M
otorcycles and everything about them can start out as a hobby, but if you start riding and racing them, you can easily get hooked and then it becomes a passion.
From the motorcycle riding gear to the quickness of the machine, everything about a motorcycle becomes a thrill.
And that’s just for a regular ole’ motorcycle that runs on good, old-fashioned gas. What about one that runs on electricity? If you compare $2.63 per gallon to the cost of electricity ($.007 per mile), then by riding an electric bike, you are getting 376 miles to the gallon.
Enter the Lightning LS-218 production motorcycle. Lightning Motors has come up with an electric sport bike that is considered to be the fastest production motorcycle on earth. Here’s why:
Horsepower
In a nutshell, horsepower is a unit to measure engine power or the rate of power that a horse puts out by pulling. The higher the horsepower, the faster the motorcycle.
The average gas-powered motorcycle can run anywhere from 10 hp to 100 hp. The Lightning has a 200 hp engine.
RPMs
RPMs are the number of rotations per minute a motor can produce. Experts say that four to five thousand RPMs makes a fast motorcycle. The LS-218 clocks in at 10,500 RPMs.
How Green Is It?
Obviously motorcycles are better for the environment than cars due to less pollution production and emission. How green is a motorcycle? How green is the Lightning?
The Lightning Motor Company prides itself on the fact that the batteries that power the LS-218 are solar-generated and can get their power from the sun, the wind, or running water as opposed to a regular motorcycle, which receives its power from liquid fossil fuels.
Lightning Motorcycle’s CEO Richard Hatfield believes that alternatively fueled vehicles can compete with current technology and says; “Solar energy fueled vehicles are not just a theoretical concept to be realized sometime in the distant future, but a reality today that can compete head to head with gasoline powered vehicles.”
Distance & Cost
How far you can go for how much?
The Lightning motorcycles (both speed bikes and racing bikes) are the most energy efficient motorcycles you can get. On racing bikes, you can go more than 100 miles on $1.20 of electricity. This calculates to over 250 mpg.
The LS-218 Lightning motorcycle can go 218 mph, hence the model number (LS-218). This calculates to a little more than 50 miles per gallon.
Racing
The Lightning SuperBike obtained the official world record of 215 mph and the best timed run of 218 mph in August of 2014 at Speedweek in Bonneville, California. One run came in at $.08 a gallon. We won’t compare these stats to a gas motorcycle because there is no comparison.
The Lightning LS-218 shows that technology makes a difference in motorcycles. If you want the low cost of riding a motorcycle for the longest distance that doesn’t emit any pollution and go faster than anyone you know on a motorcycle, then this bike’s for you.
