Lithium Ion motorbike prototype is emission and sound-free

Now that Tesla Motors has resurrected the electric car in screeching sports car form, it's the turn of the motorbike to get all Lithium Ioned up. While it's not the first electric motorcycle, it is possibly the most rough and ready design: if you can afford the $15,000 odd fee for a custom modification, a team at the Electric Motorsport shop in Oakland will take out the nasty engine in your ride and replace it with an array of Lithium Ion batteries. As a prototype, the company created a fully electric version of the Yamaha R1 which has a top speed of 100MPH, a range of 100 miles, does 0-60 in 3 seconds, and looks pretty damn ugly to tell the truth. Ya' see, the number of brick sized Lithium Ion batteries required to eke out this level of performance is 28, which have to fit all willy nilly underneath the bike. Fortunately, the company hopes to produce a more refined production model, as well as a cheaper design with less advanced performance.

[Via Digg]