The Art of Riding an Electric Motorcycle: A Unique Experience

As we set out to ride the Skyline electric motorcycle, Jay's outriding it would allow us to monitor his progress and ensure he's paying attention to all relevant laws. The bike comes equipped with a full data acquisition system, which would enable us to track various parameters such as battery state of charge, voltage, motor temperature, battery temperature, and inverter temperature. These readings can be infinitely customized to provide the rider with real-time information.

Taking the bike for a spin was an exhilarating experience. The instant torque was astonishing, making it feel like moving through time. The regen braking system, which is comparable to downshifting on a gas motorcycle, added a new dimension to the ride. As Jay pedaled away, he felt as if he had dropped into a gear when slowing down, but without any intrusive noise. The electric motor produced an unusual silence, almost like an electric "wine" that was pleasant to hear.

As we rode through the freeway, the wind rushing past created a unique sound experience. Although Jay initially missed the internal combustion noise of traditional motorcycles, he quickly adapted to the new sensation. We took the bike on several test rides, and with each trip, it became clear that this was no ordinary motorcycle. The Skyline's electric powertrain transformed the riding experience, making it both familiar and futuristic.

One notable aspect of the ride was how much electricity we used during our excursion. With a full charge at 93%, we only managed to use about 23-24 miles worth of energy. This highlights the efficiency of the bike's design, which is capable of delivering impressive performance while minimizing power consumption.

Riding an electric motorcycle like the Skyline has its own unique rhythm and feel. It requires adjusting one's expectations and way of thinking, as Jay discovered during our test ride. The absence of engine noise allowed him to focus on the surrounding environment, creating a sense of speed and motion reminiscent of science fiction. As we continued to explore the bike's capabilities, it became clear that this was an experience unlike any traditional motorcycle.

For those interested in learning more about the Skyline electric motorcycle and Mission's technology, we recommend visiting mission.com. While the company does not manufacture the bike itself, they do develop innovative solutions like the Skyline, which showcases their expertise in electric motorcycling. Who knows? Perhaps one day an American company will produce this technology on a larger scale, putting it on the roads of America and cementing its place as a symbol of innovation and progress.

As we wrapped up our test ride, Jay reflected on his experience with the Skyline. "It's a real motorcycle and it's got real power," he said. "I've been waiting to ride this for a long time, and I'm glad you brought it by." David, who brought the bike to our location, was thrilled to share his enthusiasm with us. He expressed excitement about the potential of electric motorcycling technology being developed in the United States, which could eventually be adopted by other manufacturers.

With its unique blend of performance, efficiency, and innovation, the Skyline electric motorcycle represents a new frontier in motorcycling. As we look forward to seeing Mission's technology on the roads, one thing is clear: this is an experience unlike any traditional ride.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enMission Motors started life uh as an electric motorcycle company the goal was to build the highest Performance electric motorcycle out there uh the founders very quickly learned that the technology was not available to make a bike that met the needs of real true Enthusiast motorcyclists and they went ahead and created the technology in batteries Motors electronics and software themselves uh this technology quickly found a much bigger Market Automotive heavy equipment and today we're supplier of EV technology to all these industries but uh through all this we've stayed focused on the motorcycle platform as our development platform uh and this is our latest version of it the missionar the world's most advanced electric motorcycle one episode of Jay lano's garage if you're a motorcycle Enthusiast like we are here you've probably heard about this bike I've seen it in Cycle World and motorcyclist and all the magazines this is a true electric Superbike now don't stay with me here 161 horsepower well over 100 foot pounds of torque it's constant it's really fast it's got a range of about 150 miles this is uh I think pretty much what the future is going to be or at least part of the future I think internal combustion engines will be with us well through most of our lifetimes but it's nice to see alternative stuff that's really fascinating and uses some uh well existing technology just taken to the ninth degree the emission Motors is the name of the folks that uh produced this bike here and they're one of the leaders in electric uh motorcycle technology let's talk to David sgo David coming in here hi you're the the marketing guy yeah I'm the marketing manag toet you you know a it looks like a real Superbike so right away motorcyclists tend to be very conservative when it comes to their bikes they don't like anything new or different you know so a looks like a real Superbike it's got real Superbike power and it's got real Superbike torque uh tell us about this machine pretty