This electric motorcycle you’ve never heard of has set a new ground speed record

During last week’s SCTA Bonneville Speed ​​Week event, a slew of fancy new power rails were transported to the salt in search of the overall speed record for electric propulsion. None of them managed to do that, as the EV West rationalizer continued to shred drive belts and all of the other competitors failed to hit last year’s record. A conservative EV project managed to set a new record, however, as the Delfast Dnepr electric motorcycle managed to set a Special Construction class (Class A motorcycle) electrically propelled (Omega) powered (Omega) class record at a modest 107 miles to the time. Sometimes that’s all it takes.

The rider, Serhii Malyk, had already set new records at Bonnevile on his Dnepr Electric special in 2017 and 2018, continuously iterating the bike to make it faster. This year the bike managed to beat its previous 2018 record of 3 miles per hour. While the frame is a unique piece for the class, the motor and batteries are apparently straight from a Dnepr stock.

For the course of the event in 2021, Malyk upgraded the bike with a new controller equipped with updated software, and a new 50 kW permanent magnet production electric motor (capable of 100 kW peak power). Apparently the bike carries 36 batteries on board to make a race, totaling 22,000 milliamperes hours feeding the inverter about 800 volts. Now if I do my math correctly (or more accurately if the conversion calculator I found on Google is) this should add up to 16kWh of battery power, which is about half of what my Nissan Leaf has at edge. it’s probably not going very well far, but it’s OK fast.

It’s an interesting little ride, as it doesn’t appear to be wearing any aerodynamic aids. I did not study SCTA Special construction motorcycle rulebook, but that record appears to be a record that would be fairly easy to break in the years to come. Damn, an original LiveWire One is electronically limited to 115 miles per hour, so grab one and build a special chassis for it and Robert is your mom’s brother.

In any case, it’s pretty cool to see electric propulsion breaking records in Bonneville. There’s a lot of development to be done, but it’s theoretically possible that electric cars will soon overtake piston engine machines in the record books. Watch this place. You know, over the next decade.