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[Richard230]

Here is a short report, with a couple of fun videos, showing some Zeros and other electric motorcycles, racing around the Sears Point racetrack last weekend:   

http://green.autoblog.com/2012/05/13/zero-motorcycles-prove-resilient-in-crash-marred-ttxgp-weekend/

[dkw12002]

That yellow beast that jumped ahead at the beginning seems to have a more advanced technology...gears? bigger motor, more voltage?

[Electric Cowboy]

Its a totally different class, its the prototype lightning. Almost the same as comparing a ninja 250 with GSX-R1000. Both classes were on the grid at the same time to make a better show.

[Biff]

The cool thing is that in the first race, one of the Zero's didn't get lapped by the Lightning.  The reports seem to write that the Lightning made the Zero's look slow, but when it came down to lap time, the 200ish horse power Lightning bikes were only about 14% faster than the 20ish Horsepower of the Zeros (1:55 lap vs 2:13 laps during the race). No doubt on the straight, Lightnings top speed was quite a bit faster than Zero's, but the zero's held their own through the rest of the track.

-ryan

[manlytom]

and the race had only 15 laps, lets do some more and the lightning will run out of power ... and will it be reliable day in and out ? Guess not, as specially designed for having fun racing. different class. interesting that noone came along with a Enertia or any other production / stock bike to just join in the fun on a racetrack. Seems really that Zero's are the only one around.

[Electric Cowboy]

Were there enough enertias produced to compete in the E SuperStock?

[CliC]

and will it be reliable day in and out ? Guess not, as specially designed for having fun racing.

Guess not, period. Neither Lightning finished both races That's why the Zero riders ended up on the podium; they got points from both races.

Seriously, though, I applaud the folks at Lightning for trying to advance the state of the art. Lessons learned from both the Zero "daily-driver" philosophy as well as Lightning's "all-out" one will help elmoto tech in the long run. When one lives on the edge, sometimes one gets a few cuts.

[protomech]

I thought the race was 7 laps, not 15.

The Lightning bike has 12 kWh (+50% over the ZF9) onboard and an aerodynamic fairing.

There were certainly enough Enertias produced to compete in eSuperStock, but the Enertia doesn't have a high enough top speed or a big enough battery pack to last the race.

The Enertia TTR race bike that contested the 2009 IOM TTXGP race was essentially an Enertia frame and an Empulse concept powertrain (8.0 kWh pack, Perm 156W IIRC). Actually not terribly dissimilar to the 2012 Zero bikes.

[Harlan]

The race was 11 laps. Martin Swarc's Zero consistently depleted the battery the furthest and it still used less than 6kWhs AFAIK.

[flar]

Would an Enertia+ be able to compete?  (I guess it would need to ship in volume first, but once it does, does it have enough battery/speed).

Also, the Lightning claims a "usable freeway speed range of over 100 miles and a combined city and highway EPA range of over 150 miles", so I don't think it has range issues compared to the ZF9's

[firepower]

Anyone know what the top speed of the zero's was?
And is there a link to lightning website? can you buy these?

[protomech]

Enertia+ could enter (once 25 have shipped). I don't think it would be competitive on most tracks with anything but itself.

If a Zero can use 6 kWh on the track then I bet the Lightning bike can use every bit of its 12 kWh ..

Michael Barnes had a qualifying lap of 1:47.553, his fastest race lap in Race 1 was 1:51.548. He should have been pretty close to his qualifying lap time on a nearly empty race course if he could put full power down for the entire race.

You can supposedly buy them, but be prepared to come up with $40k.
http://www.lightningmotorcycle.com/

[flar]

If a Zero can use 6 kWh on the track then I bet the Lightning bike can use every bit of its 12 kWh ..

True, but only because it has the ability to expend energy at a much faster absolute rate by doing things the Zeros are unable to do.

I was responding to someone who was claiming that the Lightning would run out of steam compared to the Zeros if the race were longer.  Actually, given its fairing and its much longer highway and city ranges, it could stay just a second in front of the Zeros until the Zeros ran out of battery and then wheelied off into the sunset...