amazing absolutely so you know as you said Mission Motors is an electric vehicle technology company our goal is really to help companies get uh better hybrids and EVS to Market faster we're we're a small company we're based in San Francisco uh you know we've got people from the robotics industry from the Auto industry from Silicon Valley companies like Google and apple uh we focus on the motors the batteries the software the technology that goes inside to electric vehicles and we do that for not just power sports but automotive and even heavy equipment we developed the mission R to demonstrate what the technology could do uh sportbike platform is a very challenging platform for electric vehicles because the packaging is very constrained and the dynamic are very important right so it was sort of our technology Compass to really push our engineers and our technology to the Limit yeah most electric motorcycles that I've ridden are commuter bikes some pretend to be super bikes or look like real motorcycles but they don't have the range or the full-on power whereas this is an actual Superbike that uh this could compete against Suzuki and Kawasakis andas and all the others as well and do quite well and what is what is the range uh the range obviously uh it depends on on how you're using it um but you can go anywhere from 80 to 150 miles so it is 80 to 100 cuz you know like I always say electricity is like sex people have no compulsion about lying about it most electric vehicles that promis this actually give you this and this being a super bike you would want to drive it in proper Superbike fashion which means a lot of cut and thrust and pulling away from lights and and having fun with with it so that being said you would still get 80 to 100 miles absolutely I did my usual Sunday ride on it uh up around uh Skyline Boulevard uh Alice's Restaurant uh South of San Francisco and then took the highway back from there that was about 70 miles and I still had plenty of charge when I back okay okay and how big lithium ion batteries yes lithium ion batteries this has uh 14 kilowatt hours lithium ion batteries it has a uh 120 KW motor which is about 161 horsepower uh for context uh your Chevy Volt has 16 kwatt hours it has 111 kilowatt motor I believe so uh what our Engineers have been able to do is package basically a Chevy Volt electric powertrain into something that's volumetrically about the same as Yamaha R six yeah that's that's some of our secret sauce the ability to package a lot of and that's a pretty good size looking electric motor yeah that's uh that is about 120 kows um a little over 161 horsepower um it'll take you 0 to 60 in about 3 seconds and this will do over 160 mes an hour our last vehicle our last prototype uh set the Bonville speed record for EES back in 2009 um that did a 163 mph oneway pass we designed this from a system level perspective and basically what that means is you know taking into account what we wanted to do with it which was race and demonstrate the real qualities the best qualities of electric Drive uh and then from there we said okay well we're going to need the battery to go to this to uh Go the Distance which is why we put so many kilowatt hours of battery in it we put the big motor in there but also we worked with you know since we're the powertrain company we worked with the right guys for the rest of the package so James Parker well-known chassis designer did the Yamaha GTS 1000 he designed the chassis the chassis is completely custom this is uh not adapted from any uh gas powered vehicle um and what does it weigh it weighs 550 lb so that's not excessive that's not too bad that's about the uh about 100 lb more than weight of an R1 something like that like maybe a BMW Touring bike something like that exactly but what we've done with it is we've taken all the weight uh and moved it to the center near the Roll center of mass so actually almost all the weight is uh contained in here whereas on a gas vehicle you have mufflers and parts hanging out so it's actually once you get going it handles beautifully it has 55 degrees of lean angle uh it's a proper super bike yeah I'm anxious to try it it looks like it would have a high center of gravity but you say no huh not too bad uh it's right where James Parker wanted it right about here at the roll center of mass you don't you don't want the the uh the weight to be too low in a sports bike otherwise you get that hard feeling and you got those massive brembos on there CU obviously now oh does it regen it does regen uh right now we have it set up for Street regen which is basically it's going to uh it's going to pull you right down when you let off the throttle you're really not even if using it doesn't roll the other way and then no it's not it's not like the vectric it's uh it'll it'll do it automatically but it's also fully tunable um you know people have different preferences and and uh I mean is the regen really obvious is it like compression braking you just sort of get off it and you uh you'll you'll feel it and it will be a little bit different than what you're used to at first and then by the third Corner it'll be just fine I see and do I see regen on my screen does it you don't see regen now actually uh you can you can see a lot of different things we're using an Android tablet actually as our dashboard right now and this is you got a plate on it so it's street legal in California you have no emissions to to meet you obviously it stops and handles and it's got lights and it's got turn signals