Lightning Motorcycles is already identified for record-setting speeds. In 2011, the corporate’s LS-218 SuperBike set a land velocity file for manufacturing electrical bikes on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, with a 347.55 kilometer-per-hour (215.91 mile-per-hour) common run and a 351 km/h (218 mph) peak. That SuperBike topped each inner combustion engine bike en path to a Pikes Peak International Hill Climb win in 2013, on the Colorado gauntlet that’s among the many world’s highest-profile tech challenges for vehicles and bikes alike.
The Southern California firm is seeking to velocity issues up once more—this time with record-setting charging stops. Founder Richard Hatfield claims that the corporate’s Lightning Strike bike can fill its battery from 20 % to 80 % in slightly over 10 minutes on a Level 3 DC quick charger. That time isn’t for much longer than a gasoline fill-up, particularly for motorcyclists who don’t thoughts some stretching and restoration after hours within the saddle.
Faster pit stops may additionally assist unlock gross sales for electrical two-wheelers, which have been sluggish to catch on as a result of dawdling cost occasions and restricted driving vary. Whereas electrical carmakers have vastly more room for batteries, bike purveyors can solely stuff so many cells right into a slender body earlier than a motorbike turns into impractically heavy, cumbersome to trip, or ungainly in look.
Lightning Motorcycles claims that the Lightning Strike bike can fill its battery from 20 % to 80 % in slightly over 10 minutes on a Level 3 DC quick charger. Lightning Motorcycles
“Costs are becoming competitive, so the last big issues are range and charge time,” Hatfield says. “For the bikes that don’t have Level 3 charging, it’s a big penalty if you’re trying to ride longer than the battery can take you.”
For the US $13,000 Lightning Strike, zippy charging stops start with a pouch-format battery from Enevate, with a excessive focus of silicon in its anode. That California firm claims its silicon-dominant anode materials has a formidable particular capability of about 3,000 milliampere-hours per gram. Lightning Motorcycles built-in the Strike’s 24-kilowatt-hour battery in the identical area as 20-kWh pack in its LS-218, for a 20 % acquire in capability. The result’s a curb weight of just below 227 kilograms (500 kilos), about 45 kilos (100 kilos) greater than that of prime sport bikes.
The battery pack holds extra vitality than the 22-kWh pack in BMW’s authentic i3 electrical automobile that debuted in 2012. Lightning can be growing a 28-kWh pack for its race-oriented LS-218.
This video reveals an acceleration comparability between Lightning and Harley-Davidson.
Hatfield says the Strike’s environment friendly battery delivers a helpful real-world vary of 150 miles at a 70-mph clip, and nearer to 165 or 170 miles in mellower driving. When it’s time to cease, the Strike can soak up Level 3 juice at as much as 120 kilowatts. The firm posted a YouTube video pitting its bike’s charging time towards a Harley-Davidson Live Wire and Zero Motorcycle’s SR/S.
In the video, the Strike provides 12 kWh of energy in just below 11 minutes on a typical DC quick charger. That’s nearer to a 50 % recharge than the corporate’s 60 % (from 20-to-80 %) declare. Yet the bike nonetheless slurps juice almost 4 occasions as quick because the Harley’s 3.3-kilowatt charge, and greater than 10 occasions as quick as the Zero, which, just like the overwhelming majority of e-motos, is restricted to Level 2 AC charging. The Strike’s silicon-anode cells are only one component of the quick tempo.
“Every component in between—the cabling, interconnects, even the contactors, had to be reengineered,” Hatfield says.
As with any bike, producing cooling air isn’t any drawback when the Lightning is on the transfer. But managing the extraordinary temperatures generated by DC charging requires a half-dozen followers to maneuver air by the bike’s fairing and migrate warmth from elements. Software retains a detailed eye on thermal metrics throughout charging, “so we can push harder on a 50-degree morning than a 90-degree afternoon,” Hatfield says. “The cells could charge even faster, but we’re trying to get a balance of system to manage thermal issues.”
The Strike’s electrical structure operates within the 300-to-400-volt vary, relying on the applying. But the corporate is growing an 800-volt structure for the LS-218, on par with right now’s fastest-charging electrical vehicles, such because the Lucid Air, Porsche Taycan, or fashions from the South Korean trio of Genesis, Hyundai, and Kia.
“If we’re doing 300 amps at 400 volts, that’s a (peak) 120-kilowatt charging rate,” Hatfield mentioned. “But 300 amps at 800 volts, and now you’re at 240 kilowatts. That’s really the direction we need to go with this.”
That sturdy structure may additionally generate extra sheer power. The commonplace Strike has as much as 132 kilowatts (180 horsepower) and an electrical motor that peaks round 7,500 rpm. Boosting voltage, Hatfield mentioned, may push the electrical motor nearer to 12,500 rpm, producing greater than 149 kilowatts (200 horsepower). That determine would prime each manufacturing internal-combustion-engine bike, together with the Aprilia RSV4 Factory’s 140 kilowatts (190 horsepower), as examined by Cycle World.
If there’s any draw back, it’s that Lightning, like many different two-wheeled dreamers, hasn’t delivered many bikes. Hatfield wouldn’t reveal what number of bikes the corporate has made, however mentioned the corporate can fulfill an order in 90 days.
The firm can be aiming to interrupt its personal electrical velocity file, starting this spring with runs at El Mirage in California, and later at Bonneville—circumstances keen on the otherworldly but shrinking and deteriorating salt floor. The newest goal is 402 km/h (250 mph), a mind-bending tempo on two wheels that requires a particular, steely nerved rider. That rider could be Joe Amo, who has already blown previous these speeds on a specifically modified, gasoline-powered Kawasaki. (The Lightning holds the land velocity file for street-legal manufacturing bikes). But even the world’s quickest internal-combustion-engine bikes can’t match the Lightning’s tips, together with utilizing a solar-panel array on a cellular van to offer electrical energy for these record-smashing runs.