The ATLAS bike, designed by University of Michigan electrical engineering students, reaches speeds of 160 mph while avoiding gasoline consumption. Photo provided by Leo Lavigne.Leo Lavigne
ANN ARBOR, MI – Durability and speed. When it comes to electric transportation, University of Michigan engineering students have shown in the last year that both are possible.
UM’s Solar Car Team demonstrated durability when it built the solar car Aevum that successfully navigated more than 3,000 miles from New Jersey to California.
A different UM team is taking on the question of speed with a motorcycle that can reach up to 160 mph. UM’s SPARK Electric Racing team, made up of engineering students from various disciplines, built the “e-superbike” ATLAS to compete in international races.
Made up of 160 students and faculty leaders, the team formed in the early 2010s to convert motorcycles with combustible engines into electric ones without compromising on speed. Team members take pride in pushing electric transportation to help the environment and promote sustainability, said SPARK mechanical director and UM senior Mustafa Khan.
“I think students take part in something that is actually productive outside of themselves, because obviously electrification is a fundamentally good thing,” he said.
The ATLAS bike project debuted this summer in the e-bike division of American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association competitions in New Jersey and GingerMan Raceway in South Haven. It twice earned podium finishes alongside larger companies testing their own e-superbikes, said Leo Lavigne, SPARK team president and current master’s student at UM.
ATLAS’s top speed is 160 mph, though the bike typically reaches 150 mph, Lavigne said. This is a lot of progress since their first bike purchased in 2013, a 1997 Suzuki Katana that reached 65 mph in 18 seconds “with the approximate battery power of a golf cart,” he said.
ATLAS is a retry of another bike constructed from a 2001 Yamaha R1 frame. It projected to reach speeds of 140 mph with a 125-volt battery, but the project shifted focus towards the current ATLAS model. In a relatively new industry, SPARK students are dealing with the trial and error required to build templates for other manufacturers, said UM junior and power train lead Manu Nannapuraju.
“We’re definitely don’t have a lot that we can use to build off of our design,” she said. “We’re kind of doing everything on our own and learning from our past mistakes.”
In about a decade, SPARK has utilized help with the UM engineering department to compete with manufacturers with more resources, Lavigne said.
“SPARK has been building e-superbikes longer than most (manufacturers),” Lavigne said. “UM is the major hub for EV technology research, with access to new innovations and cutting edge equipment.”
SPARK has to build the motors and batteries that can handle the torque demands necessary to reach these high speeds, Khan said. This leads to intense problem solving that makes a diverse team closer, he said.
“It’s become this like really close knit group of friends who tackle a really hard engineering problem,” he said.
There will be national races to test ATLAS next year, Lavigne said, including as early as this spring. The ultimate goal is racing at the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy race off the coast of England in June 2024, he said. For this race, it will test EV technology from bikes across the world in an “all-out one-lap race,” he said.
When he saw ATLAS race in New Jersey this year, Khan said his jaw dropped when he saw the fruits of the team’s labor pay off. Seeing it perform at Isle of Man would be a culmination of so much effort, he said.
“It’s such an incredible experience, because you put in several several hours of time into this really challenging design problem,” he said, “and you get to see it perform like as you expect.”
Aside from the thrill of the race, the value of pushing e-technology is an exciting way will hopefully push for more alternatives to internal gasoline combustion, Khan said.
“We like showing people that electrification works at all levels, (even in motorcycles),” he said. “It’s really, really cool, because it’s the conversation piece for arguing for more resources towards electrification and renewable energy.”
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