Chip Yates has made racing history and proven the viability of electric motorcycles by going head-to-head with race-ready gasoline machines — and beating them.

Yates, who has spent months developing an electric superbike worthy of the name, finished on the podium in two classes at the WERA Heavyweight Twins races on Sunday. He competed against the likes of Ducati 848s, KTM RC8s and Suzuki SV650s and handily beat most of them.

“I was surprised,” Yates told us today. “I was thinking, optimistically, that I’d like to be fifth or sixth. I was over the moon. There’s no way we figured we’d get a podium.”

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of this. The TTXGP electric motorcycle grand prix has fostered tremendous innovation and shown the technology’s potential. But the series pits electric bikes against electric bikes, making it easy for naysayers to nay say.

By racing against seasoned riders on top-tier gasoline motorcycles, Chip Yates has put doubters on notice: E-motos are the real deal.

Yates has been racing motorcycles since 2007 and made the jump to the AMA in 2009. He started pondering alt fuels last year, and he and the crew at Swigz.com Pro Racing USA set to work on an e-moto that can put down as much as 194 horsepower and 295 pound feet of torque. It features a kinetic-energy recovery system. The bike was designed for the TTXGP, but is now ineligible because the TTXGP adopted a 250-kilo weight limit in the new open class.


Yates threw down eight laps on the machine last month at Infineon Raceway north of San Francisco, but running around a track on your own is one thing. Competing is quite another. So the Swigz crew headed to the WERA Motorcycle Road Racing Heavyweight Twins races in Fontana, California, to see what the bike can do.

They were pleased with Saturday’s six practice laps, but one of the 102 lithium-polymer cells was acting up. So the team rushed back to the shop in Aliso Viejo to figure out what was up. They traced the problem to a cell in the pack under what would be the gas tank and replaced it. The bike was ready to roll by midnight and the team headed back to Fontana.

To say Sunday’s race was a success is an understatement. Yates competed on grids of anywhere from 12 to 20 bikes over six-lap courses. He took second in the superstock expert class, then he took third in the superbike expert class against machines like the Ducati 848.

“We made all six laps with 100 percent power available, and I made the cool-down lap with a little to spare,” he said. “Range was never an issue.”

Yates’ bike may not look like much, but it’s fast — he hit 158 mph at one point as he lapped AutoClub Speedway and posted a fastest lap of 1:39.792.

“My whole focus has been strictly to see if we can keep up with the gas bikes,” said Yates, who has raced 600 cc machines in the AMA. “I have no interest in going any slower than I can currently go. I’ve always said that, and we stand by that. I’m not going to ride a bike that requires me to compromise.”

Yates isn’t resting on his laurels. He’s got a new motor controller and software that he says will push the bike to 240 horsepower — more than a MotoGP racer. The goal isn’t necessarily to make insane levels of power, but to improve the power-to-weight ratio of his machine, which weighs 585 pounds.

Yes, you read that right. Batteries are heavy. When Yates tested the bike at Infineon, the bulk of the pack was behind him.

“It felt like I had a big fat guy on the bike with me,” Yates said. “After Infineon, we had a couple of weeks before the race at AutoClub, so I tore the battery pack apart and moved about a third of it to where the gas tank would be. That was about 78 pounds we took off the back of the bike and put in the middle. That made the handling more in the ballpark.”

Yates also is working on cutting the weight of his bike and improving the aerodynamics. He hopes to line up some sponsors and hit the WERA race at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah in May. Given the added power and the track’s long straight, Yates is confident he’ll post some impressive performance.

“I want to see if I can get up to 170 or 180 mph,” he said.

Don’t bet against him doing it.