Mission Motors tweeted out something interesting just a moment ago, a link to a new website for Mission Motorcycles. Teasing there a photo of the Mission R, it would seem that the electric superbike that does competitive AMA Supersport lap times at Laguna Seca, is finally set to come to production. It seems we won’t know everything about the new Mission Motorcycles project until June 3rd, though we can speculate pretty accurately on what the A&R Bothan spy network has been telling us. Expect to see the Mission R electric superbike in street legal trim, honed even further than when we rode the machine back in August last year.
Stefan Pierer’s acquisition of Husqvarna continues to baffle me. You will note I say Pierer, and not KTM, bought Husqvarna, since the Austrian CEO used Pierer Industrie AG in the transaction as a means to help side-step European antitrust issues. After all, we can’t have Europe’s largest dirt bike manufacturer, nay largest total motorcycle manufacturer, gobbling up even more brands in the two-wheeled world. But, I digress. Developing three road bikes (Husqvarna Nuda 900, Husqvarna Strada 650, & Husqvarna Terra 650), with three more concepts waiting in the wings (Husqvarna Moab, Husqvarna Baja, & Husqvarna E-G0), it is with even more confusion that we learn that Pierer & Co. intend to kill the Husqvarna Nuda project and its other street siblings.
In case you missed the story last week, Kevin Schwantz is preparing to race in this year’s Suzuka 8-Hour endurance race. For the race, Schwantz will be riding on a team formed by Yukio Kagayama, who in addition to having raced in the MotoGP, World Superbike, and British Superbike Championships, is also a previous Suzuka 8-Hour winner with the Suzuki Endurance Race Team (also joining the three-rider team Noriyuki “Nitro” Haga). Releasing a Q&A about his team’s Suzuka 8-Hour entry, Kagayama-san walks us through how the team came together, what equipment the riders will use, and his outlook on the team’s competitiveness.
A single-cylinder hooligan-maker, the KTM 690 Duke is 330 lbs (curbside without fuel) and 67hp of two-wheeled fun, and we hope that the Austrians bring the KTM 690 Duke R our way as well. While we are on the topic of things missing from KTM’s American line-up, a decent supersport is painfully obvious, yet we can’t see the folks at KTM following the paths of other brands. That’s where our friend Luca Bar comes to mind with his latest concept: the KTM RC4. Using the KTM 690 Duke platform and its LC4 engine, Bar has designed a super-single full-fairing sport bike that takes the Austrian company’s “Ready to Race” DNA and applies it to an idea that is not all that disimilar to the Ducati Supermono.
When I sat down with Claudio Domenicali at the Ducati 1199 Panigale R launch, the now-CEO of Ducati Motor Holding was still just the General Manager of the Italian motorcycle company. Four weeks after our interview though, Gabriele del Torchio would leave Ducati for Alitalia; and Domenicali, a 21-year veteran of both the racing and production departments of Ducati, would take his place at the top of Italy’s most prestigious motorcycle brand. After reading our interview from Austin, Texas after the jump, I think you will agree too.
That Yamaha is working on a seamless gearbox is no secret, with Yamaha’s test riders currently racking up the kilometers around tracks in Japan. Recently, however, Spanish magazine SoloMoto published an article suggesting that Yamaha has already been using its new seamless gearbox since the beginning of the season. My own enquiries to check whether Yamaha was using a seamless gearbox or not always received the same answer: no, Yamaha is not using the seamless gearbox. To test this denial, I went out to the side of the track on Friday morning at Jerez to record the bikes as they went by.
After a very public father/son break-up between Paul Teutul Sr. and Paul Teutul Jr., a steroid-ring scandal involving Paul Sr., and finally a bankruptcy proceeding, it appears that Orange County Choppers is the impossible to kill multi-headed hydra of doom that we all knew it was, as the custom chopper shop is once again headed to the small screen and recruiting some talent, on and off the show. Looking for “someone who will work alongside Paul Senior, running the shop and helping build some of the best custom motorcycles in the world,” OCC says it will be back on television with a new show later this month. Please for the love of god, will someone give this man the attention he craves so dearly??! Or, just shoot us in the face.
