Darville Racing hooks up with Brammo as factory team during 2014 eRoadRacing series

Brammo announced today that Darvill Racing would be contesting the 2014 FIM eRoadRacing World Cup as a factory supported team.   This is both great for Brammo, and the first sign that there will be a 2014 eRoadRacing series.

Darville will be running with two "Factory-supported privateer Brammo machines".  One is described as a "Prototype 2 (P2)" while the other is an eSuperStock bike.  These will be in the eRoadRacing class, while others will be entered in National championships.

Both bikes are said to be based on the Brammo Empulse R street bike, and later in the press release it's said the teams first "TTXP2" is being prepared.  

The problem with this press release is that it refers to information which the FIM eRoadRacing series has not yet released concerning the 2014 season.  There are plans which Azhar Hussain told me over a year ago, for the 2014 season and beyond, which are pretty exciting, but eRR has not yet announced whether those plans are coming to fruition.

In all cases the bikes Brammo is supplying to Darvill are Empulse TTX's, and where they differ is in the amount of upgrades.  For the eSuperStock bikes they're using a definition of "production bike with limited modification" and for the Prototype 2 bikes they're using a definition of "production bike but with nearly unlimited modifications allowed".

All the bikes in the 2013 North America eRR series fit the Prototype 2 definition, because every bike had significant upgrades such as to the controller.

Darvill will be doing an extensive winter testing program before their FIM eRoadRacing debut at Circuit Zolder in Belgium in May. Which implies an eRoadRacing event in Belgium in May, right?  Something that eRR hasn't announced yet.  Sigh.

Presumably Darvill's testing will be around the Isle of Man, their home base, but we understand they do not intend to enter the TT ZERO.

“We’ve been considering a switch to ebikes for a while now and feel that the time is right for us to take on this new challenge,” said Team Principal Alex Aitchison.

“The championship rules allow privately run teams like ours to compete on a level playing field and we are confident that we have the experience and resources to step up and contribute to what is one of the world’s most exciting race series.

“As a team, we have learned a great deal racing in a plethora of disciplines and have proved ourselves through a series of race wins, pole positions, fastest laps and world titles over our fifty year history. We’ve worked hard over the last few years to put out a professional team and we are delighted that this has been recognised by Brammo Motorcycles, who have both welcomed our move into the eRR class. Racing in FIM eRR will not only provide us with a fresh sporting challenge but will give considerably more exposure for our team sponsors.”

Buckeye Current Racing planning TT ZERO 2014 run

I see from the Facebook pages of the Buckeye Current electric motorcycle team (from Ohio State Univ) that they are planning a run at the 2014 TT ZERO.  I thought I'd seen a post from the VA Tech Bolt team that they're heading to TT ZERO as well, but I can't find that one on Facebook again.

Post by Buckeye Current Racing.

Cruiser style WATTMAN electric motorcycle billed as most powerful in world

Finally, a "Cruiser" styled electric motorcycle, though it's still not the kind of cruiser bike I want (hint: my gas bike is a Honda Rebel 250).  Anyway, Voxan Motors has unveiled the WATTMAN at the Paris Motorcycle Show. 

Details are slim:  200 horsepower, 200 Nm of torque, up to 10,500 RPM, 0-160 km/hr in 5.9 seconds (0-100 miles/hr).  It sports a permanent magnet liquid cooled motor.

These make them claim it's the most powerful electric motorcycle in existence.    We can think of a few organizations that would like to contest such a claim.

The 12.8 kilowatt-hour battery pack is said to give a 120 mile riding range.  But, interpolating that from spec's of other bikes, I suspect this range figure is at city streets speeds rather than highway speeds or racing speeds.  Charging time is 80% in less than 30 minutes thanks to support of the SAE DC Fast Charging system - but the problem there is the scarcity of compatible charging stations.

This bike is clearly NOT aimed at racing.   Instead the company says the WATTMAN is "Primarily intended for an exclusive international clientele seeking innovation" and that production will be limited to "unit-by-unit, upon order, and hand-assembled in France, at the Solesmes (Sarthe) Electric Vehicle Manufacture."  In other words, this may never see anything other than the garages of rich men.

