If you want to see the KillaCycle in the flesh, you will now find it and its “sister” KillaJoule at the New Zealand Timber Museum in South Waikato, New Zealand. The Timber Museum is more of a technology museum than just a timber museum and has lots of cool stuff to see, including model trains. They wanted to have the KillaJoule and KillaCycle on display, and we were delighted to loan them for a long term exhibition.
We also want to say a big “Thank you” to our neighbors Tokoroa Towing that helped us with the transport.
The land speed motorcycle KillaJoule is the new star in the “Killa” family after the retirement of the KillaCycle dragbike.
With the 2015 racing season completely rained out, we are hoping for a much better year this time. Eva will once again be pushing KillaJoule to the limits in hopes of a new record at the Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials in August.
We’ve been working hard all year getting ready for the race season. We have also two new websites: www.evahakanssonracing.com that contains anything you want to know about Eva and the KillaJoule, and www.HakanssonDube.com where you can learn everything about us.
We would like to thank our friends at Parts Giant and Arai Helmets for the help along the journey!
If you have previously followed either me (Bill Dube’) here or my wife Eva HÃ¥kansson on www.EvaHakansson.se, you will now find us both under the same domain at www.HakanssonDube.com.
If you are specifically interested in our new land speed racing motorcycle the “KillaJoule”, check out Eva’s website www.EvaHakanssonRacing.com.
Video clip of testing of the Drayson GT race car B12/69EV at MIRA facility in England. (If you are in a hurry, start watching at 1:13 min)
This car clocked zero to 100 MPH in 6 seconds, with very conservative software limits in place for these initial tests.
Drayson has a lot planned for the B12/69EV GT car, so stay tuned…..
The KillaCycle team designed and constructed the battery pack for this vehicle. Mavizen put us together with Drayson and worked all the
logistics. Derek Barger pitched in to help with a portion of the fabrication on this huge pack made from A123Systems cells. Bill did most of the design work, while Eva did most of the fabrication work on the pack.
This pack uses the new upgraded version of the A123Systems 26650 M1 cells (Called the “M1B” model 26650, not to be confused with “B grade” cells.) In addition to the nifty black stripes printed on the end of the cells, they have more than 10% higher power output and about 10% more energy content in the same size cell. The M1B cells each weigh a touch more than the standard M1 cells.
KillaCycle will race at the 1st annual Bookman’s Spring Thaw in Tucson on April 14th, 2012. Come and join us and meet Scotty, Bill, Eva and the whole crew.
More info at: http://www.nedra.com/
The KillaCycle made the cover of Motor Age Magazine. Very positive article about electric and alternative fuels racing inside: March 2011 Motor Age Magazine
The NOVA show is going to air on PBS this Wednesday evening at 8 PM MST. They will include footage of the KillaCycle at Bandimere Speedway and of me and Eva in our home shop. It was fun to work with David Pogue and the film crew, so that should result in an entertaining segment.
In racing, you never “own” a record, you just “borrow” it for awhile. The KillaCycle “borrowed” the top speed 1/4 mile record for an EV for 10 years continuously, and now, (hopefully briefly,) it is someone else’s turn.
Our feet are to the fire now. The top EV record in the 1/4 mile was just posted by Shawn Lawless on his 900+ HP “Rocket” bike piloted by the famous Larry McBride. They also bested our top MPH of 174 and they are the very first to exceed 175 mph with an EV on the drag strip.
Congratulations to Shawn and Larry McBride. They have worked hard and very much earned the honor of being the fastest EV on the drag strip.
It will be a few months before the weather allows drag racing locally. We are going to spend those months shaving weight from the KillaCycle, and adding just a bit more HP.
The KillaCycle crew spent the day with David Pogue and the PBS Nova film crew yesterday. (July 16th) They are doing a show about advanced battery technology.
Until they actually saw the first run at Bandimere Speedway, they did not fully believe “Zero to 60 mph in less than one second.” The film crew was not prepared for the acceleration on the launch. After the first run, they said, “It was on the starting line…and then it was just GONE!”
The camera crew attached little mini-cams all over the KillaCycle (and the ElectroCat ). They got fantastic action footage. Since the KillaCycle is an all-out racing machine, we did not concern ourselves with AC magnetic shielding or trying to minimize stray fields like you would do on a street EV. (Like you would not add a muffler to a racing ICE machine.) Thus, there were some very weird distortions in some of the on-board video footage. Kind of like science fiction force-field looking effects. I hope they show these “force field” clips.
