Electric Motorcycle Hits 150 MPH, Breaks Speed Record | Hacker News Reader

Electric Motorcycle Hits 150 MPH, Breaks Speed Record

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14 pointsMikeCapone9 comments

Um, here's the Killacycle hitting 155 MPH 2 years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDHJNG2PngQ

And on thier website they claim a best speed of 172.19 MPH: http://www.killacycle.com/

The National Electric Drag Racing Association (NEDRA) also has the killacycle at 168MPH.

http://www.nedra.com/record_holders.html

"[T]he national AMA top speed record", ie. the fastest a motorcycle in its class has gone in an AMA timed event -- not necessarily the fastest any electric motorcycle has ever gone.

Different kinds of events. Drag racing is a single run over 1/4 mile

Land speed record events time two runs within a set amount of time, both runs in opposite directions to account for wind. I think in this case a mile.

Exactly. Killacycle is very cool too, but a whole other kind of beast.

Given a decent budget this doesn't sound like a tricky record to break. If you set out to build a purpose-built electric motorcycle dragster for the purposes of setting land speed records (as opposed to this, which actually looks like a street-usable vehicle), it should be possible to get up to 200 mph without too much difficulty.

By comparison, you can stroll down to your local Suzuki dealer, plonk down a mere $14,000 for a Habayusa, and ride away at 188 mph, or 206 mph if you remove the limiter.

Hmmm, anyone got a couple of million spare and want to sponsor an electric motorcycle land speed record attempt?

This is another cool one, the MotoCzysz Ep1c: http://www.autoblog.com/2009/06/08/motoczysz-releases-pics-o...

They entered in the Isle of Mann TT this year, and probably had the fastest bike in the zero-emission class, but ended early due to mechanical problems.

Cool, hadn't heard that electrics were so far along.

As soon as they're $65,000 cheaper, I'm signing up.

GO KARL & DURKEE!

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