ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
Makes And Models => Other Electric Motorcycles => Topic started by: protomech on May 14, 2014, 03:45:38 AM
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Asphalt & Rubber is the first to post Lightning's press release. Lightning has revamped their website (http://lightningmotorcycle.com), and presumably is waiting for the big reveal on May 17 (http://lightningmotorcycle.com/unveiling-lightning-superbike-ls-218/) at the Quail Motorsport Gathering in Carmel, CA.
http://www.asphaltandrubber.com/bikes/lightning-motorcycles-ls-218-electric-superbike/ (http://www.asphaltandrubber.com/bikes/lightning-motorcycles-ls-218-electric-superbike/)
They also have posted specs (http://lightningmotorcycle.com/product/specifications/) now:
* 150 kW / 200 hp motor
* 3 battery options:
380V 12kwh battery pack good for 100-120 miles per charge // elsewhere Lightning claims 100 miles at highway speeds
380V 15kwh battery pack good for 120-150 miles per charge
380V 20kwh battery pack good for 160-180 miles per charge
* 495 pounds (presumably for the 12 kWh pack)
* Charging 30 mins on a quick charger or 120 minutes on level 2 charger
At $39k base price, these are pitched squarely at or above the Mission R .. but it looks like they're serious about selling a product now.
I'm loving that Mission, Lightning, CRP are all committing to high voltage 30 minute charging .. even if these bikes are very expensive, they're pointing the way to the future that Brammo, Zero, and the traditional manufacturers will follow.
Edit: A commenter "chris" on Asphalt & Rubber has lightened the image (http://materialsinuse.tumblr.com/post/85625174467/newsflash-lightning-motorcycles-debuts-unfinished) for a better look. Obviously unfinished, we should see the real thing later this weekend.
(http://31.media.tumblr.com/d32c821b6bea65d86cc53e1c8bc3d0f6/tumblr_n5ioe7iVom1tq57tko1_1280.jpg)
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I like the look more then the other electric motorcycles! Too bad for the starting price.
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Yeah, I like the styling from what little we can see.
A bit more power than the Mission bike. Perhaps a bit less tech. Similar weight, at least for the 12 kWh bike.
Onboard AC charger appears to be slower, but either bike will be able to saturate the typical 30A J1772 EVSE.
Both bikes support 30 minute quick charging (probably to 80%) with off board DC chargers, though neither have announced which protocol they support.
Both manufacturers are being a little vague with their range claims. Lightning claims 100 highway miles with the 12 kWh bike, lists 100-120 miles on their site. Mission claims 140 miles city, 105 "real-world" miles. "Real-world" appears to be a mix of city and highway riding.
Lightning has the highest top speed claim, and they have adopted this land speed record (218 mph) into their LS-218 model name. This LSR was achieved by use of a slipstream fairing; customer bikes will likely be somewhat lower. Still, top speed sells.
Lightning costs $6500 more than the Mission bike. I don't know how much that matters at these price points.
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Lightening has just delivered their first LS-218!
http://blog.motorcycle.com/2014/11/13/motorcycle-category/sportbikes/lightning-delivers-first-ls-218-electric-superbike/ (http://blog.motorcycle.com/2014/11/13/motorcycle-category/sportbikes/lightning-delivers-first-ls-218-electric-superbike/)
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After winning the motorcycle division outright at the Pike's Peak Hill Climb in 2013, and coming within a few seconds of the all-time motorcycle record, I was bitterly disappointed that they didn't come back this year and finish the job by breaking the record. That would be an amazing milestone for electric motorcycles and EVs in general -- the first all-time record in an open-class, highly prestigious, competitive event. No more of this "the fastest ELECTRIC vehicle" stuff. The fastest, period.
If they're delivering bikes, there's got to be a nutso, well-funded privateer somewhere that'll do it. The bike is clearly in the running to do it.
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Here is Rideapart's report on the LS-218 and its first delivery two days ago:
https://rideapart.com/articles/lightning-ls-218-fastest-electric-motorcycle?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HellForLeather+%28Hell+For+Leather%29
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The Lightning 218 has hit Jay Leno's Garage. Jay talks to Richard Hatfield and goes for a ride on the bike:
http://www.autoblog.com/2014/11/18/jay-lenos-garage-lightning-ls-218-motorcycle-video/ (http://www.autoblog.com/2014/11/18/jay-lenos-garage-lightning-ls-218-motorcycle-video/)
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That's one real sport electric bike! Would love to try it.
200 HP 168 torque! Yihaaa!
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Has anyone ever asked Lightening a question about the LS-218 and gotten a response back? I haven't had any luck at getting any kind of response despite several attempts.
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Has anyone ever asked Lightening a question about the LS-218 and gotten a response back? I haven't had any luck at getting any kind of response despite several attempts.
If you want a response, I think you need to track them down and ask your question face-to-face.
