Student Club Sets New Electric Motorcycle Speed Record(s)

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Students from Ohio State University have just smashed their way through four worldwide speed records for an electric motorcycle, putting the Ohio State RW-5 Voxan two-wheeler through its paces at the renowned Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials at the Salt Flats in Utah. The new records add yet another layer of luster to a sometimes overlooked factor in electric vehicle sales.

Students Built This Record-Setting Electric Motorcycle From Scratch

The RW-5 Voxan is a scratch-built project of the Buckeye Current student club at Ohio State University, in partnership with the Monaco-based firm Venturi Group.

If that’s starting to ring some bells, you may be thinking of the speed record of 254 mph attained by the Voxan Wattman electric motorcycle team at a runway measuring 2.17 miles, located at the Marcel Dassault Airport in France back in 2020. The team couldn’t make it to Bonneville that year due to COVID-related travel restrictions.

The Buckeye Current team captured world records (pending verification) in specialty categories, hitting an average speed of 180.035 mph for an aerodynamic electric motorcycle, and 168.593 mph minus the aerodynamic accessories, as reported by Ohio State News reporter Chris Booker on September 19, with both records based on “flying mile” optimal speed tests.

Booker’s reporting also includes a spine-tingling rundown of the bad luck beating the team somehow managed to weather, including a breakdown of their truck and trailer on the road from Ohio to Utah, a campsite-soaking thunderstorm, and the failure of their custom-made high voltage battery charger. A backup charger fortunately kicked into action and saved the day.

Electric Motorcycle Sales Are EV Sales, Too

Headline writers have been enjoying a gloom-and-doomerism field day over the state of electric vehicle sales here in the US and around the world for the past year or so. However, the actual EV sales picture is quite bright and a torrent of new battery breakthroughs bodes well for the future (see more EV sales background here).

The electric motorcycle piece of the puzzle is a more complex one. In the US market, motorcycles are perceived as pricey recreational vehicles favored by an aging cohort of easy riders, which presents marketing challenges for domestic electric motorcycle makers.

Still, in other parts of the world motorcycles and other two-wheelers are the family car, and that leaves plenty of room for growth as indicated by a new report from the firm MotorCycles Data, which tracks registrations in 85 countries around the world.

Released in July, the report notes that total sales for electric motorcycles and scooters combined reached 10.3 million in 2021, representing a remarkable 77% growth spurt in just a two-year period compared to 2019.

Though sales dipped in the following two years, the latest MotorCycles Data report still totaled up 9.9 million in sales for 2023, a respectable figure when compared to four-wheeled electric vehicle sales totaling 14 million in the same year.

All in all, MotorCycles Data concluded that “the outlook for the period 2025-2030 appears highly promising.”

Don’t just take their word for it. In February the firm Global Market Insights valued the global electric motorcycle market at $11.3 billion in 2023, and put the growth rate at 3.5% between over the coming eight years.

MotorCycles Data, though, cautions that regional differences are significant. “Outside China, sales constitute only a small fraction of the global market,” the firm observes, taking note of distant second-running markets including India, Indonesia, Taiwan, the Philippines, Turkey, France, The Netherlands, and Italy.

The US Electric Motorcycle Market Could Use An Assist

As for the US market, I’m not the only one perceiving the US electric motorcycle market as a recreational one. “For Americans, a motorcycle is a typical vehicle to ride free outside congested metropolitan town and they purchase just for leisure, life style, than for usage,” MotorCycles Data opined in August (unless that was just the AI talking).

That is reflected in sales figures. In the August report, MotorCycles Data noted that the US is currently the 14th-largest market for two-wheelers in the world, mainly consisting of street-legal motorcycles. However, sales are marginal.

“In 2024 the market started without new wind and the first half sales were 323.091, up a little 0.9%,” the firm reported. That was not a typo, by the way. According to the firm’s data, the electric motorcycle market in the US has drifted well into niche territory.

Getting those numbers up is going to be a challenge. High profile events like the Salt Flats can help raise awareness that electric motorcycles are a thing, but connecting the dots to sales is another matter entirely. As a recreational vehicle, an electric motorcycle will take second place to other household expenditures such as the rent and food.

Ohio State Has More EV Awards Up Its Sleeve

If you have any ideas to share with electric motorcycle firms here in the US, drop a note in the comment thread. Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that the Buckeye Current team is part of a Ohio State’s overall mission of fostering a new generation of sustainable automotive innovators through the Center for Automotive Research.

In May, for example, a team of students from Ohio State and Wilberforce University nailed down first place in the second year of the new EcoCAR EV Challenge, narrowly beating such clean tech luminaries as Georgia Tech and McMaster University. The competition is administered by the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, with General Motors and MathWorks as sponsors.

For the second year of the four-year challenge timeline, the EcoCAR teams were tasked with re-engineering a 2023 Cadillac LYRIQ without compromising driver expectations, including tests for safety, acceleration, endurance, energy consumption, and handling.

“Ohio State student teams have been participating in Advanced Vehicle Technology Competitions since 1990 and have placed in the top three in 15 of the last 16 years, including winning first place nine times,” Ohio State notes of itself.

Among other projects of note, Ohio State also partnered with Venturi to on the record-setting Venturi Buckeye Bullet electric vehicle, as part of Venturi’s activities surrounding the inaugural Formula E electric racing series.

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Photo (cropped): Students from Ohio State University launched a speed record-setting electric motorcycle onto the Utah Salt Flats, overcoming many travails along the way (courtesy of OSU).