You may recall that earlier this year, the EV team of Moto Electra established a cross country electric motorcycle record by crossing the country, from sea to sea, in the time of only 84.5 hours.
The January issue of Motorcyclist magazine, on page 82 (the last page of the magazine) has a nice article about Thad Wolff's cross-country record-breaking trip in his Norton-based elmoto. (My guess is that he didn't need the Norton chassis's "Isolastic" motor mounts on the bike.) What I particularly found interesting was the explanation for employing a chase vehicle to pull a generator to recharge the bike, instead of looking for operating public charging stations, like Terry does during his cross country adventures.
The article says: "This effort was not intended to demonstrate the adequacy of the power grid for supporting electric vehicles...." Motor Electra builder and team manager Brian Richardson is quoted as saying: "At the turn of the 20th century, gasoline-powered vehicles were useless for long-distance travel. There were no roads, no filling stations, and the vehicles were not dependable. Everyone thought gas-powered vehicles would never replace the horse for long-distanced travel. Fast-forward 100 years, and our goal is to challenge the same misperceptions about electric vehicles". I think that really gives their cross-country record some context and provides a base for future electric vehicle performance and technological improvements.
