White Motorcycle Concepts Ltd. (WMC) has unveiled a revolutionary new prototype electric motorcycle that company founder and CEO Rob White will ride when he attempts to break both the British and world electric land speed records over the next 12 months. White’s brainchild, the WMC250EV high-speed demonstrator, is more than two years in the making. The prototype motorcycle, which is capable of speeds exceeding 250 mph (402 km/h), features three market-disruptive technologies including the headlining WMC ultra-low drag system called V-Air.

He heralds it as a new chapter in the evolution of motorcycle technical development, with his vision focusing on vastly reducing aerodynamic drag. The innovation features a large duct at the center of the bike that forces air through rather than around it. V-Air reduces the bike’s aerodynamic resistance by as much as 70% compared to that of the market-leading high-performance road bike, according to results of wind-tunnel testing at MIRA. The bike’s drag coefficient is 0.118 CdA.

White initially conceived his idea for V-Air six years ago, but it was his experience with Formula 1 packaging and sports car aerodynamics that gave him the confidence to pursue it. Two career experiences drove his desire for technical innovation and inspired his founding of White Motorcycle Concepts in 2018.

The first was at Prodrive, where he worked for more than a decade on its Ferrari 550 Maranello GT program, its V8 Supercars exploits in Australia, and also on its Aston Martin Racing program with the Le Mans class-winning DBR9 and DBR1-2 V12-powered LMP1 prototype. Then he returned to F1 in 2012 with Mercedes-AMG HPP, where he was part of the research and development team behind the hybrid V6 that has dominated Grand Prix racing since 2014.

Having formed WMC in 2019, White reached into his network to assist his efforts. One connection is Rob Lewis, Managing Director at Total Sim Ltd., a leader in aerodynamic simulation, which recognized V-Air’s potential and supported the project through the initial proof of concept.

With a base in Northamptonshire, a center of motorsport excellence, WMC began developing his all-carbon-fiber high-speed demonstrator to F1 standards of design specification, component packaging, and technology.

“If you want to demonstrate to the rest of the world that you’ve just invented a new aerodynamic concept that means you can go faster for a given power, the best thing to do is go as fast you can,” said White. “That’s why we created WMC250EV high-speed demonstrator, the most radical version of this concept, to challenge for the world land speed record. It is electric, as that is the pre-eminent zero-emissions power source at the moment, but as the aerodynamic concept provides efficiency benefit, it could just as easily be hydrogen or any other future power source.”

The duct also increases front axial loads, allowing the demonstrator to use a D-Drive motor unit in front, which makes it possible to harness regenerative braking energy—something unachievable with a conventional motorcycle, claims the company. The bike also carries a unique F-Drive final-drive system fitted to boost power and enhance efficiency, a technology it says could be retrofitted to improve existing road-going bikes.

 

Behind the aero concept

The V-air concept centers on the airflow that passes through rather than around the motorcycle via a duct that would be near-impossible to incorporate in a design powered by an internal combustion engine.

“With a combustion-engine motorcycle, about 80% of the powertrain cannot be moved; it’s fixed within the frame,” White explained. “But in an EV you have electric motors, which take up 10 to 15% of your full EV powertrain volume, and they are really the only things that need to be fixed into position, perhaps inside the wheel or in front of the rear wheel for a conventional drivetrain.”

The electronics and energy storage, a significant part of any EV, can be packaged anywhere as long as it has the electrical links to the necessary components, he said.

“That means you can end up with a battery pack that’s long and thin, tall, fat, square, round, triangular… It doesn’t matter, as long as you have that vital energy density within the motorcycle,” said White. “So, you have a powertrain that is vastly more flexible in its packaging constraints.”

A rider determines the general silhouette of the bike, but if you can shrink all other systems, you can optimize an aerodynamic shape, and chances are there will be a large unoccupied volume within the faring, said White.

“Motorcycle manufacturers tend to leave that area unoccupied, yet when the motorcycle travels through the air, that air still has to travel around that volume,” he said. “You are still paying the aero penalty for pushing something through the air even though it’s not inhabited by anything.”

As technology develops, motors, inverters, batteries, and energy storage systems will get smaller and lighter, believes White: “So, in the future, the duct can get bigger, which means the aerodynamic performance can get better and better. Over time there will be improved returns for WMC’s concept.”

 

Up next: record attempts

The land-speed-record program’s shakedowns continue through the summer and an attempt on the Motorcycle Electric Semi Streamliner British Record planned for later this year. Then the WMC focus switches to the world’s largest salt flat, the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, where White will attempt to set a new mark for the Electric Semi Streamliner World Record in July 2022.

“What started off as some sketches of an idea I was pondering, has become an initiative that can potentially change the motorcycle industry,” said White. “The challenge of breaking the world record satisfies a tenacity to achieve great things. But more importantly, it’s the perfect way to practically demonstrate that the theory behind this technology works.”

The UK record attempt bike uses two 20-kW front and two 30-kW rear Hacker synchronous AC motors. The 15-kW·h lithium-ion battery runs in a low-voltage 60-V system. Suspension is by a steel fabricated double-sided swingarm with upper control bars in front, a billet aluminum double-sided swingarm in the back—both with a Multimatic DSSV twin-pushrod-operated, coilover damper. Wheels are from Dymag, with Pirelli 120/70 front and 180/55 ZR17 superbike slicks. The all-carbon bike is 2440 mm (96.1 in) long, 1195 mm (47.0 in) tall, and 560 mm (22.0 in) wide, and it weighs about 300 kg (661 lb).

“There are other record attempts running concurrently that have superstar riders and talismanic leaders fronting the projects, but for me and WMC the star is the technology,” he added. “It’s a product of British engineering ingenuity and it has a real potential to disrupt the industry in a very positive way, becoming an important step towards the mass manufacture of non-fossil-fueled motorcycles, another milestone on the road to a zero-emissions future.”

WMC aims to produce high-level engineering with environmental responsibility at its core, reducing carbon emissions throughout the entire motorcycle market from design and manufacture to end-use, he added.

 

Real-world benefits

WMC’s concept—incorporating the three technologies of V-Air, D-Drive, and F-Drive—has already been granted a UK patent and expects Europe, the U.S., and Japan to follow suit by the end of August. If adopted by major manufacturers, these technologies are said to have the potential to vastly reduce CO2 emissions across the industry and rapidly accelerate the mass-market de-carbonization of motorcycles globally.

Though speed is a focus of the concept, its more wide-reaching and important implication is the impact it can have on vehicular energy efficiency, which combined with zero emissions, can lead to a large reduction in CO2 emissions globally.

“The records are all champagne, but are actually the insignificant part of the story,” said White. “While this technology allows you to go faster, it also allows you to go much further for the same amount of energy. This has a direct and tangible benefit on CO2 reduction. Market-disruptive ideas like this are uncommon, and if successful, have the potential to revolutionize the industry.”

WMC is already working on a real-world application for the innovation—a 300-cm3 three-wheel WMC300FR hybrid scooter based on Yamaha‘s Tricity 300 that includes V-Air technology for a 25% reduction in drag. That equates to an 18% improvement in fuel efficiency from aerodynamic improvements alone, and when coupled with a small hybrid system enhances the performance to somewhere near 500-cm3 levels, but with 50% less CO2 emissions.

“What we’ve managed to do is create something for the world market sector where people can use these vehicles in a city where the population is most affected by C02 output and pollution—and we’ve managed to cut CO2 by 50% through aerodynamics and hybridization,” said White.