Electric motorcycle speed record broken at Bonneville Salt Flats

[Bob]

Mission Motors' Mission One has broken the land-speed record for an electric motorcycle. The bike recorded a top speed of 161mph and setting an average of 150.059 in the timed runs – beating the old record of 68.848mph into the ground.

Forrest North, Mission's founder and chief executive said “We were pretty excited to just have some place to officially show that we can do what we said we can do." North felt this is just the beginning “I definitely think we can make it go faster. We really haven't even hit the limit of what we can do right now with today's technology.”

[Clockwork]

When you think about it, the old internal combustion engine must be getting pretty close to the limits of what you can phisically push throught the cumbustion chamber or (excluding the rotary) the reciprocating forces on the pistons. I suspect with enough R&D electric motors will eventually easily outperform them.

So how it wont be the same though.

[bogan]

When you think about it, the old internal combustion engine must be getting pretty close to the limits of what you can phisically push throught the cumbustion chamber or (excluding the rotary) the reciprocating forces on the pistons. I suspect with enough R&D electric motors will eventually easily outperform them.

So how it wont be the same though.

It'll be even better

150mph, from 68mph, record dominated!

[Hard Nut]

They will be cracking the 200mph soon enough, giving the old record the bump

Would like to see that one getting broken.

Nuts

[NDORFN]

One day electric bikes will be 2-wheel drive because the motors will be built into the wheels. No gears, no brakes. It's gonna be fucken mental! Can't wait.

[LBD]

The idea of 2 WD is great, and has been done off road by Yamaha that I know of, at least.

But putting the motors in the wheel hubs sounds good, but what about unsprung weight? Some serious new technology would be required to keep the unspring and rotating masses as low as posible I would think?

[YellowDog]

They were talking about launching the space shuttle over the first 200m using an electromagnetic motor, so the technology is certainly around. The mono rail trains I saw in Tokyo are quite a sight.

Personally, I will need some convincing that you can have a similar feel to an electric engine as you do to a conventional unit.

MP3 players with sub-woofers should be able to replicate the thumping exhaust sound however it is the quality of ride that will be of most concern.

No gears, just a motor that whines at a higher and higher pitch as you speed up.

It will be interesting to see however I am not looking forward to it.

[R6_kid:Me]

When you think about it, the old internal combustion engine must be getting pretty close to the limits of what you can phisically push throught the cumbustion chamber or (excluding the rotary) the reciprocating forces on the pistons. I suspect with enough R&D electric motors will eventually easily outperform them.

I think you'll find that in many ways they already do, the only problem is having enough battery juice onboard to run the motors - that's their shortfall.

[Edbear]

When you think about it, the old internal combustion engine must be getting pretty close to the limits of what you can phisically push throught the cumbustion chamber or (excluding the rotary) the reciprocating forces on the pistons. I suspect with enough R&D electric motors will eventually easily outperform them.

So how it wont be the same though.

The internal combustion engine isn't finished with yet, the technology exists to make it much better than currently. The biggest issue with advances is cost. To produce and market a better engine is always a cost-benefit problem and it would be too expensive for the market.

Toyota had this problem with the Prius as for $45K you can buy a similar size car for $30k and the difference in economy was not enough to justify the higher price. Over the life of the vehicle it wasn't worth it. We considered a Prius but a Corolla worked out better value.

MotoGP and F1 give you an idea of what is possible but no-one is going to pay $50k just for an engine in the average car. Okay for a Ferrari or Lambo or a Porsche, but not for a Camry.

The 1250S Bandit I rode was about as close as I've ever experienced to an electric motor. Turbine smooth with awesome torque from very low revs. Could take it down to 50km/h in top and just accelerate away with that endless stream of torque- very addictive!