well it's 1368 Watts ELECTRICAL yes..
but given the size and rating of that thing..
it's less than 1200 Watts MECHANICAL (1.6 hp rating means roughly 1176 watts)
the rest will be turned to heat
and heat it doesn't like as it's telling us
It's a sep-ex motor, which is partly a good thing,
since you can NOT boil off magnetic field strength
of a permanent magnet that you don't have.
But with a rating of just 70°C you can still get in troubles rather easily..
And I'm afraid (since there is no permanent magnet)
that means the insulation lacquer on the coils,
or the epoxy used to put it all together isn't too tolerant..
and once that burns off you either create a mechanical failure that's going to hurt badly,
or worse you short the coils and with that essentially the controller and lastly the batteries..
Go ahead, give it a try..
you'lll need a relatively expensive controller to power a sep ex motor for EV applications
(kellycontroller.com has a KDZ-GDV ~180 bucks 24V-48V 100Amps [smallest recommended])
I'd recommend a thermal control as well, just to be sure you do not accidentally fry the controller.
(just a few dollars to get one thermal protection going)
but sure
thanks to the massive weight and the sep ex config you can create a rather impressive torque (for a short burst)
I think stall torque wise it should be able to outperform a 48V 1800 BLDC easily.
But I don't need to tell you that you can run faster without a kid piggybacked..
and that your motor is essentially that kid...
and you need about a second kid worth of batteries...
So essentially you need the power of a four seater (2+2 as the italians say)
to move two people ....
so no matter what.. do not expect much in terms of speed from it.
you will need a serious gear reduction either way.
Mostly in order to keep it from stalling and transferring ALL power to heat instead of movement.
As long as you're aware,
that you will need to spend a lot of money just to find out if you're underpowered.
I see no problem.
'sid
PS frankly.. put it on a single seater and see how that goes first..
and only if your buttock judgement says it's fine to add one more person think about a two seater.