More ABOUT VOXAN on http://www.voxan.com

http://facebook.com/VoxanMotors

http://twitter.com/VoxanMotors

Delta Wing consortium files lawsuit that could derail Nissan ZEOD RC and Blade Glider

The Nissan DeltaWing entry in the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans was built by a consortium of companies, and its official name was "Delta Wing Project 56" (DWP56).   That detail is leading to a lawsuit, from the leader of the project team, that could derail the Nissan ZEOD RC and the commercialized Blade Glider that could go into production. 

A complaint was filed and entered into the system of the superior court of Jackson County, Ga., on Friday, Nov. 22, 2013, by Delta Wing, LLC, a business owned by Chip Ganassi, and Delta Wing Project 56, LLC, a business with multiple owners, including Ganassi and general manager Don Panoz.

The issue arises because the original designer of the Delta Wing, Ben Bowlby, now works for Nissan and is in charge of designing the ZEOD RC and the Blade Glider.  Both use a triangular shaped vehicle body with improved aerodynamics.  What makes these vehicles important for us on Electric Race News is they both incorporate an electric drive train.

The claim by DWP56 is that Don Panoz and the DWP56 consortium bankrolled the design, and therefore owns intellectual property rights, which they are seeking to license to automakers. 

According to racer.com (link below) Bowlby, while an employee of Ganassi Racing, originally developed the idea as a proposal to the IndyCar series to replace an earlier Dallara design.  However, IndyCar chose to stay with Dallara.  Bowlby eventually hooked up with Panoz who bankrolled more design work, and formed DWP56 who took over intellectual property rights on the design.  The focus was a run at Le Mans in Garage 56, which is reserved for experimental race cars.  The role Nissan took was to supply an engine and presumably some other sponsorship resources required to get to Le Mans.  Unfortunately the car crashed after 7 hours and was unable to finish that race.  It returned to the Petit Le Mans later in the year, and then in 2013 it raced under the DeltaWing name without Nissan's blessing and sporting a Mazda engine.

Last summer, Bowlby showed up as a Nissan NISMO employee and leading the ZEOD RC project, after having been hired by Nissan in 2012.  That car is slated for the 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans and again occupying Garage 56, as did the original Delta Wing. 

The complaint names former Delta Wing designer and current Nissan director of motorsport innovation Ben Bowlby, Nissan global motorsports director Darren Cox, Nissan Motor Company, Ltd., Nissan Motorsports International Company, Ltd., Nissan International, S.A., and Nissan North America, Inc., and requests a finding of “temporary and permanent injunctive relief, interlocutory injunction, and damages.”

The complaint states: “This is an action for damages and injunctive relief arising out of theft of confidential and proprietary information, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contracts, unjust enrichment, fraud, and negligent misrepresentation. The Defendants have acted individually, as agents for each other, and in conspiracy with each other to commit the aforementioned actions, which have caused Plaintiffs damages and irreparable harm. ... Defendants have misappropriated the trade secrets owned by DW and exclusively licensed to DWP56 and used such information and opportunities to compete with DW and DWP56, causing irreparable and ongoing injury to Plaintiffs. Defendants have further breached their contracts with DWP56 and engaged in fraud and negligent misrepresentation directed toward DWP56, which have caused DWP56 significant damages”

Nissan's statement is: “The Nissan ZEOD RC is a new design. Nissan does not green light any projects which it believes will contravene third parties' intellectual property rights.”

This has me scratching my head ...

Bowlby was covered by employment agreements restricting him from revealing intellectual property developed by Ganassi/DWP56.  Nissan surely has good quality lawyers who can spot such a problem from the outset, and they chose to hire Bowlby anyway.  Ergo...?

At the same time, are triangularly shaped vehicles all that rare?  In other words, is the DWP56 design all that original? 

In the meantime - the ZEOD RC / Blade Glider - I've been meaning to write these up, and have neglected doing so.  My apologies.

