Santa Pod: Electric Motorcycle Beats Quarter-Mile World Record
Behind the handlebars of a custom, all-electric motorcycle, Hans-Henrik Thomsen has set a world record quarter-mile with a 6.87-second run at Santa Pod Raceway, breaking the old record that’s been in place for eight years. The bike in question was a Silver Lightning electric bike specifically designed for drag racing for the Danish racing team, True Cousins.
The True Cousins team began their fight to take the crown over 12 years ago, according to Electrek, with their first bike only producing 12 kW of power. But with the improvements of battery technology, this current bike is producing 100 times that, with 12,000 kW available to the brave rider.
The previous record of 6.94 seconds was set by Larry McBride, and his time wasn’t easily moved to the second peg. It took seven runs for Thomsen to beat McBride’s run, with the first six ‘only’ reaching a time of 7.15 seconds. Fortunately, with only three runs left for this attempt, Thomsen broke the record at a top speed of 191 mph. The team also recorded the 0-60mph of the bike to be less than one second. That is extremely rapid.
On the second last attempt, Thomsen was able to push it even further, setting the now record at 6.8697 seconds with a top speed of 195.4 mph.