We love us some concept bikes here at Asphalt & Rubber, and we have featured more than a few pieces of stunning design and imagination on our pages. Though, we can’t remember the last time one of these works of art were brought to us by a legitimate racing team, but that is what we have here with the Team Alstare Superbike Concept. A nod to the former Suzuki team’s return to the World Superbike Championship as the Ducati factory squad with Carlos Checa and Ayrton Badovini, Alstare has enlisted the help of designer Serge Rusak of Rusak Kreaktive Designworks to ink the shape of its futuristic Superbike concept, while Tryptik Studios handled the 3D modeling prowess.
If you didn’t watch Thursday’s pre-event press conference for MotoGP at Jerez, it is worth a viewing right to the end (assuming you have a MotoGP.com account). Building off the news about the NBA’s Jason Collins coming out as gay in a self-written feature in Sport Illustrated, my good colleague David Emmett had the courage to inquire about the culture and acceptance of the MotoGP paddock for homosexual riders. For the sake of accuracy, after the jump is a full transcript of David’s question, as put to riders Cal Crutchlow, Jorge Lorenzo, Marc Marquez, Andrea Dovizioso, Stefan Bradl, and Scott Redding, as well as those riders’ responses to David’s inquiry.
News that Suzuki plans on returning to the MotoGP Championship in 2014 should be old information for dedicated Asphalt & Rubber readers, and the Japanese company’s inline-four race bike was already spotted doing test laps last year by the eager eyes at Cycle World. Well the American print-mag has another set of eyebrow-raising high-quality photos of the 2014 Suzuki GSV-R to mull over from the Motegi race track, along with some technical insights provided by the venerable Kevin Cameron.
MIC Launches Electric Vehicle Task Force – http://aspha.lt/14s #motorcycle
I will never ride an electric motorcycle. You can add that to your task force data bank. I will never go for a Sunday drive in a golf cart either.
The consumer bias is more deeply ingrained than you think. Give up. It’s the financially responsible thing to do for the companies you represent.
Horses were deeply ingrained too, but almost no one rides one to work anymore…
RT @Asphalt_Rubber: "MIC Launches Electric Vehicle Task Force – http://aspha.lt/14s #motorcycle"
If you followed the reasoning properly you would have said, ” Horses were deeply ingrained too, but still people decided to switch to donkeys.”
The transportation potential of the car was higher than the horse. To reference electric vehicles, you needed to choose something with a lower threshold for work. Something slower, uglier and less romantic. The donkey would fit nicely.
Transitioning to donkeys b/c they eat less oats. I think that would be a good analogy. Let’s not forget that the electric motor was invented before the petrol ICE so I don’t really see where you are going with the technological progression bit.
Kids run out in the street b/c they can’t hear you coming. You swerve and lay the bike down, it hits a curb, and then you spend a year of your kid’s college tuition to pay the hazmat crew. All of this so you can ride an electric donkey filled with toxic chemicals.
Maybe it would work better if we put a big crash cage around the battery and then we could add two more wheels to make the vehicle more stable and less crash prone. That might work.
Your analogy is flawed. Oats are a renewable resource; oil is not (not in terms of our lifetimes anyway).
Like it or not, the future is coming. I too like ICE’s but several factors will likely see to the end of them eventually. Legislation will succumb to the need to reduce pollution, dependence on fossil fuels, and foreign imports.
Of course, the missing part of the formula to make this work is that the electricity will need to be generated without burning coal/nat gas. Wind, water and solar will need to be ramped up to create a distributed model of power generation.
And why are you so worried about batteries internals? They are safer than carrying tanks of flammable liquid around. And when it is time to recycle them, everything is there in a tidy package, instead of spread throughout the entire atmosphere as pollution.
