Looks like they actually did it.
Moto-Electra’s record-setting three-day coast-to-coast all-electric motorcycle run was successful. Well, mostly. Instead of only three days, the team made the run in 84.5 hours – around 3.5 days.
What took them an extra half-day? Weather. All kinds of weather. Outside Florida, the British-based EV motorcycle encountered near-monsoon rain storms so bad that rider Thad Wolff had to radio into the support truck to ask if he might get electrocuted. Spoiler alert: he didn’t.
After the rain storm, the 22kWh electric bike hit some sweltering heat on the I-50 outside Dallas, Texas. The heat was so intense that both riders, Bill Richardson and Thad Wolfe, regularly switched off driving duties, as to avoid any mishaps.
The team rode at an even 65mph and went 100 to 120 miles between charges. “We could’ve done 150 miles to a charge,” Richardson admitted to Wired Magazine, “and bumped the amperage to reduce [charge times] to 30 minutes.”
If you’re wondering where the Moto-Electra team found chargers in the middle of nowhere, they didn’t. Instead they charged the bike off the generator being pulled behind the support truck. “We’re trying to demonstrate the battery tech,” Richardson said. “Not the charging grid.”
Could the team do it again and beat their own record by maintaining a higher average speed and going further between charges? Sure. The team might not want to make the grueling journey a second time. “After we finished I told myself I’d never do it again,” said Wolff. “But never say never. We’ve achieved what we wanted in racing and with this cross-country tour, but what’s next…I don’t know.”
If you’d like to see more from the Moto-Electra team and follow their next folly, you can visit them on their Facebook page.
Photo credit: Moto-Electra
