Chip Yates is a mechanical...
Chip Yates is a mechanical engineer with experience at Boeing and McLaren, and a former AMA and World Supersport racer.
Tucked away in a nondescript industrial complex south of Los Angeles, in a cramped, unsigned, single-bay unit with CAD printouts covering the windows to shield the interior from prying eyes, is the fastest, most powerful and most advanced electric bike in the country—perhaps even the world. There is no army of engineers, highly paid executives, banks of computers or rows of CNC equipment. Rather, the bike was designed and built by a small group of dedicated people, all working outside of their regular jobs and fueled by a passion of pushing the technological envelope. At the head of that small group is racer, designer and fabricator Chip Yates.
The swigz.com electric superbike, as Yates calls his creation, makes 240 horsepower from a 145 kW electric motor and weighs 585 pounds—almost 200 pounds of which is the battery capacity necessary to run such a powerful motor for any length of time. But what sets the electric superbike apart from any other bike seen thus far in the TTXGP or E-Power series is front-wheel KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System, see sidebar), which pumps energy back into the battery when the front brake is used and allows the bike to go further and faster for a longer period of time than it would otherwise. Furthermore, Yates has forgone competing against electric bikes in either sanctioned series and has chosen to race against gas-powered bikes where possible, and has done so in a WERA event at Auto Club Speedway.
At Auto Club Speedway earlier...
At Auto Club Speedway earlier this year, Yates raced against gas-powered bikes in a WERA event, scoring two podiums and turning lap times that would almost have qualified for the AMA Daytona SportBike race held there in 2010.
At Auto Club Speedway, Yates...
At Auto Club Speedway, Yates removed the front-wheel KERS and ran a conventional two-disc front brake setup. Only a single disc is required when the KERS is in place. The red hoses cool the battery packs and jackshaft chain, which gets quite hot as the motor runs at 8000 rpm. The small radiator on the front is from a Honda CRF450 and used to cool the motor and controller.
This MoTeC screenshot from...
This MoTeC screenshot from a lap of Auto Club Speedway shows some interesting data. The motor draws about 400 amps (yellow trace) under full load, while the KERS, acting only on the rear wheel for this session, puts back about 100 amps. Yates uses full throttle (green) for just a couple of seconds each lap, while he activates the KERS to about 25 percent of its full potential in each braking zone (purple). Top speed (blue) is 162 mph.
Yates is a mechanical engineer and former AMA Supersport racer, and progressed quickly from his first pavement experience at a track day in 2007, through WERA and AFM club racing in 2008 to several AMA rounds and even the World Supersport event at Miller Motorsports Park in 2009. But a broken pelvis and long recuperation later that year started him thinking about electric bikes. It was being out for a while, missing tinkering, and I saw a series that you could do basically anything you want. In the AMA I was having a lot of fun, but I never felt like I could win a race. But I’d learned enough from being on track with the AMA guys and World Supersport that I was getting pretty quick. And with an engineering mind I’m a pretty good test rider, so by using my engineering ability and brain on a team, we could build a bike that could win not only a race but a world championship.
The motor and controller are...
The motor and controller are a package made by UQM Technologies and sold for use in electric, hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles. Peak power is listed as 194 horsepower, although Yates has increased this to 240.
The bike started taking shape with a Suzuki GSX-R750 chassis and the electric motor and controller purchased as a $25,000 kit from UQM Technologies. UQM builds electric propulsion systems for hybrid and all-electric vehicles, supplying the U.S. Army and various automobile manufacturers. In fact, the same setup used in the electric superbike—the Power-Phase 145, capable of 194 horsepower, 8000 rpm and 295 ft-lb of torque—is found in Saab, Audi and Rolls Royce electric vehicles. The liquid-cooled motor weighs 110 pounds, measures 11 inches in diameter and 11 inches long, and is situated in roughly the same position as the GSX-R’s crankshaft. Yates manufactured the mounting system that utilizes the stock GSX-R mounts, and power runs through a jackshaft mounted in the stock bike’s countershaft position so that rear suspension squat properties are unaffected. The liquid-cooled controller, mounted behind the seat, measures 15 inches square and five inches thick and weighs 35 pounds. While the motor and controller began as off-the-shelf items, Yates has recently been working with UQM on development: With their assistance we’re doing a behind-the-scenes development program to showcase the maximum performance available. They had our motor and controller, and made some changes to go from 194 to 240 horsepower.