From Pikes Peak to Bonneville Salt Flats, Lightning outpaces combustion engine motorcycles
Andover, MA, March 26, 2024 – The latest episode of the Vicor Powering Innovation podcast explores electrification with Lightning Motorcycles, a company that produces the fastest electric motorcycle on the planet. Lightning Motorcycles (Lightning) not only manufactures the fastest motorbike on Earth, but also prides itself on delivering the smoothest, vibration-free ride for the purist who just loves the riding experience.
“The bike gives you a feeling of limitless torque with no vibration, no noise and no heat – there is almost a magical feeling to it.” – Richard Hatfield, founder and CEO of Lightning Motorcycles.
Hatfield sits down with David Krakauer, VP of Corporate Marketing at Vicor, to share his story and how Lightning is able to engineer a superior motorcycle by nearly every measure.
Lightning, located in San Jose, California, is one of the leading electric motorcycles in the world. Hatfield said, “The biggest challenges we face are packaging, weight and thermodynamics when competing with internal combustion engine (ICE) bikes.” Sophisticated engineering has enabled Lightning to keep the weight of their EVs at about 200lbs, the same as competing ICE bikes.
Lightning has set the land speed record at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and won the Pike Peaks challenge (14,115 ft elevation) in Denver, but Hatfield is prouder of the bike’s unparalleled riding experience.
The Vicor Powering Innovation podcast is available to download from all major podcast providers, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. Listeners can learn about today’s toughest power challenges, new ideas in electrification, creative power architectures and real-life power design challenges. Listen to the Lighting Motorcycles podcast.