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Lightning is focused on Oregon/San Fran area because that is the only area they support right now. I called them a while back to ask some questions to include the latest info in the 2015 Electric Motorcycle Buyer's Guide, but the guy on the phone seemed unconcerned since I wasn't buying one. If they branch out to the east coast they may be a little more friendly.
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Craig Vetter writes about the July 2015 fuel economy challenges:
http://craigvetter.com/pages/470MPG/470MPG%20Main.html (http://craigvetter.com/pages/470MPG/470MPG%20Main.html)
In the "these competitors will try to be there" list is one Richard Hatfield.
The LS-218 claims 120 miles of highway 70 mph range for the 12 kWh bike, 160 for the 16 kWh bike, and 200 for the 20 kWh bike.
I'm curious whether these range claims are based upon their land speed record fairings; traditional sportbike fairings tend to only make small improvements over naked bike aero, and even Terry's heavily modified slipstreamed full-tail 2012 Zero uses about 110 Wh/mile at 70 mph .. granted, about a thousand pounds with rider.
I hope it shows up, it'd be nice to see a real world range test of the Lightning bike.
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http://www.gizmag.com/lightning-ls218-review-ls-218/36470/ (http://www.gizmag.com/lightning-ls218-review-ls-218/36470/)
Nice review of the LS-218. Lightning says they want to produce 150 bikes in a first run. That seems ambitious for a bike that starts at $39k with (AFAIK) no distribution network and no support network. It's hard to tell how serious they are about actually selling; but unlike Mission Motorcycles, I think Lightning and CRP both will actually sell you a bike if you show up at the door with $40k.
Richard Hatfield also talks about charging.
The LS-218 ships with either a 12, a 15 or a 20 kWh battery pack, getting you a maximum range of 120, 150 or 180 miles respectively. Charging time is around 30 minutes on a DC fast charger, and I don't know many sportsbike riders who don't appreciate a half-hour break after a couple of hours in the saddle.
Lightning has claimed 120 highway miles for a long time for the 12 kWh pack; I've long suspected that this range was either a partial-highway test or using the landspeed record fairings. That range claim is now gone from their website, and the 12 kWh bike now claims 100-120 miles of range (http://lightningmotorcycle.com/product/specifications/). Significantly there is no mention of SAE/MIC city and 70 mph highway test conditions; it's possible that Lightning is still working on a standard range test, but I suspect the 100-120 mile specification is still somewhat optimistic.
Standard DC charging is very nice to see on both the Lightning and the Energica. The Energica has a surprisingly low highway range specification, but the larger capacity Lightning bikes could offer reasonable touring distances. How many people want to spend $50k to tour on a sportbike, though?
And it could be a lot quicker than that if Tesla came to the party, says Hatfield: "Tesla, with their supercharger network, they're at about 130,000 watts, so if we plugged that in to our bike and watched it carefully, everything was optimal, we could have the bike to 80 percent full in well under 10 minutes. So that's kind of the holy grail. The technology exists right now to do it. We have our own chargers that'll charge that quickly, but we just need to see a network out there that people can use.
"We can use the J1772, we can set it up with the SAE AC/DC plug or the CHAdeMO. The problem with the CHAdeMO is the plug is just enormous and expensive. It works just fine on our bike, it's just a big expensive, huge plug. Tesla has this beautiful little plug that would fit nicely on a motorcycle. Right now you can ride right from the Canadian border to the Mexican border, or San Francisco to New York using Tesla superchargers.
"[Tesla have] opened up their patents, but … there's nothing in their patent that'll tell us what the charging algorithm is [to communicate between the bike and the charging station]. We could take one of their plugs and reverse engineer it, but that doesn't necessarily give us the right to use their supercharging network. So our top priority is to convince Tesla to share their supercharger network with us, and even build it out with public money. That more than anything else will help bridge that last gap."
I wonder how much of this is hypothetical talk. Tesla has expressed an interest in opening up their charging network to partners who are willing to abide by the same terms, ie no-marginal-cost charging and up-front network registration. It's also curious that Lightning is talking about SAE J1772 DC, CHAdeMO, and Supercharging on a bike that is supposedly ready to ship now; possibly there are different DC charging modules that could be attached?
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Great article. I was glad to see that Hatfield mentioned charging. It is great that you get either the CCS or CHAdeMO. So now what about J1772? What size is the charger? I have asked Lightening multiple times and even asked their Canadian dealer about this. Lightening won't even answer questions their dealer asks them! I wonder if Lightening is serious about selling bikes or if a lot of this is just empty talk. The article showed a photo o the dash. Nice but why couldn't they have this photo on their web site? Right now my bet is on Energica for an electric sportbike that you can actually buy.
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I am looking forward to reading a ride review of the production LS-218. Also, I figure that it will take more than 10 employees to manufacture 150 motorcycles a year. Richard should start checking around for some unemployed former Brammo factory workers.
