Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1546567
P116 FEATURE I RECORD ATTEMPT AT BONNEVILLE MOTORCYCLE SPEED TRIALS 184 mph for the first "real" pass. Riding on salt is a little like riding on compressed ball bear- ings. You're never truly letting the rear tire grip—it's constantly skating on the precipice of transmitting all that torque while keeping you in control. It's a strange feeling, a cross between sand racing and road racing, but that 184-mph pass was so smooth I falsely thought, "This is going to be easy… ." There was reason for opti- mism. The WTF tracked straight and true, even if the pilot was firmly in denial about what he was doing, and we were still on the lowest power setting. The reality of the salt was somewhat different. I'd never ridden on the salt before, so this was somewhat a baptism by fire for me. After getting the extensive bodywork fitted and the screen cut down so I could fit behind it, I was due to run a series of passes to show the BMST officials I knew what I was doing. One run of 125 mph was done, then I was due to run another of 150 and 175 mph. Until I wasn't. I was told by the officials I was good to go, so with Richard's blessing and the notorious Bonneville wind taking some time off, it was straight to APS-W class, but getting to that point would require a few teeth- ing issues to be resolved first. I had ridden the WTF in fully unfaired form earlier in the year, clocking out at 175 mph be- fore we ran out of runway. In that run, it was surprising how stable and sure-footed the WTF seemed. With a lot of weight in the center of the chassis thanks to the massive battery and twin- motor setup, the WTF was like an arrow once it was pointed in the right direction. With the ultra-slippery bodywork fitted, I felt we'd easily nail the record, then we'd push it even further to see where we could take it. Yes. One battery pack feeds the two motors. We have five power stages and our vehicle-control unit, so much of the work is focused on making the bike more rideable and usable. At Level 1, on our Dynojet dyno, it makes 214 horsepower at the rear wheel. Each level above that adds about 100 pound-feet of torque. We have more than 900 amps at 750 volts available with the drive system. If you do that math, it gives you around 675,000 watts of potential power. We're limited by a variety of factors on the bike, but from what we can see, the potential is over 500 horsepower. But you can't find a dyno that will handle it at that level? Even the 400-horsepower dyno pull we did was difficult. The tire was spinning; we had to strap the bike down really hard, and it was pretty violent. We were sitting there watching the whole thing the entire time, being a little worried. Is this a bike you could put on the street and run as a production motorcycle? We are going to do that, yes. We've already ridden this one on the street quite a bit. We haven't weighed it yet, but it's something like 500 pounds, so around Suzuki Hayabusa range. The weight is high up in the chassis, and that has always been a problem with electric bikes. It feels awkward at low speeds and when you're moving it around because the weight is high. But when you're going into a corner, having that weight higher means you need less lean angle for the same cornering force, so it can work better in some ways. But the more weight we can take out, the better. There are constantly new battery technologies being proposed that are lighter and more powerful. That's another reason we do things like Pikes Peak and Bonneville. It gets the word out, and there are people working on the next generation of batteries. A lot of them have approached us with new technology, and we can test it quickly, find out where the outer limits are and introduce it into production relatively quickly. We've got bikes with batteries that will charge from 20 to 80 percent in just over 10 minutes. Those batteries also have very high energy density. In an LS-218, you can get 200 miles of freeway range at the speed limit. Where are the batteries and motors made? We build the battery packs in San Jose and at our shop in Hollister, but the cells are made all over the world. We get cells from Korea, China and Taiwan. We machine all the motor housings, but we have a domestic company that stamps the laminations and does the windings for us. So, it's partially overseas- made and partially American- made and assembled here in America. But really, that's kind of how all American motorcycles are these days.