully electric car with its own drivetrain.

The Drako Dragon

In November 2022 Drako launched its second model, the Dragon, an electric SUV with five seats and two gullwing doors without a B-pillar. Drako calls it the world's first production SUV with a full carbon-fibre structure and claims a chassis 50% lighter and twice as stiff as that of a conventional SUV. The quad-motor powertrain is rated at about 1,491 kW (2,000 hp). The company quotes 0–60 mph in 1.9 seconds, a quarter-mile in 9.0 seconds and a top speed of more than 200 mph, about 320 km/h. It also claims an EPA-estimated range of 420 miles, about 676 km, and fast charging at up to 500 kW. The car rides on 23-inch wheels with carbon-ceramic brakes, and ground clearance can be adjusted from 6.5 to 10.2 inches.

Drako says the Dragon is engineered in America and designed and built in Europe. The base price announced in 2022 is US$290,000, and the first 99 production cars form a First Edition. These figures come from the manufacturer and have not been confirmed by an independent test in the sources used here. Drako models on 1cars are listed in the Drako catalogue, and other fast electric cars are ranked among the best electric cars.

Drako timeline

Landmark Drako models

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