San Carlos is only 30 miles from my home.....
I just finished the reading the article. I like the last half of it where it talks about the future more than the actual review of the LS-218. :)
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I wonder how much of this is hypothetical talk. Tesla has expressed an interest in opening up their charging network to partners who are willing to abide by the same terms, ie no-marginal-cost charging and up-front network registration.
I don't think it's hypothetical. You can say a lot of things about Elon Musk, particularly his propensity to meet schedules that he himself announced, but you really can't accuse him of not walking the walk when he talks the talk.
Beyond the fairness of insisting that people share the cost of the infrastructure Tesla has single-handedly created and is offering to allow use of, there are very significant risks in allowing anybody to use it. Someone could easily destroy their own equipment and try to hold Tesla liable, destroy supercharger stations, even cause fires and threaten harm or death to themselves or other people. My interpretation is simply that Tesla wants to be very sure to keep anybody away who doesn't REALLY know what they're doing, and doesn't have the skills or resources to work with Tesla to prove their implementations are extraordinarily solid. I know if it were my decision to make, that bar would be set VERY high. Being willing to share resources with other manufacturers doesn't mean they want a bunch of hackers dicking around with their industrial-power-level equipment.
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Here is a cute video review of the prototype (still) Lightning LS-218 by Gismag. When the reviewer goes riding though the redwoods, he takes off from the Alice's Restaurant intersection and rides south along Highway 35, which is the road that I ride almost every Sunday morning. That is not a road that I would want to go all that fast on. Too many deer, cops and a 50 mph speed limit. However, he is doing it and not me. Fast bike, but not cheap and they have only sold one so far that I know of. When will the production bikes be reviewed? That (very nice) prototype has been around for a while. ???
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3Di...ature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3Di...ature=youtu.be)
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Fixed video link:
GizMag video review (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3DiAecsh_0)
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Fixed video link:
GizMag video review (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3DiAecsh_0)
Thanks Brian. As usual I didn't double check the link that I posted. :(
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His reaction from 4:18 onwards is one of the best things I have seen on youtube. The bit about loud pipes saving lives is spot on too.
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Yesterday I posted the GisMag video on the BMW site that I frequent (lots of great jokes posted there) and it received a number of "likes" from BMW owners all over the world so far. :D
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Yep, great video! If only it could sell.
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I think if they had them available, they would sell. At least more than the one that has thus far been delivered.
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It looks like Lightening has sold another one! Looking on their Facebook page they show the first black and silver LS-218. Very nice!!!! It seems like Lightening is going to be like Bell Custom Cycles, they will build on demand but are never going to have a dealer network of any kind. If you live close to them they are an option but for those of us on the east coast getting support in case of a problem will be a serious challenge.
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The Lightning LS-218 just made the front cover of the June 2015 issue of the San Francisco Bay Area magazine City Bike. A test ride review article is featured in the magazine, but it appeared to be a very controlled ride from the Lightning HQ in Palo Alto to Alice's Restaurant in the Santa Cruz Mountains and back. A ride of about 40 miles, round trip on city and secondary highways. The only thing that really caught my eye in the article is the claim of a range of 100 miles from the 12 kWh battery pack. That range claim is never followed by the speed that you need to travel to achieve it. The article has no other new information, but a couple of the accompanying photos are interesting. One photo shows the "factory", with two completed bikes in the foreground and one unfinished bike in the background. Another photo shows the test rider on the bike and he looks like a "monkey on a stick". His feet are on the rider's pegs where the passenger's pegs would be located on a Japanese sportbike. A very uncomfortable-looking riding position to me. :o
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\The only thing that really caught my eye in the article is the claim of a range of 100 miles from the 12 kWh battery pack.
http://lightningmotorcycle.com/product/specifications/ (http://lightningmotorcycle.com/product/specifications/)
The hero image for the specs page claims 100 miles average range at highway speed. That's not very specific, but it is consistent with Lightning's claims of "usable freeway speed range of over 100 miles" since early 2012 (https://web.archive.org/web/20120416142846/http://www.lightningmotorcycle.com/product/performance/).
It seems like Lightning is getting a little more serious about selling bikes. We've seen first ride reports from Motorcycle USA Gizmag and City Bike ... maybe we'll see a real product review soon. I'd like to see full MIC/SAE range specifications as well; I suspect their highway range claim is a little optimistic.
Production bikes have continued to evolve while Lightning gestated. In 2012 Zero's $14k bike had 43 miles of highway range, 0-60 times around 10s, and topped out at 88 mph. In 2015 the same $14k buys you 77 miles of highway range, much nicer equipment including ABS, 0-60 time around 5s, and 95 mph top speed.
