The Brammo Empulse, an all-electric motorcycle made by Oregon-based Brammo Inc. won both races of the inaugural round of the TTXGP, a zero-emission race at the Infineon Raceway May 14 and 15 in California. The Empulse broke the Infineon track record with its fastest lap time at 1:55.150, almost two seconds faster than last year's winning electric bike on the 2.5-mile track. Its average lap speed was within 20 seconds of the fastest qualifying lap time of a 1,000cc internal combustion Superbike on the same track.
The Empulse had some notable design improvements this year, including a new seat assembly and tank made from Amber Composites 8020 prepreg. Previous bikes had only used carbon fiber as a cosmetic application but this year Brammo created structural components from prepreg to significantly reduce the weight of the bike in order to increase performance.
"With the Amber Composites prepreg, we were able to shave 30% off the weight of the assembly versus the previous design,” said Brian Wismann, Director of Product Development at Brammo. “As an added bonus, the surface finish was so straight out of the mold that we didn’t have to clear coat or paint it, saving further weight."
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