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.
Mission Motors has submitted an SEC Form D filing that shows that the San Francisco based company has raised $3.36 million in a $4.67 million investment round. While Mission Motors won’t comment on the SEC filing, the use of the funds is presumably to go towards bringing production of the Mission One and subsequent Mission motorcycles into reality, as the Mission Motors team gears up to bring its creations to market and establish a production facility.
After already confirming that they wouldn’t be in attendance at Infineon this weekend for the TTXGP season opener, Mission Motors has reaffirmed in a company blog post that they will not be racing in Sonoma this weekend, and have also announced that they will not be competing at the Isle of Man’s TT Zero event later this summer. The news is a bit of a disappointment for the electric motorcycling world, as the hopes of having an event where all the major brandscould be on the same track at the same time seems to be slipping from our grasp.
In conjunction with its announcement that Forrest North has stepped down as CEO of Mission Motors, the San Francisco based company is also announcing that the delivery dates for the Mission One electric superbike have been pushed back from Q4 of 2010 to Q2 of 2011. Mission Motors attributes the deadline push-back to the unforeseen economic collapse in both the motorcycle industry as well as in the capital markets. Despite these setbacks, the company is still on track to deliver the Mission One in a timeframe quicker than or equal to the industry norm, and has also revealed that an addition to the Mission One (which we’ll dub the Mission Two until we hear otherwise) will be announced later this year.
Want to see what the fastest production electric motorcycle looks like as it power-wheelies and slides the back-end around Infineon Raceway? The folks at Mission Motors thought you might, and put together a promotional video that showcases the (Editor’s Note: Mission Motors President Edward West has commented below that this is a fan video) Mission One doing its thing to an urban beatnik vibe. Grab a cup of your favorite fair trade coffee, put on your hipster skinny jeans, and get ready to see motorcycling through the eyes of the Mission District à la San Francisco in the video after the jump.
![Mission Motors Commits to 2010 TTXGP [Confirmed] Mission Motors Mission One Infineon Raceway 560x373](http://www.asphaltandrubber.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Mission-Motors-Mission-One-Infineon-Raceway.jpg "Mission-Motors-Mission-One-Infineon-Raceway")
Following yesterday’s announcement that Zero Motorcycles will be entering into electric streetbike racing and the TTXGP, comes news that Mission Motors will also be entering the TTXGP series with their LSR setting Mission One sportbike. The first stop of the TTXGP North American Championship is set to be held at Infineon Raceway, which has been the test track of choice for Mission Motors and the Mission One. Press release after the jump.
When is a motorcycle more than a bike? When does the electric motorcycle become more than a powertrain? One of the largest hurdles that electric motorcycles face (along with electric vehicles as a whole) is the public notion that these vehicles are like their internal combustion counterparts, and therefore fit into the same preconceived anatomy of what a motorcycle should look and behave like.
However, with electric motorcycles comes the opportunity to start with a fresh slate on how we move about on two-wheels. If form follows function, then with this new function should come a new form. Yet, I still find it amusing when I see electric motorcycles with fabricated fairing fuel tanks. Granted there is a lot to be said about industrial design and its relation to psychology, but I think this fact illustrates the unfluctuating desire of motorcyclists to make every square bike fit through a round-hole.
Despite this allegory, the motorcycle industry sees electric motorcycle startups challenging a lot of norms that we still cling to desperately in the motorcycle industry. Our final stop in the “Tradition Is Not A Business Model” tour of motorcycle startups, takes us to San Francisco, California and the offices of Mission Motors. Fresh on the heels of Mission’s announcement of the Neimen Marcus Limited Edition Mission One, I got a chance to sit down with company CEO/Founder Forrest North and Product Manager Jeremy Cleland, to talk about how technology changes the way we understand and use motorcycles; and perhaps more important, how manufacturers can design and build better motorcycles better in the future.
Just in time for the holiday season, Mission Motors has made it into the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book with their Mission One electric motorcycle. The Neiman Marcus Limited Edition Mission One will only consist of 10 bikes, and accordingly comes with a $73,000 price tag. More after the jump.
![BUB: Mission Motors Officially The Worlds Fastest Production Electric Motorcycle [Updated] Mission Motors Bonneville salt flats LSR 635x438](http://www.asphaltandrubber.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Mission-Motors-Bonneville-salt-flats-LSR.jpg "Mission-Motors-Bonneville-salt-flats-LSR")
When Mission Motors first came out of stealth mode, they used the slogan “The World’s Fastest Electric Production Sportbike”, and quoted a top speed of a 150 mph. It seems only logical then, that the company would have to back that claim up at some point, and apparently that time is now.
Last week we showed you a simple YouTube video entitled: “Electric Motorcycle 160 MPH”, and now we know the story behind that 160 mph run, and can report that the Mission One electric motorcycle is the fastest production electric motorcycle in the world, with an official land speed record of 150.059 mph. Video and more after the jump.
Looking to back up their claim as the fastest electric motorcycle in the world, Mission Motors was also in attendance at this year’s Bub Week at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Shod in their streamlined fairings from the TTXGP, the Mission One reportedly averaged 160 mph through the timed mile. Check after the jump for a video of their run down the salt.
A little late with its unveiling, Mission Motors has finally shown off its Mission One TTXGP race bike to the public at large. Noticeable right off the bat is the lack of fit-and-finish the the Mission One displays when compared to the Brammo or MotoCzysz motorcycles. But as the A&R track bike can attest to, how a bike looks, is poor, and usually incorrect indication of how it goes around the race track.
