Today we’re super excited to announce that our team just hit the first major milestone on the road to developing a hydrogen powered motorcycle! Our bike drives under its own power. In this case, the bike was powered by a Lithium battery. Here’s a few fun videos of it driving!
Here’s another short driving clip,
Drivetrain Notes
This was not completely without issues, we noticed while driving the bike that one of the belts connecting the second motor to the main drive shaft was slipping. This is a simple issue to fix but one that prevented us from trying to drive the bike any faster. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be doing the following.
- Dropping out the V1 drivetrain and attempting to correct the belt slipping issue.
- Focusing on the design of the V2 drivetrain to get that mounted on the bike by mid-summer.
The V2 drivetrain will have a better mechanical design and also a more powerful, single motor design rather than a dual-motor belted design. Regardless! This is super exciting because it means we can start getting data that will inform the V2 drivetrain design and the hydrogen-fuel cell integration!
Some Other Important Notes
The goals for this initial drive train were to get the bike running to a point where we could start collecting data. It was also to allow our team to start figuring out how to integrate all the components of a hydrogen bike together and figure out what the system’s layout would look like.
- The current system uses a small T-Motor U15, and the bike can accelerate slowly up to around 35mph.
- The current drivetrain draws a maximum of 35-40A of current from the battery, while the battery is capable of 350A before the main fuse blows.
The V1 drivetrain will not be part of an official release, we won’t be releasing detailed documentation on it because the performance, build quality, and safety are not near where we want them to be. We will be focusing on the design of the V2 drivetrain, which is the first one we plan on releasing should the safety be at a standard we are comfortable with.
Battery Information
The Lithium battery in our system is used to absorb power during regenerative braking while also providing the power needed during acceleration. The Fuel Cell will recharge the battery while the bike is driving (similar to a hybrid vehicle), and also provide most of the power during steady-state driving.
Over the past few weeks, our team has been hard at work assembling the version 1 battery. The battery is a 50V 32Ah pack built using SPIM08HP cells. These cells are high-current, Lithium-Ion pouch cells with low internal resistance making them capable of providing, and sinking large currents. This, and their modular assembly structure made them perfect for the first, proof-of-concept battery.
Our battery team after completing some of the initial steps of assembly!
(Lucas, Miguel, Ebby, + Adi)
Over the next few weeks we will be integrating and testing some key safety features onto the bike including a proper emergency stop as well as some driver control switches. We’re also going to be releasing a battery build video as well as extensive documentation on the design and the construction of our battery system including issues during manufacturing and how we resolved them, tests we ran and how to safely determine the battery is operating correctly.
We’re also starting to transition to building up the hydrogen power system of the bike, we’re working on mounting the fuel tank and will start running benchtop tests on the fuel cell soon! Our goal is to have the bike driving under hydrogen power by the middle of the summer! Stay tuned for more updates!