Another emission free "around the world in 80 days" race

[kingcharles]

In 2016 there will be another emissions free "around the world in 80 days" race. Teams are starting preparations now and more info about the organisation can be found here: http://80dr.com/80-day-race/
It is a bit like the one from 2010 http://www.zero-race.com/ when a Vectrix did quite well.

This time a Dutch university team will participate with an electric motorcycle. They will design it from the ground up specifically for this challenge. See http://www.storm-eindhoven.com/index.html

The organisation is still looking for more teams and the Dutch university team is looking for sponsors.
Maybe a nice opportunity for an Electric Motorcycle manufacturer to step in?

[protomech]

Interesting.

An Eindhoven team was responsible for one of the more interesting solar cars recently, one that looks much closer to a conventional vehicle than the typical slipstreamed skateboards. I wonder if some of the same folks are working on the bike project.

http://www.solarteameindhoven.nl/

It looks like per their page they're working on a battery swap architecture, which makes me a little sad. Battery swap is useful for a niche application - like this race - but has been soundly rejected in consumer applications. Oh well.

They also spend a little bit of text talking about aero. It'll be interesting to see their final design.

[JeffK]

They are talking 500 km a day...
That could be done with a standard Empulse couldn't it? (starting early  )

[benswing]

I averaged about that distance on my ancient 2012 Zero S this past summer.  Would do it if I had a sponsor.  :-)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[kingcharles]

I met the University team a few weeks ago. They will use an interesting strategy of swappable batteries (over 20kWh!)
They will reveal the design tomorrow (computer rendering) and will begin the construction of their prototype bikes.

Nice fact is that because the students will ride the bike they will have to adhere to the Dutch law for young riders. Dutch law dictates that beginning riders are restricted to bikes with a maximum power of 11kW until the age of 20 and 35kW until the age of 22.
Their bike will be restricted to 35kW for this reason.

Here is a teaser of the bike:

[protomech]

The trailer will embed in the forum if you paste the link with http instead of https.



Appropriate music.

Tail aero treatment is either nonexistent or very minimal, from the teaser silhouette. Craig Vetter's fairings rely upon a teardrop tail. I'm curious how well minimal tail treatments could work, something similar to the 2012 E1PC perhaps.

Battery swap is still dumb. Terry can do 1000 miles in a day without battery swap. Swap can be okay for very niche applications like fleet or racing, but it's absolutely DOA for consumer applications. I bet even Tesla's battery swap stations are DOA, used only for milking a CARB credit. There's just so little benefit vs quick charging and so much downside re: logistics and cost.

Looking forward to the final reveal.

[kingcharles]

Https embeds fine in tapatalk. I guess it's time browsers catch up

In the meantime the presentation happened
In Dutch though

Some specs:
28,5kwh, range of 380 kilometres
24 swappable battery modules
Partial module fill supported
DC fast charge capability
2 speed gearbox which runs friction free in second gear
Air suspension on the rear
35kW Motor
240NM
0-100 km/h in 5 seconds
160 km/h top speed

Video of the rendering:

[Shinysideup]

Some attractive "Euro" design touches. 
I like the idea of a 2-speed transmission.
I don't know what air suspension on a bike feels like (pretty cushy on a Lincoln Town Car).
The range is phenomenal!

But something doesn't make a lot of sense to me:

240NM  of torque is 2.7 times that of the Empulse R, yet the 0-60 time is greater.
That torque figure must be at the rear wheel, in first gear?

[JeffK]

I attended the prestentation yesterday,

The Storm 1 is quite heavy, some 300 kg +, but the weight is adjustable, as they can remove/exchange the battery cartridges.
Still lots of work to be done on suspension geometry and ground clearance.

[roma258]

>200 mile range would be amazing on an electric motorbike, but you can see what kind of design compromises need to be made right now in order to squeeze that much battery capacity using today's technology. My fear is that electric moto tech will plateau unless we start seeing increases in energy density of these batteries.