Mission Motors

Mission Motors
Mission Motors
Type Private, venture funded
Industry Electric power train supply
Founded 2007
Headquarters San Francisco, California, USA
Key people Jit Bhattacharya, CEO
Edward West, President
Products Electric vehicle components
Revenue Undisclosed
Employees 35
Website www.ridemission.com

Mission Motors is an American company founded in 2007 in San Francisco, California. The company was originally founded with the aim of creating high-performance, electric motorcycles, but later became a supplier of electric vehicle components.

Contents

History

Mission Motors was founded by Mason Cabot, Forrest North and Edward West in 2007. The company was briefly known as Hum Cycles while it operated in stealth mode.

In February of 2009, the company revealed the prototype for their first vehicle, the Mission One PLE (Premiere Limited Edition) at the TED conference. The all-electric motorcycle, styled by Yves Bahar, claimed a top speed of 150 miles per hour and a range 150 miles per charge. The company accepted reservations for the first 50 vehicles, originally scheduled to be delivered in 2010. Reservations required a $5,000 deposit, with a sales price of $68,995. Delivery of the Mission One PLE was delayed until Q2 2011 and eventually discontinued.

In February 2010, Forrest North, founder and CEO, stepped down.

In June 2010, Mission Motors secured $3.35MM in additional funding.

In November of 2010, the company launched MissionEVT (Electric Vehicle Technology). The stated goal was to design and supply high-performance EV powertrains, including energy storage systems, drive systems and software, to the vehicle manufacturers, targeting a wide range of applications—including battery-electric, plug-in hybrid electric and hybrid-electric vehicles. Source: Green Car Congress

In December of 2010, the company unveiled the Mission R electric motorcycle. The powertrain is of Mission’s own design and features a 100kw liquid-cooled 3-phase AC-Induction motor and 14kwh of batteries. The chassis was designed by James Parker and the bodywork was designed by Tim Prentice. Source: Autoblog

In August of 2011 Mission Motors closed a $9 million Series B round led by investment bank Warburg Pincus.

Mission One 2009

Racing

Mission Motors has periodically competed in electric motorcycle racing events.

On June 12, 2009, US racer Thomas Montano rode the Mission One on the 37.733-mile (60.725 km) course of the TTXGP on the Isle of Man. The bike finished in 4th place in the PRO class, with an average speed of 74.091 mph and a lap time of 30 minutes 33.26 seconds.[1]

In September of 2009, the Mission One set the AMA electric motorcycle land speed record during the BUB Motorcycle Speed Trials at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. The bike registered a 150.059mph average of a two way pass. (video)

Mission Motors did not race in 2010 in order to focus on bring the Mission One to market.

In June of 2011, Steve Rapp rode the Mission R at the ReFuel time trials at Laguna Seca and set an electric motorcycle lap record of 1:43.7.

On July 24, 2011, Steve Rapp rode the Mission R at the joint FIM/TTXGP race at Laguna Seca to a first place victory [2], with a margin of 39.995 seconds to second place finisher MotoCyzsz.[3] Rapp's qualifying time of 1:31.3 broke the previous Laguna Seca electric vehicle record by 7.5 seconds.

References

  1. ^ "Final Results of TTXGP: Isle of Man June 12th 2009". TTXGP.com. June 13, 2009. http://blog.ttxgp.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=64&blogId=1. Retrieved 2009-08-06. 
  2. ^ "Mission pulls in an historic return to TTXGP 2011". egrandprix.com. July 27, 2011. http://www.egrandprix.com/news.php?id=241. Retrieved 2011-08-11. 
  3. ^ "Mission Motors Rapps up TTXGP/FIM e-Power race at Laguna Seca". autoblog.com. July 27, 2011. http://green.autoblog.com/2011/07/27/mission-motors-rapps-up-ttxgp-fim-e-power-race-at-laguna-seca/. Retrieved 2011-08-11. 

External links


Stub icon This transport corporation-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.