Sources:
http://www.racer.com/panoz-led-delta-wing-consortium-files-lawsuit-against-ben-bowlby-and-nissan/article/323046/

http://transportevolved.com/2013/12/02/nissan-faces-legal-action-over-bladeglider-concept-ev/

Official eMotoRacing series announcement, first race in February 2014

Arthur Kowitz - 2013 eRoadRacing @ Laguna Seca

As I reported earlier, Arthur Kowitz, a long-time AMA Pro Racer who is a convert to electric motorcycle racing, is organizing an electric motorcycle racing series for North America.  What we have now is an official press release as well as further discussion in the Electric Racing group on Facebook.

BTW - anybody interested in Electric Racing should join that group, pronto.

What does Arthur have on his mind? The press release (below) says quite a bit.

He wants to race electric.  What Arthur explained to me last summer is that, after his retirement from AMA racing, he kept racing within the AHRMA.  But it struck him that while he was advancing the state of the art in 2-stroke motorcycle racing, that's really a throwback to an ancient bygone era of motorcycling.  Two-stroke bikes have been banned from regular racing for ages.

The future is electric, the handwriting is on the wall.  Arthur wanted to be part of the future, rather than part of preserving the past.  That's why he raced with the eRoadRacing series this year, riding a Brammo TTX.

As he notes below, the ready availability of high quality manufactured bikes from Zero and Brammo now make it cheap for someone to race electric.  Their speed is on par with 250+ cc gas bikes, and could mean some interesting racing action if there's a full grid of such bikes on the track.  Where the 2012 TTXGP and 2013 eRoadRacing seasons proved this, the 2014 season will see the Zero SR as a race-ready bike, and will likely see an upgrade to the Empulse from Brammo.

The press release describes two classes - eGrandPrix for the no-holds-barred bikes, and eSuperSport for the production bikes.  It's not clear where this would place the University teams (Virginia Tech, Ohio State, etc) or the DIY constructors.  We haven't seen the precise definitions, so the next paragraph is a bit of guesswork.

A little fly in the ointment might come from either Lightning or Mission, both of whom claim to be in "production" of their ultra-high-end electric motorcycles.  Both have shown bikes which beat the snot out of the Zero S/SR or Empulse R/TTX.  Depending on how Arthur wants to define eSuperSport - would he use the eSuperStock definition from the 2012 TTXGP season?  Manufacturing and sales of over 25 bikes per year?  Mission claims to have sold (but not yet delivered) 40 bikes, and it's plausible that Lightning could do so as well.  Would that undermine this eSuperSport class?

Arthur - it's better to define the classes based on power and performance, right?  Wink, Wink, Nudge Nudge.  I thought at the time that the TTXGP was stupid to have defined eSuperStock that way.  One hopes the same mistake will not be repeated for this new series.

Arthur did say on the Electric Racing group - "The 2014 series will not be TTXGP over again, but an AHRMA stand alone class. Their policy is that a new class can have its autonomy, points standings, and awards...but maintain exhibition status for the first season at least to assure interest and viability."

This means eMotoRacing will exist at the AHRMA events while operating somewhat on its own.

Jeremiah Johnson is also working on setting up a 3-person team for this series.  Anybody interested should contact him.  

When I posted this question "If eRoadRacing is foundering where does the top electric motorcycle racing series go?" - Arthur answered "It goes to the new 10 race eMotoRacing Series...which will be affordable for racers and have a full schedule tied down well before the season starts."

AHRMA has posted a tentative schedule for the 2014 season - the eMotoRacing dates will be the same.  The first date is approaching fast, meaning the teams need to be organized right away.

Feb 28 – March 2 -Roebling Road Raceway - Savannah GA

March 28-30 - NOLA Motorsports Park - New Orleans

April 25-27 - Willow Springs Int’l Raceway - Lancaster CA

May 1-2  - Sonoma(Sears Point) - Sonoma County CA

June 6-8 - Road America - Sheboygan Wisconsin

June 13-15 - Grattan Raceway - Grand Rapids Michigan

July 11-13  - New Jersey Motorsports Park - Vineland NJ

August 29-31  - Miller Motorsports Park - Salt Lake City

October 9-12 - Barber Motorsports Park - Birmingham, AL

October 17-19  - Daytona Int’l Speedway - Daytona Beach, FL

Cutting-edge Electric Motorcycle Roadracing Series Hits the U.S.

