Mission Motors is pleased to announce a customer evaluation program for Mission’s MC600 Motor Control Unit.  Under the program, Mission will offer a limited number of evaluation prototypes of the MC600 Motor Control Unit  for testing and evaluation with potential customers.  The program is an exciting opportunity for vehicle manufacturers to take Mission’s advanced technology for a test drive.

The MC600 is a fully integrated inverter and motor control unit for next generation hybrid and electric vehicles. At 6.5 kg, the MC600 provides industry leading power-density within a cost-effective package.  The MC600 architecture is designed to meet the highest functional safety requirements of the automotive industry.  To simplify integration and optimize performance, Mission’s MC600 comes fully equipped with Mission Control, a powerful diagnostics and scripting interface that provides integrators with simple, low-level tuning and diagnostics, along with the power to program vehicle supervisory control into the controller.

Mission is currently accepting orders for the MC600 Inverter Evaluation Program. If your organization would like to learn more about purchasing Mission technology, please contact us here.

Most of the world knows Jay Leno as a stand-up comic and the host of the Tonight Show.  But to vehicle enthusiasts, he is better known as one of the ultimate car and motorcycle guys with a phenomenal collection. Even better? He is a big fan of alt-fuel vehicles.

So it was an exciting opportunity when Jay was kind enough to invite our team down his “Big Dog Garage” earlier this month. We toured his vehicle collection, and talked at length about the past, present and future of transportation. Jay knows his stuff and he owns a number of EVs, from 1909 Baker Electric to a 2011 Chevy Volt.

On camera (see the video here), we discussed Mission Motors’ advanced electric vehicle technology and gave him a ride on the Mission R in street trim. We’ll let Jay speak to the experience himself, but with a route consisting of L.A. traffic, wide open highway, and a few twisties here and there, the benefits of an optimized electric vehicle platform were on display.

Here at Mission, we are passionate about the technological innovation, the performance potential and the environmental imperative of electric and hybrid vehicles. It was clear from our visit that Jay is both knowledgeable and enthusiastic about these topics, and that made it a wonderful experience overall.

While it would have been great to see Jay leave in one of his many EVs, it was equally fun to watch as he started up his 1910 White Motor Company steam car (a 20 minute process!) and drive off.

Enjoy the video and let us know what you think in comments.

For the conference, Mission was asked to give a poster presentation on our Skyline data acquisition and analysis software. Our Senior Software Architect, Seth LaForge, was on hand to discuss the features and benefits of Skyline along with a demonstration of the Skyline Web Navigator.

It was exciting to see the number of products and services on display at EVS26. The pace of progress continues to build. As it does, the data generated from new product development will grow exponentially. We created Skyline because this data is only useful if it can be harnessed. With its novel web-based visualization and analysis features, that is exactly what Skyline achieves.

To learn more about Skyline, and to check out the actual poster presented at the Symposium, visit the product page located here.

Of course, our city is no stranger to innovation or trailblazing green initiatives. The Cleantech Group recently recognized San Francisco as the “Cleantech Capital of North America.”  A survey by Siemens and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) found San Francisco to be the greenest major city in the U.S. and Canada.  Mayor Ed Lee has grown the electric vehicle infrastructure by installing 49 publicly accessible charging stations to date with a plan to install an additional 29 by the end of 2012.   The Mayor is also the proud owner of a Chevy Volt.

Since Mission Motors’ founding in the city’s Mission District in 2007, we have been proud to call San Francisco home.  Mission supports Mayor Lee’s green initiatives and we remain committed to the tradition of innovation that makes San Francisco so unique.

Mission Motors just finished a complete overhaul of our website, ridemission.com.  While navigating the website you will find that we have a lot of new and exciting additions.

Our updated Products section details our component offerings.  This includes the latest versions of our battery modules, motors and controller. There are also two new components, our on-board charger and our Skyline data visualization software.

The new Capabilities section outlines how we partner with vehicle manufacturers and meet their development, production supply and aftercare needs.  In this section, you can learn about our system design and planning services, our product development process and our production and service capabilities.

The News & Media tab is your way to stay up to date with all things Mission. Here you can find a list of upcoming events as well as galleries, news and much more. Check back frequently or keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook pages.

Under the Company tab, you can see our ever-expanding team and also view the exciting career opportunities available here at Mission.

Last, but certainly not least, if you have come to our website to check out the awesome Mission R, you can find it under the Technology Demonstrators tab.

