Rocket EV Electric Bike Sets a New Quarter-Mile Record (201 MPH in 6.94 Seconds)

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Electric Spider-bikeOne of the advantages to driving an electric vehicle is all the torque — you get off the line super fast. Where that has typically started to go ever so slightly downhill for the average EV drag racer is in sustaining a quicker top speed than drivers in a conventional gas-powered vehicle for an entire quarter mile. This is no longer quite the case.

The aptly named Shawn Lawless and his group have been working on getting their Rocket EV drag-racing motorcycle to go faster, get there quicker, and do it longer. All that hard work has paid off — he set a record of reaching 201 mph in 6.94 seconds at the Virginia Motorsports quarter-mile strip. Check out the video below:

Electrons — They Go Fast

The electric bike itself has been around for a couple years — Lawless has apparently been tweaking it since 2010 — but it’s been pretty solidly updated for this run. It runs on a 13-inch DC motor with a custom Zilla controller, and sports a 14.2-kWh battery (which, by the way, is 150 lbs. lighter than its previous battery, so good work there).

No matter what’s under the hood or how many wheels are touching the ground, a 7-second quarter miles is pretty quick, and the Rocket EV can more or less repeat its performance — it’s made the run in 7.16 seconds (reaching 188mph) and in 7 seconds flat (reaching 195 mph) on the same track.

Inexplicably, the driver is dressed like Spiderman (who, despite his affinity for flying from roof to roof like a ninja with gobs of sticky string, would still probably have trouble beating this thing in a race). Whatever his reasons, it’s a super neat bike going really fast in a straight line, and not emitting any greenhouse gases doing so.

Source: Treehugger | Image: YouTube


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