Got a bunch of those new nanophosphate lithium ion batteries just listlessly hanging around the garage, and want to have something for them to do when they’re not powering your cordless tools? Slap them in a motorcycle frame and make your own KillaCycle® electric motorcycle like the one pictured above. It will go 0-60 mph in 0.97 seconds, accelerate at 2.89 g, and hit over 174 mph in a quarter-mile. The KillaCycle®’s batteries (1,210 cells weighing 200 pounds and having a capacity of 9.1kWh) drive two DC series motors and provide over 500 horsepower.
Should you want to tone it down a bit, you could use the batteries in a stripped Cagiva Freccia frame, like Eva Håkansson (she’s the young lady in the KillaCycle® picture, by the way) and her father did, and create an ElectroCat as shown below.
The ElectroCat’s battery pack only weighs 106 lbs., has a capacity of around 4.8k Wh, and drives a permanent magnet DC motor. This electric motorcycle has a range of around 50 miles per charge, and is currently geared for a top speed of 60 mph.
KillaCycle® [Manufacturer’s Site]
ElectroCat [Manufacturer’s Site]
Nanophosphate™ Technology [A123Systems]
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4 Responses to Use Those Spare Li-Ion Batteries
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This is the same bike that almost killed it’s inventor a few years ago. Glad to see he and the project are still going strong.
(here’s the crash video… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ1eMYdLKrs)
“It will go 0-60 mph in 0.97 seconds”
What keeps the pilot from blacking out?
A 3-G acceleration over the span of a few seconds isn’t anywhere near enough to black out a person who’s horrendously out of shape and caught totally by surprise, much less someone who’s reasonably fit and anticipating the acceleration.
I’d be a lot more worried about not being able to hold on than blacking out. Accelerating at 3 G means your arms and thighs suddenly have to support triple your normal body weight, or 540 pounds for a 180-pound adult male.
cl
General Electric has poured millions of dollars into A123. I work for GE and being a share-holder I have a sense of entitlement and hope I can get a ride on that baby 😉