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[benswing]

Hey all, here is an article based on an interview with their CEO recently.  Enjoy!

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1110448_san-francisco-to-la-on-one-charge-lightning-motorcycles-to-give-it-a-go

[Burton]

The high-capacity battery necessary to fit into a motorcycle frame with enough energy to power it for 400 miles will come from a company Hatfield connected with via the Battery Innovation Center of Indiana.

It will be a prototype pack, and won’t be sold, but Hatfield hopes this proof of concept will help propel the technology from lab bench to salable product faster.

My takeaway from the article

So they are going to make a bike, which looks like a "normal" bike, shove an experimental battery into it just to beet a record ... then not sell the bike ... :/

[Richard230]

The high-capacity battery necessary to fit into a motorcycle frame with enough energy to power it for 400 miles will come from a company Hatfield connected with via the Battery Innovation Center of Indiana.

It will be a prototype pack, and won’t be sold, but Hatfield hopes this proof of concept will help propel the technology from lab bench to salable product faster.

My takeaway from the article

So they are going to make a bike, which looks like a "normal" bike, shove an experimental battery into it just to beet a record ... then not sell the bike ... :/

Kind of reminds me of a company called Lightning. 

[Doug S]

I think there's some value in doing the exercise. The nay-sayers are always harping on the lack of range of EVs, so I think it's worth showing that even with today's battery technology, it IS possible.

It'll be interesting to see what he comes up with, and if he's going to have to ride all that way on the 5 freeway at 50 mph to make it. I wouldn't do that on a bet.

[Richard230]

I think there's some value in doing the exercise. The nay-sayers are always harping on the lack of range of EVs, so I think it's worth showing that even with today's battery technology, it IS possible.

It'll be interesting to see what he comes up with, and if he's going to have to ride all that way on the 5 freeway at 50 mph to make it. I wouldn't do that on a bet.

You could do that as a hood ornament on a big rig truck. 

[Burton]

With zeros 2013 stats as a base that is ~51kW of energy needed to go 400 miles at 52.5mph ... (I have a spreadsheet I made for my bike to find out best range / battery / charging for long range trips.)

Obviously this number goes down when you get better streamlining ... I don't know the base metrics for lightnings other bike or I could run the mafs for it as well

Oh ... and these are "advertised" specs ... which we have already found out come from testing without wind resistance :/

It will be interesting to see just how big (kW's) they have to go and what voltage they settle for.

[benswing]

He said they will go highway speeds so I expect they will go with the flow of traffic.  I don't think they are interested in hypermiling.  It is important to them that they are seen  as being better than gas bikes.  No compromises like having to ride at a slower speed.


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[Ashveratu]

The most notable part of the story for me was this > Additionally, Lightning intends to expand its lineup. Its current single LS-218 superbike starts at $38,888; the company says it will be joined by at least one smaller electric motorcycle that will cost less than $20,000.

IF Lightning offers a sub 20k bike with DCFC, then I will be the proud owner of a Lightning.

[NEW2elec]

Just when you think he's gone, he pops back up for more attention.
They kind of rag on Terry and his "cobbled" Vetter bike but that's his nature.  I only know of one Lightning that was ever "sold", they dropped it off to some CEO at a company pep rally and I doubt it has 500 miles on it.
It's what, five years old now, I don't know if you can call Lightning a motorcycle company as much as a fun lab for records.

[Richard230]

The most notable part of the story for me was this > Additionally, Lightning intends to expand its lineup. Its current single LS-218 superbike starts at $38,888; the company says it will be joined by at least one smaller electric motorcycle that will cost less than $20,000.

IF Lightning offers a sub 20k bike with DCFC, then I will be the proud owner of a Lightning.

Lightning already has shown a sub-20K bike.  I saw it at the 2014 Cupertino EV show.  Nothing new there, other than I don't think they ever sold more than one. 

[Burton]

I wonder if their strategy is IP (intellectual property) and they are just waiting to be bought out by some big name bike maker?

[wavelet]

I think there's some value in doing the exercise. The nay-sayers are always harping on the lack of range of EVs, so I think it's worth showing that even with today's battery technology, it IS possible.

Already been done, and needs no proving.
The team of Dutch university students mentioned here already did it (Eindhoven University of Technology  STORM Pulse project). I read elsewhere that they did indeed get ~230mi typical range at highway cruising speed (not the 100mph max).
IMO doing a long-distance 14K mi trip is much more impressive than a single 400mi run .

Also, very few ICE bikes have a 300mi range, let alone 400mi -- pretty much only a few adventure-type bikes can top 250, and that's really more aimed when leaving paved roads to where there may not be any gas stations.
Sport-tourers and even full tourers nowadays  seem to sell quite nicely with a 200mi range.
IOW, a 400mi e-bike isn't interesting.

More significantly, why aren't Lightning building & selling bikes instead of doing one-off concepts?
I suspect they either don't have the cash, or are  incapable of mass production for other reasons (as it is, the LS-218 is falsely named "world's production motorcycle", because the 218mph run was done using a slipstream fairing and non-standard gearing, and I haven't been able to find indications they sold any after the single sale mentioned 2.5 years ago).

Doing silly concepts is a pointless waste of effort... Or, worse, just PR spin.