Kyle Ginaven, aka Nuts & Volts of ElMoto fame, was chatting me on the FB yesterday and said, OK, gotta go get ready to meet the president. Little did I know he meant, meet The President. I couldn’t decide whether this post should be in the Dept of Holy Crap, or the Dept of Awesome Awesomeness and Congrats!
Here are some shots from the OSU Facebook page, I’ll credit them when I find out who took them:
For a full story on Obama’s visit to OSU and his comments on EVs, electric motorcycles and energy policy, try this story from the Columbus Dispatch.
I gotta get me a GoPro. Yeah, OK this is just me taking some notes on killer camera angle and placement on a motorcycle, since it’s the most AWEsome motorcycle racing video I’ve seen. (Are you listening, butt-shot-video-boys?) Looking forward to kind of work on an electric bike…
Here it is:
No, now stop it, it has NOTHING to do with the fact we can gaze into Shelina Moreda’s eyes as she slams that bitch through the turns (or watch her butt… wait, WHAT??)
…still debating whether to paint it or not. I don’t know how many people share my love of “barn-fresh” bikes. Anyway, I’m handing it over to Hollywood Electrics this week to keep over the holidays. Harlan showed me your book. It looked very comprehensive- I wish I knew about it before I started Juicer I. Anyway, I hope you get a kick out of Juicer II.
Yep. That’s the Bad Girl of Electric Racing, Shelina (“Ride it like you stole it”) Moreda, rockin’ the May 2012 First Ever Annual ElectroPalooza.
This thing is actually starting to get some legs. As you can see in the comments, Lightning and Team Zero wanna come. Brammo might be there. Shelina has hinted that her CRP team may show. There’s more. Much, much more.
Mission Motors. Home of the Hot Mission Chick. Quietly working away on god-knows-what. Showing up, when they do show up, with simply the hottest looking bikes on the planet – not fake star-wars concept renderings with form dictating function, but not really running yet either… pretty much ignoring critics who are starting to joke that they would never see a Mission in a race, and quietly staying the course.
One thing was for sure. When they did actually show up for a race with a bike that ran, they damn well better make a good showing of it. As I told my son when he dyed his mohawk pink for his first wrestling match, you better kick some serious ass. (3 matches, 3 pins, thank you very much…)
Well, yesterday, Mission kicked some serious ass. And I just want to say thank you.
Maybe I’m not paying attention, but to me, Mission hasn’t been on the radar much. But, they’ve shown the wisdom of preparation and perseverance in an age and industry where everyone wants instant results. Well, folks, it takes time to develop a state-of-the-art brand new drivetrain technology, and some teams are out there putting it all on the line for all to see, learning as they go, failures along with successes. Nothing wrong with that. Then there are others, Mission for one, who are sitting back, conserving their resources, looking at what everyone is doing, and learning from the others. You gotta love that, too.
In an industry where every other press release is some vaporware concept that touts impossible performance, and companies who seem to care more about attracting investors than building a company, the idea that you need to take one step at a time, and deliver on your promises seems oddly refreshing.
Mission, for me, was one of the first companies who really “got” the electric motorcycle and why I thought it was so amazing. It’s not the Green. It’s the Power. And this video tells that story as simply as I’ve been able to find it told.
I show it to everyone, and I only wish it was on YouTube so I didn’t have to snag it myself. (WordPress doesn’t seem to like to embed Vimeo…)
So I give Mission, along with the KillaCycle, credit for dragging me into this obsession by showing what the thing is all about. Strapping myself to a big electric drivetrain and seeing what that felt like. (…like letting go from a bungee stretched from about a mile away, thanks.) I’ve been sitting, waiting to see what Mission was going to do, what they were up to, and if they ever were going to shut the critics up. This morning, I don’t hear much in the way of whining. Not only is the electric racing fanboy community all a-twitter, but the gas motorsport guys have sat up and taken notice too.
Noah Podolefsky has done it again. In this post, he shows comparison curves for several different motor configurations. Together. In a way that actually makes sense, and allows you to sidestep the manufacturer BS. The man should be tied up somewheres before someone gets hurt. Go to the link for updates and explanations.
I am excited to announce that I am in talks with Manzanita Micro to bring the Zilla controller line back to life soon! We have agreed on the basics and now just need to finalize the details to get Zilla production, sales and support up and running at their facility in Kingston Washington.