Have a look around and leave a comment letting us know what you think.  We look forward to hearing from you.

Mission Motors was pleased to host US EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld, at our office on Thursday, February 2, 2012.  Mrs. Jackson took a tour of our facility and had an opportunity to see our latest electric vehicle technology.

A chemical engineer by training, Administrator Jackson enjoyed talking shop with some members of our battery team. She also spoke with our CTO about the importance of American ingenuity in solving energy and environmental challenges. After the tour she spoke with our CFO about the green jobs being created as a result of the growing clean vehicle industry.

Mission applauds the great work that the EPA is doing and we are proud to be a part of the green jobs economy. Enjoy this video as well as some photographs from the visit.

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.

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.

The Mission team was proud to work with industrial designer Tim Prentice of Motonium on the Mission R. This award represents a great opportunity for Tim, in his words, to describe the experience of styling the world’s most advanced electric superbike.

—–

In the Beginning
One afternoon in September 09 I got a call from my friend James Parker who said he was working with a start-up company in San Francisco called Mission Motors to develop their new electric superbike, the Mission R. I’d worked with James on several projects over the years and he thought that I might be interested in working with him and Mission. At the time I knew very little about electric vehicles but thought it might be a good chance to learn more, so after a phone call with Mission, I headed for their office in San Francisco.

At my first meeting with Mission, they offered me a ride on their previous bike, the Mission One. I was skeptical because most electric powered vehicles are very low performance, but an electric superbike sounded interesting. It was odd to take off with no sound, without using a clutch, and not having to shift, but as soon as I could open it up, the only thing going through my mind was how strong and unyielding the acceleration was. I’ve ridden many other more powerful superbikes, but I’d never experienced that type of character of torque. It was addictive and I wanted more.

New Challenges
In general, successful motorcycle design is about how to package the components in an extremely limited and dynamic package while maintaining highly functional ergonomics combined with efficient aerodynamics. Mission’s bike is very unique in this respect, with some parts smaller (motor), some new (battery pack) and some gone (gas tank, exhaust pipe). James did a good job of outlining how this was managed in his earlier post.

Unlike large volume production motorcycles, the Mission R is a prototype development bike with the requirement that the mechanical and EV systems be easily accessible to the engineers. During development the Mission R would be prepped, tested, disassembled, inspected, tested, reassembled and prepped for test riding/racing – over and over and over. If anyone has ever had to remove bodywork form a sport bike, you realize how tedious and time consuming it can be. It was also a goal to have the entire battery pack remove vertically from the chassis for hot swap capability.

Conceptualizing
One of the first things I try to think of on a new project is what reaction do I want to get out of people, and I felt it was important to make sure that reaction was not based on the bike being electric. In other words, I wanted to create a compelling design that could stand up to other world class ICE designs. It would have been aiming far too low to make it the most compelling and best looking electric motorcycle. This thing had to be exciting and sexy. It had to be desirable.

The Mission R is a race bike – a serious piece of high performance hardware and it needed to look like it. It also needed to look distinctive and new but there was no way it was going to look too futuristic or like a bad sci-fi movie prop. One of the great aspects of motorcycle design is seeing the exposed hardware – the engine, frame, suspension, controls, etc. and in that respect, the Mission R should be no different. It’s got great hardware and a unique chassis design that we could show off instead of cover up. In this way the Mission R could visually tell the story of how this electric motorcycle design is different from ICE motorcycles which I think is extremely important for EVs at this point in history.

The shapes I was tending towards were sculptural (meaning solid looking), lean, minimal, and flowing. I don’t think too much about any specific things to inspire me, just the types of forms to convey the right reaction for myself. The words I kept thinking about were efficiency, minimal, serious hardware, and functional form.

Seeing is Believing
Seeing the bike completed bike unveiled at the 2010 Long Beach International Motorcycle Show under perfect lighting was very surreal – and very satisfying. But that was only the beginning. The Mission R still had a complete development program to go through. You definitely don’t just bolt it all together and go fast immediately. I have to say I was very impressed with the very professional job of development that Mission did which resulted in a run-away win by Steve Rapp at the USGP/TTXGP race at Laguna Seca last July. Designing the Mission R and seeing it perform so well was one of the most unique and rewarding experiences of my career.

Cheers,
Timothy Prentice
President
Motonium Design, Inc.

More:
Core 77 Design Awards
Core 77 Design Awards: Mission Motors
Motonium