Last winter Chip Yates wowed the electric motorcycle scene with his plan for a powerful electric superbike, which would he would race in this years TTXGP season, declaring that "2010 is really the pioneering year for electric superbike racing." While the 2010 TTXGP and e-Power season has been amazing, Chip Yates team was not there citing the need for more R&D to achieve their vision. According to a press release sent on Friday their bike is to be officially unveiled in early October at the Battery Show conference in San Jose. They have been releasing teasers and tidbits on his website for months, pointing to a tantalizing treat of an electric motorcycle that appears destined to be at the top of the competition during the 2011 race season.
The motorcycle has a 194 HP (295 ft/lbs torque) electric motor from UQM, a highly advanced computerized control system, and a "real KERS system" (more on that in a minute), a multifaceted set of lean angle detectors, other data loggers, a custom controller, CAN buses, and specialized software. They're using data collected from Chips earlier races to guide the system design. If it can hit the claimed performance levels this is more powerful than any of the electric motorcycles raced to date.
Their original plans were for the SWIGZ.COM team to have two motorcycles built and racing all through the 2010 season in both US and Europe. Instead, at Infineon in May they brought a highly unfinished bike if only to demonstrate they're alive even if not racing. Between batteries that didn't fulfill their needs, and the need to carefully design their KERS system, they weren't able to race in 2010. But there's always 2011, eh?
The KERS system is one of the keys to their electric motorcycle design. KERS stands for Kinetic Energy Recovery System, and is a method of simulating engine braking by using regenerative braking. Motorcycle riders (or anybody driving manual transmission) use "engine braking" to control their speed as an adjunct to the regular brakes. Normally engine braking is as simple as letting off the throttle while leaving the clutch engaged. In electric motorcycles there is no clutch, and the typical design is to freewheel (coast) upon letting off the clutch. Freewheeling makes for different riding practices on electric and gas motorcycles, and the electric motorcycle rider would be using the brake more often than the gas bike rider. Regenerative braking can be used to simulate engine braking, while regaining some energy into the battery pack, but it's often dismissed as not regaining much energy.
Their KERS system is claimed to be very effective, and to be a big challenge for the battery pack. With their KERS system electricity is generated at a very high rate, several times higher than normal charging, and high enough to potentially damage the batteries. So far they've limited the KERS rate to a level that's safe for the battery, while searching for batteries that can not only deliver the power required for racing, but also accept energy from KERS at a higher rate.
The SWIGZ.COM team goal is to equal (or better) the speed of the 600cc superbike class in which Chip Yates is a pro racer. For comparison, the top bikes in the 2010 TTXGP and e-Power series (Lightning Motors, MotoCzysz, Agni Motors and Team Electra) had fastest lap times about 10-15 seconds slower than the fastest superbike times. It's within reach to equal or better the superbike speeds in the next year or two, and Chip Yates aims to do so in 2011. Achieving speed equality would be quite an achievement, theoretically putting electric motorcycle and gas motorcycle racing on par with each other, and begging the question of whether need to burn fuel to have an exciting race. The specs he's published indicate they can do it, but of course the real test is when the bike gets to the track in a race. Next year.
Related Articles:
Announcements from SWIGZ.COM, CRP Racing, Zero Motorcycles demonstrate support for TTXGP
References:
Chip Yates Will Unveil The SWIGZ.com Electric Superbike At The Battery Show
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