Mission Motors is honoured to have been selected to the Cleantech Group’s 2011 Global Cleantech 100 List.

The Global Cleantech 100, released annually by the Cleantech Group in collaboration with the UK’s Guardian News and Media, is a list of the most promising private cleantech companies from around the world. These companies are expected to make the biggest impact on clean technology over the next 5 to 10 years. Companies are nominated by the public, and rated by a panel made up of the world’s foremost cleantech investors and corporations. This year, 4,274 companies were nominated from more than 45 countries from which the final list of 100 companies was selected.

Mission is honoured to join the prestigious group of companies included in this year’s Global Cleantech 100. Many of the companies on this year’s Global Cleantech 100 began as ideas in a garage or small laboratory, similar to Mission Motors. Every day, these companies are innovating new technologies and solutions that will enable our society to realize a cleaner energy future.

For Mission, this award is the recognition of our team’s relentless pursuit of better electric powertrain technology. When we demonstrated our technology on the racetrack, we changed consumer perceptions about the possibilities for EV performance. Mission is now bringing that technology to vehicle manufacturers around the world, enabling them to bring better performing EV’s and hybrids to market.

We thank the Cleantech Group and the UK Guardian for naming Mission to this year’s Global Cleantech 100. We thank our customers, investors, and partners, all of whom have played a pivotal role in helping us grow. This award is an acknowledgment of the talent, belief, and commitment that has gone into building our company from a garage in San Francisco to a leader in our industry. As we continue to grow, we restate our commitment to relentlessly pursue the technology that will push the limits of electric powertrain performance.

We are proud to announce that the California Energy Commission (CEC) has awarded Mission Motors a $94,000 grant to develop a lightweight on-board charger for electric vehicles. The grant is an Energy Innovation Small Grant (EISG), a part of the Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program.

Power electronics in motor control and battery charging are key to any electric powertrain system. Mission is dedicated to making these components smaller, lighter, more intelligent and more efficient. The CEC grant award will help Mission achieve these goals even more effectively. We applaud California’s support in building a clean transportation future and congratulate our fellow award winners.

This marks the second CEC grant awarded for Mission Motors. The first grant, awarded in November of 2010, was an investor-matched $505,000 to support the commercialization of Mission’s cutting-edge powertrain technology.

Update! The TTXGP / FIM e-Power International Championship schedule at Laguna has been updated since our blog post. The schedule is now:
- Practice is Friday from 1:30pm – 2pm
- Qualifying is Saturday from 5:10 – 5:40
- Race is Sunday from 10:25 – 10:50

This weekend, MotoGP comes to Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey, California. Mission Motors will be there, racing in the TTXGP / FIM e-Power International Championship. Our Mission R electric superbike will take to the track where we will push our latest EV technology to the limits.

The fact that electric motorcycles will be sharing the weekend with MotoGP, the ultimate level of international motorcycle racing, illustrates just how rapidly the new era of electric vehicles is gaining mainstream acceptance. We are proud to be part of the event and we look forward to demonstrating the Mission-R’s advanced powertrain technology in the demanding environment of the racetrack.

In addition to the action on the racetrack, you can see the Mission R up close all weekend at ProItalia’s booth. Stop by to learn about the bike and its advanced electric powertrain. ProItalia’s booth will also host a Meet & Greet with our rider, Steve Rapp, from 12:30pm to 1:15pm on Saturday. He’ll be on hand talk about what it’s like to pilot a 160 mph all-electric superbike. You won’t want to miss it.

It promises to be an exciting weekend and we hope to see you there!

Details:

Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix
Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
July 22 – 24, 2011
http://www.mazdaraceway.com/red-bull-us-grand-prix

TTXGP / FIM e-Power International Championship
Free Practice: Friday, 1:30pm – 2pm
Qualifying: Saturday, 4:45pm – 5:15pm
Race: Sunday, 11:25am – 11:50am
http://ttxgp.com/

ProItalia Booth (between turns 2 and 3)
Mission R on display all weekend
Meet Mission R rider Steve Rapp
Saturday, 12:30pm – 1:15pm
http://www.proitalia.com/

We would like to thank our sponsors and partners who make our racing effort possible: Texas Instruments, Pro Italia Motorcycles, Solid Concepts, Dunlop, SpeedyMoto, Ohlins, Cosworth, GoPro, BST Wheels, Zero Gravity, Motonium, Kosman and RADD. We would also like to thank our crew chief, Chuck Warren, and our rider, Steve Rapp. Last but not least, we would like to thank Speed Ventures for putting together such a great event

You can next see the Mission R in action at the Laguna Seca TTXGP in July. Until then, enjoy some photos and this video of Steve tackling the 2.36 mile road course on the mighty Mission R.

Mission R at the Corkscrew

Mission Motors: One lap of Laguna Seca on the Mission R from Mission Motors on Vimeo.

