Lightning Eyes 10-Minute Charging for its Motorbikes

Lightning Bikes is already identified for record-setting speeds. In 2011, the corporate’s LS-218 SuperBike set a landspeed document 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 kph (218 mph) peak. That SuperBike topped each inside combustion engine motorbike en path to a Pikes Peak Worldwide Hill Climb win in 2013, on the Colorado gantlet that’s among the many world’s highest-profile tech challenges for automobiles and bikes alike.

The Southern California firm is trying to velocity issues up once more—this time with record-setting charging stops. Founder Richard Hatfield claims that the corporate’s Lightning Strike motorbike can fill its battery from 20 p.c to 80 p.c in a little bit over 10 minutes on a Stage 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 might additionally assist unlock gross sales for electrical two-wheelers, which have been sluggish to catch on as a consequence of dawdling cost occasions and restricted using vary. Whereas electrical automobiles have vastly more room for batteries, motorbike purveyors can solely stuff so many cells right into a slender body earlier than a motorbike turns into impractically heavy, cumbersome to journey, or ungainly in look.

Lightning Bikes claims that the Lightning Strike motorbike can fill its battery from 20 p.c to 80 p.c in a little bit over 10 minutes on a Stage 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 Stage 3 charging, it’s a giant penalty if you happen to’re attempting 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 house as 20-kWh pack in its LS-218, for a 20 p.c achieve in capability. The result’s a curb weight of slightly below 227 kilograms (500 kilos), about 45 kilos (100 kilos) greater than prime sport bikes.

The battery pack holds extra power than the 22 kWh pack in BMW’s authentic i3 electrical automobile that debuted in 2012. Lightning can be growing a 28-kWh pack for its race-oriented LS-218.

Acceleration comparability LMC vs HD

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 using. When it’s time to cease, the Strike can take in Stage 3 juice at as much as 120 kilowatts. The corporate posted a YouTube video pitting its bike’s charging time in opposition to a Harley-Davidson Dwell Wire and Zero Bike’s SR/S.

Within the video, the Strike provides 12 kWh of energy in slightly below 11 minutes on a typical DC quick charger. That’s nearer to a 50 p.c recharge than the corporate’s 60 p.c (from 20-to-80 p.c) declare. But the bike nonetheless slurps juice almost 4 occasions sooner than the Harley’s 3.3-kilowatt charge, and greater than 10 occasions sooner than the Zero, which, just like the overwhelming majority of e-motos, is restricted to Stage 2 AC charging. The Strike’s silicon-anode cells are only one aspect of the quick tempo.

“Each element in between—the cabling, interconnects, even the contactors, needed to be reengineered,” Hatfield says.

As with all motorbike, producing cooling air is not any drawback when the Lightning is on the transfer. However managing the extraordinary temperatures generated by DC charging requires a half-dozen followers to maneuver air by the bike’s fairing and migrate warmth from parts. Software program retains a detailed eye on thermal metrics throughout charging, “so we are able to push tougher on a 50-degree morning than a 90-degree afternoon,” Hatfield says. “The cells might cost even sooner, however we’re attempting 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 appliance. However the firm is growing an 800-volt structure for the LS-218, on par with as we speak’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 charge,” Hatfield mentioned. “However 300 amps at 800 volts, and now you’re at 240 kilowatts. That’s actually the path we have to go together with this.”

That strong structure might 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, might push the electrical motor nearer to 12,500 rpm, producing greater than 149 kilowatts (200 horsepower). That determine would prime each manufacturing ICE motorbike, 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 velocity document, starting this spring with runs at El Mirage in California, and later at Bonneville—situations prepared on the otherworldly but shrinking and deteriorating salt floor. The newest goal is 402 kph (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 specially-modified, gasoline-powered Kawasaki. (The Lightning holds the landspeed document for street-legal manufacturing bikes). However even the world’s quickest inside combustion engine bikes can’t match the Lightning’s tips, together with utilizing a solar-panel array on a cellular van to offer electrical energy for these record-smashing runs.