The TTXGP racing series has already gone a long way to achieving its goal of pushing forward the advancement of electric propulsion technology, largely in the motorcycle arena but the lessons learnt here are widely applicable elsewhere. Men like Chip Yates are hard at work in small garages around the world working on these electric racing machines, using the much same panaché as men like John Britten and Burt Monroe, they’re building low budget racing machines that are going to define the drivetrains of the post-oil future.

Chip Yates is hard at work on an electric racing motorcycle that rewrites big chunks of conventional wisdom, he started off with the frame of a Susuki GSX-R 750 and installed a unique KERS (kinetic energy recovery system) in the front wheel, take another look at the picture above and you’ll notice the front wheel is blacked out, this is because he has several patents pending on the creation and wants to keep it all secret till it hits the track.

The bike puts out 195hp, 295 foot-pound of torque and weighs in at 585 pounds. That’s 137 pounds heavier than the MotoCzysz E1PC and 124 pounds heavier than Brammo’s Empulse RR. Weight is a huge consideration when it comes to racing so we’ll have to wait and see whether the additional power of Yates’ bike will spring him to the front of the pack, or whether he’ll have to hit the drawing board and put the bike on a carbon fibre diet.

There are currently no plans for production but you can rest assured that Brammo, Zero, Mission One and MotoCzysz will be watching this bike very closely, if the KERS system is a winner it could start popping up on electric bikes as soon as late next year. Chip will be racing the bike in the TTXGP and ePower races next year and we’ll keep you updated on his progress.