this is not some little pie in the sky go up and down the street once with it it's a real bike that you can drive and use on the road and being electric it's virtually maintenance free isn't it absolutely nothing to do you just ride it very little maintenance we've got uh we've had thousands of miles on it since we um since we got it on the road no problems at all cool and you can charge at 110 or 240 yeah yeah 110 or or uh or or 240 it's an this vehicle has an offboard charger that was because uh you know originally was built for racing so we wanted to keep the weight down as much as we could um but yes it it charges uh you know anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours for a full charge and how old is this particular bike uh this bike we first showed it at the Long Beach motorcycle show in 2010 okay um and then last year it went to Laguna sea Raceway for the Moto GP weekend they had an electric bike class that was on the undercard so I think that's really exciting they they run an electric bike class at L uh so it's not going to take away from internal combustion stuff it's just another facet of racing and the nice thing is you get a whole new level of geek guys interested in racing who weren't interested in racing before so to me anything that promotes motorcycling be it electric two stroke four stroke whatever it is I I think it's it's fantastic yeah you know it was really interesting because at the beginning of that of that Grand Prix weekend you know there was a lot of sort of jokes going around the paddock about the electric bikes uh and you know they going to put a c in the spokes and all those sorts of all those sorts of things then we went out on Saturday and our writer Steve WAP said a 1313 uh lap time for qualifying around Laguna sea that smashed every EV record out there it actually would have qualified it Fifth on the grid for the AMA super sport 600 uh and it was only 10 seconds off the Moto GP uh pole position and then we went out the next day and we won the eight laap Race by about 40 seconds wow over the second place finisher so by the end of the weekend people are you still on the original set of batteries uh oh yes yeah absolutely um we uh you know it depends on the amount of charge the the total depth of discharge that you use in batteries their lifetime but you know all of our stuff is automo grade 10 years 150,000 miles okay yeah yeah cuz when it starts to go is one of those deals where 80 70 60 is that how is that how batteries degrade you just have less and less is it like a cell phone you have less and less it's it's a little bit like that I mean it's generally accepted that 70 to 80% of uh the original charge acceptance is is considered end of life in the batteries on okay so let's see what's necessary to start this thing absolutely well um you B basically have a uh this turns the vehicle on okay and what you have here is actually a 7in Android tablet that we're using as a dashboard now the reason why we're using this is because we have a a full data acquisition system on this bike called Skyline so actually as Jay's outriding it we'll be able to uh watch him from back here and make sure that he's uh you know uh paying attention to all the relevant laws okay um and uh and you know what he'll be seeing here are things like uh the state of charge so we charged the bike up last night we're at 93% he can look at voltage or battery but you can also scroll through this and see different things as you like so here's your motor temperature your battery temperature your inverter temperature um and this is all infinitely customizable well very cool let's uh let's take it for a ride wow she's got a lot of torque and you feel like you're uh like you're moving through time it's there's no noise you open the throttle and you go it's pretty amaz pretty amazing you know the regen braking is not bad it feels as if you've uh if you're on a gas bike it's equivalent of maybe dropping down a gear when you slow down but I don't find it intrusive at all boy the torque is right there you just twist the throttle and you go it's uh it's it's a lot of fun kind of puts a kabash on that whole loud pipe save lives deal because it's just just no noise at all I mean I enjoy hearing that electric wine though that's kind of cool and of course when you stop like any electric vehicle the engine stops and it's it's quiet W I went through a puddle and then get electrocuted you know it's so funny you have that instinct to want to shift and there's of course no transmission oh it's it's just got so much torque you know it's it's a lot of fun I gu you know I thought I would miss the internal combustion noise but you know just the wind rushing around you let's take it up in the freeway see how it goes see what kind of range we get out of this thing let's take it up in the freeway you know you can get used to this real easy a couple of Harley went by ah they were so noisy wow pretty amazing let's take it back to the shop and check how much power we use what you think it's pretty amazing you get used to that pretty quickly you know it's just another whole way of doing things and the fun thing is when most electric vehicles run out of power this is just coming on the pipe P well they don't have a pipe anymore but there you go but you see what I'm saying let's see uh now our Dash was out during our test so I couldn't see how fast we were going but I know we're making some pretty good speed how much electricity do we have left um looks like well this is saying 