Electric bike tops 150mph

Mission Motors has claimed the era of the electric bike has arrived after its Mission One prototype clocked an average speed of 150.059mph during speed trials at Bonneville Speedway.

Company product manager and test rider Jeremy Cleland set the speed record for electric motorcycles on a series of back-to-back runs this week.

Mission One – which achieved fourth place in the TTXGP at the Isle of Man earlier this year – has actually reached top speeds of 160mph its manufacture has claimed.
“The Mission One is just an incredible motorcycle,” said Jeremy Cleland, the AMA and AFM racer who shares duties as both Product Manager and Test Rider at Mission Motors.

“This is a bike that can rip up the track at Infineon Raceway, do power wheelies at 80 mph, and then come out here to Bonneville and dismantle the prior electric world speed record. 

“It pulls hard all the way from 0 on up to 161mph, all in one gear, with incredible torque. It’s a riding experience like no other.

“The important thing to understand is this is not a one-off race vehicle, this is a production prototype.

“It is the same bike that we raced at the Isle of Man and features the same powertrain that we will be delivering to our customers in 2010.”

The Mission One’s design, created by Yves Behar and fuseproject, blends traditional racing elements with a modern pioneering sensibility. The motorcycles are produced in San Francisco, CA with a radical commitment to environmental sustainability.

The machine wheeled out on to the salt flats, near to Salt Lake City, Utah, US, is a prototype of the electric superbike which will go on sale next year.

It is powered by a high energy lithium-ion battery which has a range of 150 miles between charges and can be recharged in just two hours.

The company is selling 300 Mission One electric motorcycles in the 2010 model year, with the first 50 Premier Limited Edition models available for reservation now.

Click here to watch a video of the bike in pre-Bonneville testing and on the salt flats.