While Harley-Davidson will spend this season carting Project LiveWire prototypes around the country to collect consumer input in advance of any actual production, California electric vehicle innovator Richard Hatfield expects to sell the first production version of his awesome LS-218 electric superbike (lightningmotorcycle.com). Based on the motorcycle Carlin Dunne used to win the 2013 Pikes Peak motorcycle hill climb, beating the fastest gas-powered bike, a Ducati Multistrada, by more than 20 seconds, the 495-pound LS-218 is claimed to be the fastest production motorcycle ever sold, making in excess of 200 hp and an astounding 168 pound-feet of torque, with a top speed well beyond 200 mph. With performance specs like that, the base price of $38,888 seems more than reasonable.
From the Lightning Motorcycles blog:
June 30th, 2013 – The day of the race, we worked on the bike most of the night and arrived there just as the gate opened. Carlin was one of the last people to run in the open bike class on the day of the race. To prep for the race he spent most of the morning deep into “the zone”… almost meditating and running the race through his mind – totally focused.
The racing started in the morning and it was still very cold and wet on the course. Several of the riders had crashed that had gone before Carlin. So times were slower than normal.
We had to put a siren on the bike to make sure that people could hear Carlin and the bike coming up the mountain. Even with the siren blasting away he lost several seconds slowing down because people stepped in front of him on the track. From the very start of the race Carlin was in the lead. His performance and times continued to be the fastest. All the practicing paid off. At the finish he was in the lead by 21 seconds over the 2nd place bike.