Once the price of a mid-size e-bike is reduced enough I would consider replacing one of my current bikes with one. Even if their current spec they could easily handle my 3 mile commute each day.
As a long time motorcycle rider (16 years) I have seen things progress in the past 5 years more then ever before. Moving away from I.C.E. is a natural progression. As a Brammo owner for a month now, I can say they are not suited for everyone yet. There is a certain level of sacrafice you must be willing to accept, top speed, acceleration, range, etc. But they will be very soon! American’s are typically to “proud” to accept anything that is percieved as a god given right.
Mmm, nah. My reasoning is reasonably sound. Horseless carriages were underpowered, inefficient, expensive and practically useless for decades (arguably aver a century if you include steam powered attempts). It took quite some time before the automobile was actually useful to the average person (sounds a bit like today’s electric powered situation to me…).
In terms of potential, yes, the auto had more than a horse (hence the eventual displacement of horse powered transportation). In terms of potential, yes, electric has more than an ICE (hence the eventual and inevitable displacement of ICEs). We have essentially hit a plateau in engineering progression of reciprocating piston engines. Sure you can wrangle a bit more power/efficiency/longevity by redesigning this or that a hair, but the era of real advancements in this technology is over.
Hazmat crew? It’s not like we’re spilling gas and oil all over the place in a crash… Battery safety (including self containment during impact) is increasing significantly and is arguably safer than using gasoline. We’ve grown up around gas stations and cars and as such grown complacent to the dangers. Take a step back and look at how inherently dangerous driving and fueling cars is compared to using today’s top of the line batteries (for the moment forgo the incredible range of engineering advancements currently underway and yet to be made in batteries). If you’re actually trying this I hope you can see electric vehicles are actually more sensible in virtually all facets of the comparison.
For the most part it sounds like you have an understandable, however, unfounded aversion to electrics. Not once did you cite a real concern/hindrance to electric progression (there are some, but the potential downfalls of electrics are fewer than current vehicles with over a century of development and the few disadvantages there are will be quickly overcome with progressing technology/public education).
I don’t need further education and that’s precisely why the MIC want to fill my head with marketing concepts disguised as info. I know my energy densities and I understand the massive deficit that batteries have to overcome. I also understand that lithium (unlike oil or other biofuels which can be grown) is non-renewable and will have to be imported if the EPA or our wage rates even allows us to manufacture batteries in the US. Even if the battery industry builds the perfect plug in electric vehicle, you could still be belching out more hydrocarbons at the powerplant. You have to replace every hydrocarbon powerplant, and modernize the entire grid for plug in electrics to work. Don’t let that minor detail deter you. It’s more important to be part of the future.
The ICE is inefficient b/c that’s all we’ve ever wanted it to be. It’s 30-35% efficient and only about 15% under normal driving conditions. We can double fuel economy in a decade with currently existing technology (Toyota proved it), and we can probably double the fuel efficiency of the consumer auto fleet by changing buying habits over the next 2 decades (SUV boom is dying on its own). That’s real, and so are the other proven technologies that can make huge improvements in ICE efficiency. I think dual fuel is my favorite b/c tiny amounts of ethanol can be used to raise fuel octane and allow much higher compression. Very nice fundamental air pump improvement. Imagine if someone make a proper rotary. Scary good.
How many mpg does a Chevy Volt get? Infinity? I wonder what that does for your CAFE standards. $40,000 for a car with a 50 mile range that pollutes remotely and transfers money from the public to major auto companies via enormous $7,500 plug in electric subsidies? How far do I have to bend over before they will sell me one?
Poeple who buy these eco-halo products are dolts, not visionaries. At least the Prius actually delivered better fuel economy despite the government subsidies and the mindless eco-hype. I prefer my energy revolutions to have substance. The real work is being done behind the scenes in the tragically unsexy petrochemicals and ICE industries.