Mission Motors wants to break into the superbike market with the industry's first mass-produced, all-electric motorcycle – and for that crowd, speed is pretty important.
On Tuesday, the San Francisco-based startup announced its prototype Mission One had set a speed record that could help that quest. On Sept. 1, one of the motorcycles reached 150.059 miles per hour in a one-mile run at the annual BUB Motorcycle Speed Trials at the Bonneville Speedway, in the salt flats west of Salt Lake City, Utah.
That's pretty fast – but in lead-up runs, the motorcycle went even faster, about 161 miles per hour. While those are speeds frightening to the average car driver, they are just what Mission Motors' prospective buyers are looking for, CEO Forrest North said (see Mission Motors: The Need for Electric Speed).
That speed record was made possible through improvements the company has made to the motorcycle's motor controller and batteries over the year, North said.
"There are still probably more power gains to be had," he said. "But now we can spend more time on the chassis and design, and getting ready to produce the bike. We're in the testing and validation phase."
Beyond its high speeds, the Mission One is expected to cost about $69,000 and get a range of about 150 miles on its lithium-ion battery packs, which will take about two hours to charge on a dedicated charging outlet, or about 10 hours on a standard 120-volt outlet, he said.
"Our technology allows us to have amazing performance... and not a huge range requirement," he said. "It's the right class for the beginning of electric motorcycles."
Mission Motors, which used to be called Hum Cycles, has raised about $2 million to date, North said (see Hum Cycles Raises Angel Fund). It's now in the midst of raising its next round, and hopes to have its first models on sale by next year, he said.
While Mission Motors is targeting the high-performance motorcycle market at present - and expects to be producing tens of thousands of those bikes in the coming years – it's also eyeing the lower-cost motorcycle market as the next step, he said.
Will approaching the electric bike market from the high end be the way to go? North believes it's the right tack to take, but others – Brammo, Zero Motorcycles and Vectrix among them – are taking the opposite approach with lower-cost motorcycles, dirt bikes and street scooters (see 24 Hours of Electric Motorcross).
Brammo, for example is looking to sell its $12,000 Enertia electric motorcycle in Best Buy stores (see Green Light post).
