Custom DIY electric sportbike

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/09/diy-electric-motorcycle/

Performance is still being improved, but awesome work!

yeah thats pretty cool. I just wonder what "throttle" response is like and etc.

Given the torque profile of an electric motor, the throttle response should embarrass a gasoline-engined bike, at least initially. The gas bike probably catches up once it gets wound up.

I'd be more concerned about the handling. I'd guess the bike gained a bit of weight in the process..

my concern wouldn't be that it wouldn't be sharp enough. My concern would be that it would be more of an off tire smoke switch. with that much torque available from basically 0 rpm, that could create driveability problems.

billy3esq wrote: I'd be more concerned about the handling. I'd guess the bike gained a bit of weight in the process..

says it weighs the same as it started out with the gas motor.

In reply to andrave:

Read it in a big hurry and didn't see that.

As for the tire smoke switch, controlling torque delivery of an electric motor is trivial. The guy's dad's an EE, so I'm sure the control problem is worked out pretty well.

maybe they could make it bluetooth to a speaker in your helmet to go "BWWAAAAHHHHh" and such.

I have a feeling you'd miss it otherwise.

With the right controller, your throttle could be a high-precision dimmer switch. You know, for when the mood is just right.

I'm seriously impressed with how he made his own bodywork for the bike, and by traditional methods, no less.

billy3esq wrote: Given the torque profile of an electric motor, the throttle response should embarrass a gasoline-engined bike, at least initially. The gas bike probably catches up once it gets wound up.

The article claimed that it tops out at about 70. A 600cc super sport would over take it in about 3-4 sec.

Still an incredible achivment. Props to the guy.

Yeah, but it made no mention of how quickly it got to 70. Remember, it only has one ratio right now.

Very cool!

The cheap electric golf car controllers are PWM and use a potentiometer input plus a dead-man switch. In high school we used them in 24v systems with Lynch LEM-200 and LEM-170 motors. They had enough torque that the dyno we used couldn't stall them (even at 24v, these were rated more than twice that). The cheap controller still had no problem keeping all that torque under control, even to the 20" bicycle wheel we used :D.

Unless you wanted to smoke the tire, which it did very nicely.