Lightning Bikes is already recognized for record-setting speeds. In 2011, the corporate’s LS-218 SuperBike set a land pace report 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 inside combustion engine bike en path to a Pikes Peak Worldwide Hill Climb win in 2013, on the Colorado gauntlet that’s among the many world’s highest-profile tech challenges for automobiles and bikes alike.
The Southern California firm is trying to pace 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 just a little over 10 minutes on a Degree 3 DC quick charger. That point 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.
Quicker pit stops may additionally assist unlock gross sales for electrical two-wheelers, which have been sluggish to catch on resulting from dawdling cost instances 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 motorcycle turns into impractically heavy, cumbersome to journey, or ungainly in look.
Lightning Bikes claims that the Lightning Strike bike can fill its battery from 20 % to 80 % in just a little over 10 minutes on a Degree 3 DC quick charger. Lightning Bikes
“Prices have gotten aggressive, so the final huge points are vary and cost time,” Hatfield says. “For the bikes that don’t have Degree 3 charging, it’s a giant penalty if you happen to’re making an attempt to journey 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 powerful particular capability of about 3,000 milliampere-hours per gram. Lightning Bikes built-in the Strike’s 24-kilowatt-hour battery in the identical area as 20-kWh pack in its LS-218, for a 20 % achieve 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 unique i3 electrical automotive that debuted in 2012. Lightning can be creating 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 Degree 3 juice at as much as 120 kilowatts. The corporate posted a YouTube video pitting its bike’s charging time towards a Harley-Davidson Reside Wire and Zero Motorbike’s SR/S.
Within 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. But the bike nonetheless slurps juice almost 4 instances as quick because the Harley’s 3.3-kilowatt fee, and greater than 10 instances as quick as the Zero, which, just like the overwhelming majority of e-motos, is proscribed to Degree 2 AC charging. The Strike’s silicon-anode cells are only one factor of the quick tempo.
“Each element in between—the cabling, interconnects, even the contactors, needed to be reengineered,” Hatfield says.
As with every bike, producing cooling air is not any downside when the Lightning is on the transfer. However managing the extreme temperatures generated by DC charging requires a half-dozen followers to maneuver air by means of the bike’s fairing and migrate warmth from elements. Software program retains a detailed eye on thermal metrics throughout charging, “so we are able to push more durable on a 50-degree morning than a 90-degree afternoon,” Hatfield says. “The cells may cost even quicker, however we’re making an attempt to get a stability of system to handle thermal points.”
The Strike’s electrical structure operates within the 300-to-400-volt vary, relying on the applying. However the firm is creating an 800-volt structure for the LS-218, on par with right now’s fastest-charging electrical automobiles, 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 fee,” Hatfield mentioned. “However 300 amps at 800 volts, and now you’re at 240 kilowatts. That’s actually the route we have to go along with this.”
That strong structure may additionally generate extra sheer pressure. The usual 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 Manufacturing facility’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 corporate can be aiming to interrupt its personal electrical pace report, starting this spring with runs at El Mirage in California, and later at Bonneville—circumstances prepared 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 pace report for street-legal manufacturing bikes). However even the world’s quickest internal-combustion-engine bikes can’t match the Lightning’s methods, together with utilizing a solar-panel array on a cell van to supply electrical energy for these record-smashing runs.