93 which is what we started with we're going to we can we can check it with uh CU we went about we went about 23 miles something like that 23 24 miles we don't appear to have used much electricity and uh we're on the throttle quite a bit or rat I guess you'd call it you have to have to change your way of thinking when you do these things but you know it uh it's kind of the shock of the new really is what it is you get on it and then you realize well it's just another motorcycle but with as I said during the ride instead of listening to the engine there's just the sounds of the air going by you you feel as if it's like Blade Runner you know you feel as if you're just sort of moving quickly through the future it's it's pretty amazing I mean it's a real motorcycle and it's got real power and uh it's uh it's really exciting now where do people go if they want to find out more about this ride mission.com okay you can learn about the bike and about our company and about our technology on there but you guys are not making the bike yourselves correct no we're not going to be producing the bike uh we're all about the technology the bike shows what we can do but uh you know hopefully uh in in not too long you'll be able to see missions technology all over the road yeah I'd like to see an American company build this that would be great fun because like as I said before a lot of the stuff is developed here in the states and it goes overseas and people wind up thinking it was developed in Japan or China and whatnot when all the real R&D was done here so David it's really exciting I I've been waiting to to ride this for a long time I've read about it in all the magazines so thanks for bringing it by it's glad you enjoy a lot yeah very exciting see you guys next weekMission Motors started life uh as an electric motorcycle company the goal was to build the highest Performance electric motorcycle out there uh the founders very quickly learned that the technology was not available to make a bike that met the needs of real true Enthusiast motorcyclists and they went ahead and created the technology in batteries Motors electronics and software themselves uh this technology quickly found a much bigger Market Automotive heavy equipment and today we're supplier of EV technology to all these industries but uh through all this we've stayed focused on the motorcycle platform as our development platform uh and this is our latest version of it the missionar the world's most advanced electric motorcycle one episode of Jay lano's garage if you're a motorcycle Enthusiast like we are here you've probably heard about this bike I've seen it in Cycle World and motorcyclist and all the magazines this is a true electric Superbike now don't stay with me here 161 horsepower well over 100 foot pounds of torque it's constant it's really fast it's got a range of about 150 miles this is uh I think pretty much what the future is going to be or at least part of the future I think internal combustion engines will be with us well through most of our lifetimes but it's nice to see alternative stuff that's really fascinating and uses some uh well existing technology just taken to the ninth degree the emission Motors is the name of the folks that uh produced this bike here and they're one of the leaders in electric uh motorcycle technology let's talk to David sgo David coming in here hi you're the the marketing guy yeah I'm the marketing manag toet you you know a it looks like a real Superbike so right away motorcyclists tend to be very conservative when it comes to their bikes they don't like anything new or different you know so a looks like a real Superbike it's got real Superbike power and it's got real Superbike torque uh tell us about this machine pretty amazing absolutely so you know as you said Mission Motors is an electric vehicle technology company our goal is really to help companies get uh better hybrids and EVS to Market faster we're we're a small company we're based in San Francisco uh you know we've got people from the robotics industry from the Auto industry from Silicon Valley companies like Google and apple uh we focus on the motors the batteries the software the technology that goes inside to electric vehicles and we do that for not just power sports but automotive and even heavy equipment we developed the mission R to demonstrate what the technology could do uh sportbike platform is a very challenging platform for electric vehicles because the packaging is very constrained and the dynamic are very important right so it was sort of our technology Compass to really push our engineers and our technology to the Limit yeah most electric motorcycles that I've ridden are commuter bikes some pretend to be super bikes or look like real motorcycles but they don't have the range or the full-on power whereas this is an actual Superbike that uh this could compete against Suzuki and Kawasakis andas and all the others as well and do quite well and what is what is the range uh the range obviously uh it depends on on how you're using it um but you can go anywhere from 80 to 150 miles so it is 80 to 100 cuz you know like I always say electricity is like sex people have no compulsion about lying about it most electric vehicles that promis this actually give you this and this being a super bike you would want to drive it in proper Superbike fashion which means a lot of cut and thrust and pulling away from lights and and having fun with with it so that being said you would still get 80 to 100 miles absolutely I