Round the World in 80 Days On a Custom-Built Electric Bike
Team of Dutch students shows electric motorcycles aren’t just for commuting.
As the old joke goes, the big breakthrough for electric vehicles is 10 years away and always will be. Long-range and quick recharging always seem to be out of reach.
A team of 23 students from Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands recently set out to prove that the electric future might finally arrive after all. They left the town of Eindhoven and spent the next 80 days riding 14,300 miles around the world on their custom-built electric bike, the STORM Wave.
While long-distance riding on electric bikes has been done before, what sets this ride apart is the bike itself: it packs a swappable, modular battery system that can do 380 kilometers (236 miles) on a single charge. That compares favorably to a tank of gas, and makes long-distance riding more feasible.
Throughout their trip, team riders silently zipped over mountains, through forests, by traffic and past gas stations. The touring-oriented bike has a full fairing and instrumentation, and all the equipment to be street legal. A gear box further allows for greater acceleration and efficiency at high speeds. It’s also pretty fast: zero to 60 mph in under five seconds. That’s not sport bike territory, but it’s much quicker than most cars on the road.
The STORM Wave features swappable battery packs, which allowed the students to stay in the saddle up to 500 kilometers (310 miles) per day. Other students drove behind in support vehicles providing one daily change of rider and battery. When the roads got bad, the students removed some of the battery packs to reduce weight and improve handling through difficult terrain in countries like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
To show the world the possibility of long-distance electric mobility, charging was accomplished solely through the local electricity grid. “This endeavor is the ultimate proof of concept for both our motorcycle and electric mobility as a whole.” said the STORM project team.
Will the future of electric bikes move beyond short commutes, or closed courses? Let’s hope the future gets here sooner than 10 years.
To learn more about the project, go to the STORM website.
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Good job students. Now the important question is how to do it without 23 students driving behind you in support vehicles?