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This is review by Translogic is one of the better video ride reviews of the Lightning LS-218 that I have seen so far. It includes an interview with Richard Hatfield taken in his shop/factory, so you get to see a little of what that looks like, too. All of the outdoor scenes were shot at the Skylonda parking lot across from Alice's Restaurant and along Skyline Boulevard to the south:
http://www.autoblog.com/2015/06/11/lightning-ls-218-electric-motorcycle-translogic-178/ (http://www.autoblog.com/2015/06/11/lightning-ls-218-electric-motorcycle-translogic-178/)
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When you build products like these, technical difficulties are inevitable. But shutting off while on a media test ride... that's a companies worst nightmare.
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When you build products like these, technical difficulties are inevitable. But shutting off while on a media test ride... that's a companies worst nightmare.
I was kind of surprised that Richard Hatfield wasn't asked about that power interruption. I think he should have been asked about it and offered an explanation, even it it was just a programming "glitch" or "operator error". ???
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When you build products like these, technical difficulties are inevitable. But shutting off while on a media test ride... that's a companies worst nightmare.
I was kind of surprised that Richard Hatfield wasn't asked about that power interruption. I think he should have been asked about it and offered an explanation, even it it was just a programming "glitch" or "operator error". ???
They may have but didn't include it. I have yet to see a negative review from Translogic.
And besides, I doubt he had an answer that quickly.
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They may have but didn't include it. I have yet to see a negative review from Translogic.
And besides, I doubt he had an answer that quickly.
Yep, negativity just isn't part of the show's format. Normally that's something I'd have a problem with, not talking about the downsides of something is part of balanced reporting, but its clear that the show is meant to be a celebration of new tech so its fitting in this case.
I was interested to hear that they have plans for a lower cost bike in the future ala Tesla. Its not terribly surprising considering Tesla's success and it seems like the kind of thing you'd say to attract investors, but its the first I'd heard of it.
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They may have but didn't include it. I have yet to see a negative review from Translogic.
And besides, I doubt he had an answer that quickly.
Yep, negativity just isn't part of the show's format. Normally that's something I'd have a problem with, not talking about the downsides of something is part of balanced reporting, but its clear that the show is meant to be a celebration of new tech so its fitting in this case.
I was interested to hear that they have plans for a lower cost bike in the future ala Tesla. Its not terribly surprising considering Tesla's success and it seems like the kind of thing you'd say to attract investors, but its the first I'd heard of it.
The "lower cost" street version has been around for about three years. I have seen different versions of the bike every time I visit Lightning's display at the EV rally at Foothill College in Cupertino. Every year that prototype model gets updated and looks better and better. I believe Lightning sold one of the early models two years ago. At that time its performance was about what Brammo was offering with the Enertia, but the bike looked a lot better and had a better chassis and running gear. My recollection is that the selling price was around $17K. It is the red bike in the distance in the middle of the attached photo that I took at the National Plug-In Show in 2013.
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Here is a photo of the original version of the LS-218 race bike on display at the 2012 show. The bike has been around for a while.
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I just found this photo from last year's plug-in event showing the Lightning display. It also shows the lower-priced electric sport bike prototype in the background. It may be the same one as I saw in 2012. ??? I took lots of photos of the LS-218, but whatever it was about the red bike apparently didn't interest me at the time and I did not take any close-up pictures of it. ??? I think it continues to be a "work in progress".
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http://www.gizmag.com/lightning-ls218-review-ls-218/36470/ (http://www.gizmag.com/lightning-ls218-review-ls-218/36470/)
Nice review of the LS-218. Lightning says they want to produce 150 bikes in a first run. That seems ambitious for a bike that starts at $39k with (AFAIK) no distribution network and no support network. It's hard to tell how serious they are about actually selling; but unlike Mission Motorcycles, I think Lightning and CRP both will actually sell you a bike if you show up at the door with $40k.
Richard Hatfield also talks about charging.
The LS-218 ships with either a 12, a 15 or a 20 kWh battery pack, getting you a maximum range of 120, 150 or 180 miles respectively. Charging time is around 30 minutes on a DC fast charger, and I don't know many sportsbike riders who don't appreciate a half-hour break after a couple of hours in the saddle.
Lightning has claimed 120 highway miles for a long time for the 12 kWh pack; I've long suspected that this range was either a partial-highway test or using the landspeed record fairings. That range claim is now gone from their website, and the 12 kWh bike now claims It's also curious that Lightning is talking about SAE J1772 DC, CHAdeMO, and Supercharging on a bike that is supposedly ready to ship now; possibly there are different DC charging modules that could be attached?
(http://lightningmotorcycle.com/product/specifications/)
...probably because Lightning will never ship a bike to a customer?
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According to their Facebook page Lightening is looking for dealers.
https://www.facebook.com/lightningmotorcycle (https://www.facebook.com/lightningmotorcycle)
Perhaps they really do want to sell bikes. Time will tell though.