It’s been a long time since I’ve updated this blog. My apologies for that. I have been busy during that time communicating with and visiting a number of potential manufacturers for the Zilla. After the last fiasco, I admit I’ve been slow to move forward. I wanted to make sure I was working with someone who knows the EV market and also has the manufacturing experience necessary to build the Zilla properly. I’ve known Rich Rudman and the folks at Manzanita Micro for many years. Rich and I go back to the mid 1990′s as friends and sometimes friendly rivals. We often observed how similar our companies were. Now that Manzanita has expanded operations into a beautiful new facility and expanded staff to handle larger volumes (I admit, I was very impressed during my recent visit) it looks to me that they have the space and the ability to build Zilla controllers in good volumes. I’m looking forward to working with them to bring the Zilla back, and also I’m eager to get back to product development, maybe starting with improving the Hairball with new code and features.
There are few tools out there that let you project the performance of your build that can rival the Lennon Rodgers Electric Vehicle Calculator, it’s long been the standard go-to spreadsheet to get some projections, any projections, on how things are going to be in the real world.
Well, now… one “Coninsan” from ElMoto fame, AKA Steffen Terp Thomsen, started with that sheet with the aim to be “… improving the look, feel and workings of Lennon Rodgers sheet as well as bring new features to its capabilities in form of the Elmoto excel sheet V2.0″
The Elmoto v2.o Data Sheet is a great example of the kind of collaboration that takes place on this forum, and Steffen graciously credits the community in a note on his sheet. He’s made it open to all who are interested, but I personally would encourage you to at least read the thread, here, on ElMoto to get a feel for the decisions made and the contributions several members had in it. Even better, if you’re not a member, sign up and put in your own 2¢.
Here, for the sake of proper documentation, is the version history as of this writing: Version 2.0 Has a number of added features and improvements over the Elmoto 1.0 sheet. – The user interface has been boiled down for easier viewing – Full support for and all readouts now in Metric form as well as Imperial. – Added support for incremental motor readouts, dynomometer readouts. This feature supports: Any known motor types and strengths. Motor output up to 8000 RPM. – Added graphical interpretaion of motor readout. – Added a more accurate method of determening top speed. Graphical readout off motor power up against aerodynamic and rolling resistances. And if this method doesn’t pinpoint your motorcycles topspeed then this sheet also features RPM limited top speed.
Version 2.1 Brings a number of improved features over its previous version. – Improved the interface slightly. – Improved calculations regarding motor readout. – Added graphical interpretations of Range, Acceleration and Costs. – Added calculations for determinating the 0-60, 0-100, 1/4 mile times and time to top speed. – Now factors Aerodynamic drag and Chain resistances in all calculations where these are relevant.
Version 2.15 Brings a number of improved features over its previous version. – Added note stating origin of the sheet. – Minor fixes of spelling mistakes or bugs. – Some small tweaks to the graphs to prevent them from going out of control. – Added support for limited motor opperation. The motor output is now scaled according to battery limit in the form of rated continuous discharge. – Battery life and costs now also factor battery rated continuous discharge.
Version 2.16 Brings a number of improved features over its previous version. – Now factors both Max and continuous battery discharge. – Limited motor operation is now based on Maximum battery discharge and not continuous (how foolish of me)
You KNOW I like to mix it up here, and I’ve got some friends into some sick and twisted behavior. I’m tempted to say that electric powered vehicles make strange bedfellows, but that sounds, well, dirty… but here’s my friend RemoteContact, and his team’s robot Witch Doctor quite literally ripping up some boy’s little toy ‘bot. Somewhere his momma is crying. The best part is the robot happy dance at the end…
RemoteContact is a quiet, unassuming young man, currently working on some top-secret projects I’m dying to tell you about… but RC lets his, uh, creations speak for him. He’s been very active over the years on the Miami Battlebot scene, here’s a little sample of the banter that goes on around that event, on the IQ Miami forum. He’s all over Endless Sphere and ElMoto, and has at least one electric motorcycle to his credit. If I can find his build threads I’ll update that here…
As with the r/c helicopter community, the battlebot guys are pushing a lot of envelopes that us motorcycle and EV guys are only mildly aware of… LiPo battery care and handling, ultra-powerful ultra-small brushless motor technology, multiple motors, multiple controller configurations, and some stuff I can’t even talk about. Cause I don’t understand it. These guys have led a lot of the manufacturers by the nose, by creating a demand for refinement and further development of their products. It’s fair to say, without the battlebots and the helicopters, I wouldn’t be able to consider using Turnigy batteries for something I’m going to try to ride on… safely anyway.
Great work, RC, and congrats to the whole team!
And here… drum roll please, is the MAN hisself:
Thanks to Caro De Freitas (carodf.tumblr.com) for showing us RC in his natural habitat. Crushing the competition.
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