did my usual Sunday ride on it uh up around uh Skyline Boulevard uh Alice's Restaurant uh South of San Francisco and then took the highway back from there that was about 70 miles and I still had plenty of charge when I back okay okay and how big lithium ion batteries yes lithium ion batteries this has uh 14 kilowatt hours lithium ion batteries it has a uh 120 KW motor which is about 161 horsepower uh for context uh your Chevy Volt has 16 kwatt hours it has 111 kilowatt motor I believe so uh what our Engineers have been able to do is package basically a Chevy Volt electric powertrain into something that's volumetrically about the same as Yamaha R six yeah that's that's some of our secret sauce the ability to package a lot of and that's a pretty good size looking electric motor yeah that's uh that is about 120 kows um a little over 161 horsepower um it'll take you 0 to 60 in about 3 seconds and this will do over 160 mes an hour our last vehicle our last prototype uh set the Bonville speed record for EES back in 2009 um that did a 163 mph oneway pass we designed this from a system level perspective and basically what that means is you know taking into account what we wanted to do with it which was race and demonstrate the real qualities the best qualities of electric Drive uh and then from there we said okay well we're going to need the battery to go to this to uh Go the Distance which is why we put so many kilowatt hours of battery in it we put the big motor in there but also we worked with you know since we're the powertrain company we worked with the right guys for the rest of the package so James Parker well-known chassis designer did the Yamaha GTS 1000 he designed the chassis the chassis is completely custom this is uh not adapted from any uh gas powered vehicle um and what does it weigh it weighs 550 lb so that's not excessive that's not too bad that's about the uh about 100 lb more than weight of an R1 something like that like maybe a BMW Touring bike something like that exactly but what we've done with it is we've taken all the weight uh and moved it to the center near the Roll center of mass so actually almost all the weight is uh contained in here whereas on a gas vehicle you have mufflers and parts hanging out so it's actually once you get going it handles beautifully it has 55 degrees of lean angle uh it's a proper super bike yeah I'm anxious to try it it looks like it would have a high center of gravity but you say no huh not too bad uh it's right where James Parker wanted it right about here at the roll center of mass you don't you don't want the the uh the weight to be too low in a sports bike otherwise you get that hard feeling and you got those massive brembos on there CU obviously now oh does it regen it does regen uh right now we have it set up for Street regen which is basically it's going to uh it's going to pull you right down when you let off the throttle you're really not even if using it doesn't roll the other way and then no it's not it's not like the vectric it's uh it'll it'll do it automatically but it's also fully tunable um you know people have different preferences and and uh I mean is the regen really obvious is it like compression braking you just sort of get off it and you uh you'll you'll feel it and it will be a little bit different than what you're used to at first and then by the third Corner it'll be just fine I see and do I see regen on my screen does it you don't see regen now actually uh you can you can see a lot of different things we're using an Android tablet actually as our dashboard right now and this is you got a plate on it so it's street legal in California you have no emissions to to meet you obviously it stops and handles and it's got lights and it's got turn signals this is not some little pie in the sky go up and down the street once with it it's a real bike that you can drive and use on the road and being electric it's virtually maintenance free isn't it absolutely nothing to do you just ride it very little maintenance we've got uh we've had thousands of miles on it since we um since we got it on the road no problems at all cool and you can charge at 110 or 240 yeah yeah 110 or or uh or or 240 it's an this vehicle has an offboard charger that was because uh you know originally was built for racing so we wanted to keep the weight down as much as we could um but yes it it charges uh you know anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours for a full charge and how old is this particular bike uh this bike we first showed it at the Long Beach motorcycle show in 2010 okay um and then last year it went to Laguna sea Raceway for the Moto GP weekend they had an electric bike class that was on the undercard so I think that's really exciting they they run an electric bike class at L uh so it's not going to take away from internal combustion stuff it's just another facet of racing and the nice thing is you get a whole new level of geek guys interested in racing who weren't interested in racing before so to me anything that promotes motorcycling be it electric two stroke four stroke whatever it is I I think it's it's fantastic yeah you know it was really interesting because at the beginning of that of that Grand Prix weekend you know there was a lot of sort of jokes going around the paddock about the electric bikes uh and you know they going to put a c in the spokes and all those sorts of all those sorts of things then we went out on Saturday and our writer Steve WAP said a 1313 uh lap time for qualifying around