New Zealand is going to get its first taste of electric motorsport this Sunday, when the Mike Pero Motorsport Park at Ruapuna near Christchurch is hosting EVolocity, an amazing line-up of electric racing machines and their creators — including the world’s fastest woman on a motorcycle, Eva Håkansson and her creation the KillaJoule, recently clocked at Bonneville Salt Flats in the USA at 389 km/h. With her will be her husband, Bill Dubé, with his electric drag bike the KillaCycle, which takes under 1 second to accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h. Also on show will be the first Tesla S to make its way to NZ.
Event highlights will include:
- A race between the world’s top electric vehicles.
- A race between 15 Canterbury schools who have developed their own custom design and built electric vehicles
- A showcase of three world record holding electric vehicles from the US, plus New Zealand’s first Tesla S (The highest performance electric vehicle commercially available).
- Electric bike acrobatics display featuring freestyle motocross star Luke Smith of Nitro Circus fame
- NZ’s largest ever parade of electric bikes
- Standing ¼ mile drag competitions: Killacycle, Tesla vs Ferrari, electric Falcon Ute vs XR8 Ute, combustion motor bikes vs electric motor bikes, lots more)
- Kevin Clemens who set 11 world, US National and US East Coast land speed records with electric motorcycles built in his Minnesota workshop.
Tickets are $20 online/$25 at the gate, and the day gets underway at 9am. Should be an exciting day for anyone who loves motorsport, and who wants to see the future. Going fossil-fuel free means going faster…
Eva should sign up with The Wiggles for a Big Red Car duet.
I might need a lie down, the Freudian is overcoming me there.
So how did the electric motorsports go? I must have missed references in the news – if any. No results or write ups appear on the EVolocity site so far.
Hi Noel,
There was a huge turnout and the event went very well. I entered my home built EV in the drag race, a 93 Toyota, and the closest the petrolheads could find to match it for make and model was a Ferrari. So not exactly a fair comparison, but still the Toyota did very well. Lots of cool concepts and ideas including one bike that was powered by a mounted electric drill that caught everyone’s attention. The Teslas were among the fastest, so great if you can afford one.