National electric motorcycle roadracing championship kicks-off in 2014 as the zero-emission U.S. eMotoRacing Series, running in conjunction with the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association (AHRMA) CPL Systems Historic Cup National Roadrace Series.

Races will be held at many of the nation’s finest racetracks — Barber Motorsports Park , Daytona International Speedway, Grattan Raceway, Miller Motorsports Park , New Jersey Motorsports Park, NOLA Motorsports Park , Road America , Roebling Road Raceway, Sonoma Raceway and Willow Springs International Raceway.

Race-ready electric motorcycles are available from Brammo and Zero Motorcycles, making it simple to participate in this series.

Electric racebikes’ fastest speeds are similar to race-prepared 600cc gasoline-powered bikes. These electric motorcycles have similar powertrains to electric cars like the Nissan Leaf, the Tesla Model S, and the electric portion of the Chevy Volt.

Riders and teams are invited to participate in the elite eGrandPrix class for full-on prototype machines, or in eSuperSport, aimed at production racers and race-prepped, electric-powered street bikes. Both classes give participants the opportunity to showcase and develop new technologies, while enjoying an affordable racebike with pure chassis feedback and very low maintenance.

Become a leader who is easy on the environment – the sky’s the limit in this high-performance, exciting new racing series! With trophies at each event and year-end awards, don’t miss your chance to become the country’s very first eMotoRacing champion!

Sponsored by Arthur Kowitz Realty of Daytona Beach, Florida, the U.S. eMotoRacing Series will run as an exhibition class at all 10 rounds of the AHRMA Historic Cup Series; for event information and a full series schedule, visit www.ahrma.org. For technical details on the U.S. eMotoRacing Series, email Kowitz at eMotoRacing@akr1.com.

If eRoadRacing is foundering where does the top electric motorcycle racing series go?

What happened to the 2013 eRoadRacing World Cup?  The team, a fusion of the FIM e-Power and TTXGP, started the year with big promises that 2013 would be a formative year in which they launched the series.  Four or more races were to be held in both North America and Europe, along with a World Final in Asia.  Instead, what we got were two truncated series, no World Final, and a press release from eRoadRacing trying to painted the best face on the situation, desperately steering clear of the reality.

Whatever the reason for that (I understand the team had huge difficulty getting the season organized), the result was such that Asphalt & Rubber just described eRoadRacing as having foundered, as in a ship that's run aground and is sinking.

I can't fault Jensen's reasoning.  The racing promoter, the TTXGP organization, is ultimately responsible for the result.

Racing promoters, as I pointed out yesterday, are supposed to create seasons that fans want to see, and racers want to participate in.  The riders and teams are the linchpin.  They need to know ahead of time their schedule for the year, and that the costs are reasonable.

The most interesting results in the 2013 season were not organized by eRoadRacing.  Instead it was the teams taking the initiative to race where the gassers are racing, in AFM, M1GP, and Pikes Peak.  The most amazing result being Lightning's flat out win at Pikes Peak.

The high level vision of creating a world racing series with high end electric motorcycles - that's cool.  Those of us who want electric racing to succeed are on board with that vision.  And clearly there are several teams that could be part of such a series.  Those names include Brammo, Lightning, Mission, MotoCzysz, Muench, Mugen/Honda, and Zongshen and perhaps some others. 

IF a series could launch with that kind of roster, what would happen?

Will 2014 eRoadRacing World Cup be a repeat of the dismalness of the 2013 season?

Terry Hershner reaches Mississippi after SNAFU gods give him a flat tire

I neglected to post an update on Terry Hershner's ride yesterday and today, so here goes.  They'd made it to Houston yesterday, and today are in Louisana, but one last problem had to occur.  At 10:30PM their time last night, the rear tire went flat.

After getting repairs done - that included cutting away some metal - they're on the road again.

As I'm writing this, going by the Glympse tracker they posted, they're just now entering Mississippi.  The remaining trip is small, under 500 miles, crossing the Gulf Coast portions of Mississippi and Alabama, and then the Florida Panhandle to get to Jacksonville.  As long as they can hold the SNAFU gods at bay, they're in the final stretch.

Post by Off The Grid.

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