GPR-S in Thailand
Apparently Todd took his motorcycle to Thailand for a show. Lucky him. Link below.
Wow, that GPR-S looks even better in the video than it does on their website.
However, Todd catching up with the CBS speaks more of Todd's great riding skills rather than figuring that the GPR-S is any match for a CBR (presumably the 600cc model widely available here in the US not some "scaled down" 250cc model?) The CBS has a top speed of around 120mph - the GPR-S around 70mph. The CBS is a race inspired machine - the GPR-S has more of a standard street bike geometry. The CBS has far more rubber on the road than the GPR-S. The list goes on...
I've no doubt Todd knows all this (and a lot more than I). So I have to wonder why he agreed to this "duel"?
Don't get me wrong - the GPS-R is a great looking bike and I'd love to own one. However, there's no way it will ever beat a CBR 600.
It says at the beginning of the video that it was a CBR 150, which appears to produce somewhere around 17 hp.
Of course the 600 cc and 250cc CBR would probably be a lot faster, and beat the GPR-S by quite a bit. And, for as much money that went into developing the CBR, I'm sure an electric could be developed for performance that would blow away the 600cc or any gas counterpart.
I think the GPR-S did well, especially concerning the conditions. But that's not really important. I can ride my BMW as fast as I like, and there are hundreds of bikes on the market that could go insanely fast if that's what I wanted. But, there's something they can't do. I can't fuel them with electricity. Just having an affordable motorcycle on the market that runs from electricity and can meet reasonable speed and range requirements for in-city commuting is a big step. It hasn't really been done before.
- Kudo (46)
The video is somewhat misleading without reading the article. The CBR took the lead at first, but he caught up on the GPR-S. After that Todd took a spill, and that's why the CBR won.
He was running the GPR-S at 60v. The production 72v model will be faster.
KZ750 Motorcycle Conversion
900 watt scooter
Pic from http://www.electricmotorbike.org/