Laguna sea that smashed every EV record out there it actually would have qualified it Fifth on the grid for the AMA super sport 600 uh and it was only 10 seconds off the Moto GP uh pole position and then we went out the next day and we won the eight laap Race by about 40 seconds wow over the second place finisher so by the end of the weekend people are you still on the original set of batteries uh oh yes yeah absolutely um we uh you know it depends on the amount of charge the the total depth of discharge that you use in batteries their lifetime but you know all of our stuff is automo grade 10 years 150,000 miles okay yeah yeah cuz when it starts to go is one of those deals where 80 70 60 is that how is that how batteries degrade you just have less and less is it like a cell phone you have less and less it's it's a little bit like that I mean it's generally accepted that 70 to 80% of uh the original charge acceptance is is considered end of life in the batteries on okay so let's see what's necessary to start this thing absolutely well um you B basically have a uh this turns the vehicle on okay and what you have here is actually a 7in Android tablet that we're using as a dashboard now the reason why we're using this is because we have a a full data acquisition system on this bike called Skyline so actually as Jay's outriding it we'll be able to uh watch him from back here and make sure that he's uh you know uh paying attention to all the relevant laws okay um and uh and you know what he'll be seeing here are things like uh the state of charge so we charged the bike up last night we're at 93% he can look at voltage or battery but you can also scroll through this and see different things as you like so here's your motor temperature your battery temperature your inverter temperature um and this is all infinitely customizable well very cool let's uh let's take it for a ride wow she's got a lot of torque and you feel like you're uh like you're moving through time it's there's no noise you open the throttle and you go it's pretty amaz pretty amazing you know the regen braking is not bad it feels as if you've uh if you're on a gas bike it's equivalent of maybe dropping down a gear when you slow down but I don't find it intrusive at all boy the torque is right there you just twist the throttle and you go it's uh it's it's a lot of fun kind of puts a kabash on that whole loud pipe save lives deal because it's just just no noise at all I mean I enjoy hearing that electric wine though that's kind of cool and of course when you stop like any electric vehicle the engine stops and it's it's quiet W I went through a puddle and then get electrocuted you know it's so funny you have that instinct to want to shift and there's of course no transmission oh it's it's just got so much torque you know it's it's a lot of fun I gu you know I thought I would miss the internal combustion noise but you know just the wind rushing around you let's take it up in the freeway see how it goes see what kind of range we get out of this thing let's take it up in the freeway you know you can get used to this real easy a couple of Harley went by ah they were so noisy wow pretty amazing let's take it back to the shop and check how much power we use what you think it's pretty amazing you get used to that pretty quickly you know it's just another whole way of doing things and the fun thing is when most electric vehicles run out of power this is just coming on the pipe P well they don't have a pipe anymore but there you go but you see what I'm saying let's see uh now our Dash was out during our test so I couldn't see how fast we were going but I know we're making some pretty good speed how much electricity do we have left um looks like well this is saying 93 which is what we started with we're going to we can we can check it with uh CU we went about we went about 23 miles something like that 23 24 miles we don't appear to have used much electricity and uh we're on the throttle quite a bit or rat I guess you'd call it you have to have to change your way of thinking when you do these things but you know it uh it's kind of the shock of the new really is what it is you get on it and then you realize well it's just another motorcycle but with as I said during the ride instead of listening to the engine there's just the sounds of the air going by you you feel as if it's like Blade Runner you know you feel as if you're just sort of moving quickly through the future it's it's pretty amazing I mean it's a real motorcycle and it's got real power and uh it's uh it's really exciting now where do people go if they want to find out more about this ride mission.com okay you can learn about the bike and about our company and about our technology on there but you guys are not making the bike yourselves correct no we're not going to be producing the bike uh we're all about the technology the bike shows what we can do but uh you know hopefully uh in in not too long you'll be able to see missions technology all over the road yeah I'd like to see an American company build this that would be great fun because like as I said before a lot of the stuff is developed here in the states and it goes overseas and people wind up thinking it was developed in Japan or China and whatnot when all the real R&D was done here so David it's really exciting I I've been waiting to to ride this for a long time I've read about it in all the magazines so thanks for bringing it by it's glad you enjoy a lot yeah very exciting see you guys next week\n"