Less Expensive Batteries May Lead to More Homebuilt Electric Airplanes

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

It came as somewhat of a shock that high-quality lithium battery prices could drop low enough to encourage electric aircraft developers an opportunity to “scrounge” in the style of the original home-built airplane builders.  Early aircraft “home-builders” often cannibalized war-surplus aircraft or wrecks of private planes for parts and materials that could be adapted into their own designs.  Ground power units (GPUs), for instance, became an early supply point for engine cores that could be converted to aircraft use – possible on “Experimental” homebuilts, although frowned upon by the FAA for factory-builts. Your editor thought at one point that auto wrecking yards might provide a source of used batteries for experimental electric airplanes, but the thought of all the internal fracturing and potential for disaster with batteries of previously stable but now uncertain reliability cooled that enthusiasm.  These batteries should not be used, but rather recycled. A discussion in Green Car Congress surprised with seemingly ultra-low, but verifiable prices on …

Eva and Bill Do It Again

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Eva Hakansson and Bill Dube’ are a husband-and-wife team with a deeply-felt need for speed. Bill races Killacycle, only recently unseated as the fastest electric drag racing motorcycle in the world, capable of seven-second, 170 mph quarter-mile times and speeds. His zero-to-60 time is under one second, somewhat like an aircraft carrier launch in terms of acceleration and the accompanying forces. Eva now holds the record for the world’s fastest electric sidecar motorcycle – beating her previous record on the Bonneville Salt Flats. A sidecar in this case is a two-wheeled, streamlined two-wheeler with an outrigger, but not a rider, as on a traditional sidecar. In-cockpit videos show the finesse with which Eva keeps Killajoule on the straight and narrow with the only indicators of speed being the course markers flicking by. Here you can enjoy their light-hearted banter about the very serious endeavors in which they invest their considerable intellects and skills. Eva builds the battery packs for their …

Joules in Her Crown

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

One of the favorite speakers at the Electric Aircraft Symposia sponsored by the CAFE Foundation, Eva Håkansson is more than just a great talker. She recently topped 216 miles per hour in KillaJoule, her streamlined electric sidecar motorcycle. She built 80 percent of the 250-horsepower vehicle herself over two and one-half years. An engineering graduate student at the University of Denver, Eva and her husband Bill Dube’ hold world records on and in their electric motorcycles. Eva managed to come within three mph of the world record internal-combustion powered for sidecars on the salt flat. She also managed a world record for the flying mile, going through the traps at 191.488 mph – the record awaiting American Motorcycle Association certification.  Overall, KillaJoule is the world’s fourth fastest electric motorcycle, and Eva is headed back to Bonneville to attempt more records. The 250 HP battery-powered motorcycle had a measured top speed of 216.504 MPH and did set a new official world …

The Battery Pack Builder with the Ceramic Wedding Ring

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants 1 Comment

The Killacycle Racing Team is led by two people, Bill Dube’, designer, builder, and driver of the world’s fastest electric motorcycle, and his wife, Eva Hakansson, crew chief and battery builder for the high-velocity two-wheeler.  Eva’s talk at the fourth Annual Electric Aircraft Symposium in Rohnert Park, California caused several stirs in the audience, and hinted at where battery technology might go in the future. Wanting to free electric vehicles from their “boring and slow” image, Eva seeks to make them “sexy and fast.” Pictures of her and Bill’s wedding, in which the bride wore traditional Swedish wedding garb and entered on a motorcycle, the ceremony took place in a motorcycle trailer, and for which both bride and groom wore ceramic wedding rings (necessary to prevent dead shorts while building battery packs and riding the 500 horsepower machine) show the domestic and the purpose-driven lives of both. Campaigning a high-performance vehicle of any kind, let alone a one-of-a-kind creation such …