Electric motorcycle breaks speed record

The year was 1956, and a German bloke by the name of Wilhelm Herz was the first man to break the 200mph (322km/h) barrier on a combustion engine motorcycle.

He completed the feat at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA and now, more than half a decade later at the same place, the electric motorcycle has broken the 200mph speed barrier.

As the technology behind electric motorcycles continues to develop apace - and with more and more interest in racing taking place - the 200mph milestone has been reached, and we wonder if the same kind of reverence will be reserved Paul Thede as it was for Herz?

The vehicle that set the new record for an electric two-wheeler was a Lightning Motorcycle design ridden by Paul Thede, at the Southern California Timing Associations' Speed Week.

Recording an official speed of 206.079mph (331.652km/h), you could say that Paul Thede had the need for speed. Err, that was a bad pun, but the news is momentous and places an electric motorcycle into the Bonneville's hallowed 200 MPH Club for the first time in history.

The previous land speed record held by an 'leccy bike was the Airtech Lightning Bolt motorcycle, at 176.434mph (283.943km/h) on board a streamliner type bike (basically a sausage with wheels) and not a partially faired model like Lightning Motorcycle's speed machine.

Lightning Motorcycles is planning on building a street legal superbike (second image), powered by a three-phase AC liquid cooled motor that outputs 104kW at 12,000rpm.

Like the Bonneville record breaker, it uses a lithium nano phosphate battery pack, "...the most powerful and safest best of breed batteries currently available," according to the company.