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Comment by aaronbeekay | Hacker News Reader

I work on a team that designed two electric motorcycles for the IOM TT Zero. Yes, it's a very different game from the gas races. Aero and energy storage on board are the primary concerns - the top team for the past several years has been successful primarily by packing on ~20-30% more energy than their competitors, so that they can go faster, for longer.

The TT is really an edge case, though, since it is such a long (38mi) and high speed course.

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If you've been there a while, I probably met you, or at least your colleagues - a few years back at Maker Faire (where you were showing off a yellow motorcycle, from memory R6 based?), and again at Sears Point for the first US TTxGp back in maybe 2010?

One of your guys (Richard?) offered to get me good prices on Agni motors and packs of A123 cells for $300-ish per kWHr. (I should have taken him up on that... My current ride is a probably-illegal-in-CA 125cc two stroke Cagiva Mito - which is a barrel of fun! I could easily see myself looking for 30 or 40kW of electric motor/controller/battery to jam inside it next time it needs a complete engine rebuild...)

Hmm, not us! We were there in '13 and '14, and our bike was built on a CBR1000RR chassis. I can't remember who had a yellow bike, although it sounds familiar... it may have been a bit before my time if they were talking about Agni motors.

Small world :)

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