Mission will be in attendance at Infineon this weekend, and the Mission R will be on display. We support the TTXGP organization, and the efforts they are making to create a new class of electric motorcycle racing.

Racing drives us to maximize both power and energy density in our key components. The racing circuit represents a dynamic test platform for technology validation.

The Mission R represents our latest powertrain technology, later this season we will demonstrate it on the track.

Thank you for all your support.

This is just a quick reminder to let you know that we’ll be stopping by to visit our friends at the Pro Italia motorcycle shop in Glendale this weekend to do a little show-and-tell about the Mission R.  We’ll be at the shop on Saturday, February 12 for showing and seminars: one at noon, another at 2pm.

After that, on Sunday, we’ll head out to the famed Rock Store on the Mulholland Highway at 8AM Sunday, February 13, for a showing.

We’d love to see you there!

Check out the Press Release for more details.

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Greetings Mission Motors racing fans.   By now you’ve probably seen photos of the Mission R electric superbike. In this blog post, we wanted to give you a bit more in-depth coverage of some of the unique innovations under the skin Mission R.

One of the things that is extraordinary about the Mission R is that we were able to package an incredible 141 HP MissionEVT powertrain, and a 14 kWhr MissionEVT battery pack into a package smaller than a 600-cc sportbike.

For those of you who follow electric motorcycles, you know that this was no simple feat. To succeed at this challenging task, Mission enlisted the chassis design expertise of James Parker, one of the world’s most talented and creative motorcycle chassis designers.

For today’s blog post, we wanted to let James talk about what made designing the Mission R chassis such a unique challenge, and how he succeeded in setting what we believe is the new standard in electric motorcycle design:

James Parker on the Mission R chassis design:

Any motorcycle chassis design combines three basic design elements into a cohesive whole.  The three elements are:  components, geometries, and packages.

“Components” are the basic parts of the bike: Motor, frame, suspension, wheels, brakes, bars, footpegs, and more.

“Geometries” are the spatial relationships, measurements and paths of motion of the parts: Rake, trail, wheelbase, wheel travel, center of gravity, and a lot more.

“Packages” are the spaces components and geometries have to fit within: The lean-angle package that lets the motorcycle corner at speed, the ergonomic package that gives the rider a place to operate effectively, the aerodynamic package that keeps the rider and motorcycle parts out of the airstream, and the assembly and servicing package that gives mechanics access to every necessary part and fastener.

In designing an electric motorcycle, geometries and packages need to be very much analogous to those in a ‘conventional’ motorcycle, but the components are very different.  Since the electric components need to work with, and fit within relatively conventional geometries and packages, there is a lot of re-thinking to do.

The Mission R chassis uses unique components to achieve the geometry and packaging demands of a high-performance motorcycle.  The battery is a large box surrounded on four sides by three different structure types.  At the front, a machined aluminum box serves as the steering head/fork mount and spans the full width of the battery. At the rear, the fully stressed “power unit” contains the motor, primary drive, and countershaft as well as the pivot for the swing arm.

On each side of the battery, connecting the steering head box and the power unit, are chrome-moly steel trellis sections. The battery is thus surrounded by protective structure to insure maximum safety.  An aluminum plate that is integral to the battery serves as a further chassis element, providing longitudinal and lateral bracing to the 4-sided structure.  In the stripped bike photos we’ve left a battery plate in place to show the structural connections clearly.  In actual use the entire battery, including the battery plate, is installed or removed as a unit, lifting from above.

The power unit has several structural functions:  As well as a mounting for the swingarm pivot and the trellis sections, the power unit provides mounting points for the rear suspension linkage rocker on its bottom surface, and on the upper radius, provisions for the structural carbon-fiber seat base and the attached upper shock mount.

The single-sided swingarm, machined from billet aluminum, has a unique linear telescoping, rather than eccentric (as on other single-sided designs) chain adjustment, which allows adjustment without altering ride height.

The Mission R’s electrical and structural components work with superbike geometries and packaging requirements to reveal a unique approach to designing a high-performance electric motorcycle.  We’ve achieved a compact, mass-centralized design that uses new approaches to the problems of chassis design in harmony with new energy sources and new drive systems.

Hot on the heels of our MissionEVT launch, we are proud to announce that the California Energy Commission (CEC) has awarded Mission Motors a grant to commercialize our high-performance EV powertrain technology. The $505,381 grant will be matched by $623,581 in private funding for a total of over $1.1 million.

We are grateful for California’s support in building a clean transportation future. As we said in last week’s blog post, our team is particularly excited about MissionEVT because, in partnering with other vehicle manufacturers, we will be leveraging our core innovations to create change on an even larger scale. This award will help Mission achieve those goals even more effectively. We also congratulate all the other recipients of the grant.

Learn more about the grant here. And keep an eye out for more exciting announcements from Mission Motors in the coming weeks. There are great things happening at MissionEVT, at our motorcycle division, and at our company as a whole. We look forward to sharing them with you soon.