VOL. 56 ISSUE 11 MARCH 19, 2019 P97
The Lightning
Strike on the roads
above Los Angeles,
only a few hundred
miles from its
headquarters in
San Jose.
Lightning Motorcycle Corp. founder
and CEO Richard Hatfield has been
building E-superbikes for longer than any-
one else, and he's achieved more with
them in the white heat of competition than
any of his rivals, too, up to and including
coming out on top in a direct matchup
against ICE (internal combustion engine)
sport bikes. For the past five years, his
Californian company has marketed hand-
built LS-218 street bikes based on the
Lightning. The Lightning currently owns
BY ALAN CATHCART
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KEVIN WING
the world land speed record for electric
motorcycles, of which 40 examples have
so far been built for delivery to custom-
ers as far afield as South Africa, China
and Guam, though most have been sold
in the USA. Purchasers have a choice of
three 380V battery packs powering the
LS-218's 149kW/200bhp electric motor.
The cheapest 12kWh base version gives
a 100-mile range, while the midrange
15kWh version manages 120 miles, and
the 20kWh model 150 miles, all claimed
figures for highway riding conditions
at legal speeds. Price-wise, the base
model LS-218 starts at $38,888, rising
to $42,888 for the 15kwh version and
$46,888 for the 20kwh model.
So while undoubtedly delivering im-
pressive performance and mega-exclu-
sivity for the money, so far the Lightnings
have very much followed the E-biking
norm in terms of pricing.
But now, Richard Hatfield is prepar-
ing to step outside that financial comfort
zone and make electric motorcycles fully
competitive with ICE hardware in terms
of pricing, as well as performance.
He's doing so by launching the Light-
ing Strike, a downsized 600 supersport
equivalent to the LS-218 superbike,
which, while still delivering attractive
sports styling and appealing perfor-
mance stats, will cost a barely believable
$12,988 for the base model. That's with
slightly less than half the horsepower
of the LS-218, namely 70kw/96bhp at
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