Rumors

Mission Motorcycles: The Mission R Lives??!

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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.

The stars have been aligning these past few months for such an occasion, with rumors that an old Mission Motors investor was back in the mix, and looking to bring the Mission R to production. You may recall that Mission Motors made a course correction away from the two-wheeled world, focusing instead on supplying the automotive world with electric-drive components.

That change of course saw the departure of two Mission Motors founders, and the heartbreak of two-wheeled enthusiasts, petrol and electric alike, who wished to see the Mission R come to market. With layoffs reported at the San Franciscan startup just six months ago, it would seem more changes are afoot for the EV company, but we think you will like the sound of this.

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.

In addition to the Mission R, expect to see other models in the company’s line-up, as well as additional trim levels for would-be owners. Yeah, that got our attention too, and should make Mission Motorcycles more palatable to dealers looking for a little EV on their showroom floors.

From the look of things, our assumption is that Mission Motorcycles will be a separate entity from Mission Motors, with the latter continuing its EV powertrain gig, while the prior focuses on the two-wheeled world. One can imagine that there will be a close-knit relationship however, with R&D going back and forth between the two groups. This is all speculation though.

What we do know from talking to Mission Motorcycles’s President Mark Seeger is that Mission intends to bring something never-yet seen before to the two-wheeled space, electric or otherwise. We expect that to mean something on the software-side of things, one of Mission Motors’s core competencies, but we will have to wait and see to be certain.

Start shaking out your pocketbooks now folks. More information as we get it.

Photos of the Mission R Electric Superbike:

Source: Mission Motorcycles; Photos: © 2012 Scott Jones / Scott Jones Photography – All Rights Reserved

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