AGV Backmarker: Run, Forrest, Run.

Forrest North and his dog Tonka. This photo creates the inaccurate impression that the Mission office is a place of calm. <i>MG photo</i>

Forrest North and his dog Tonka. This photo creates the inaccurate impression that the Mission office is a place of calm. MG photo

A couple of weeks ago, I was privileged to attend a private test of the Mission One TTXGP race bike at Infineon Raceway. NorCal and environs are a real hotbed of electric motorcycles these days, with Zero based in Santa Cruz and Brammo based just across the Oregon border in Ashland. I’ve been behind the curtain at both of those companies already; in terms of the evolution of their business, they’re a little ahead of Mission Motorcycles. Zero’s already sold several hundred bikes and has two models in production. Brammo’s about to put its first model into production. So far, Mission has produced two prototypes: one was an old Ducati 900SS that had its trellis frame filled with batteries as a proof-of-concept, and the second is its TTXGP racer. The race bike’s effectively the prototype for its first production motorcycle, the Mission One, which is scheduled for limited production in 2010.

Mission might be a little late out of the gate compared to some companies, but it’s attracted plenty of attention for two reasons. First, there’s the striking design of the prototype. Then, there’s the performance claim they’ve made for the Mission One: 150 mph top speed, 150-mile range. Some of Mission’s competitors in this fledgling category are openly skeptical of that 150/150 claim (which, to be clear is not 150 mph for 150 miles, but still…).

Actually maybe there are three things. The price is also a breathtaking $70,000.

The office normally looks more like this. The company’s looking for a new space, but for now, everyone works in this single room (and a corner of the garage downstairs). MG photo

Mission, as its name implies, is based a block or two off Mission Street in San Francisco’s trendy/seedy SOMA district. This, as I’ve written before, may be the extreme left edge of America but it’s the epicenter of the country’s motorcycle culture. Munroe Motors, Werkstatt, Ace Café SF… whether you want to buy a Desmosedici, have your G50 Matchless tuned up, or just drink beer while watching MotoGP, you can do it all South Of MArket street. Maybe, someday soon, the neighborhood will also lay claim to being the home of the world’s highest-performance zero-emissions motorcycle.

The atmosphere is still very much a start-up. Mission’s president, Ed West, said, “We are pre-series A financing and we are ramping up for production.” The company’s fifteen employees all sit in one big room on the third floor of a converted warehouse. Downstairs, the actual soldering and stuff is done in a corner of the parking garage, where the first prototype (they call it “mule 1”) sits gathering dust while the second bike is prepped for the Isle of Man. Only two Mission employees are over 30. More than one’s worked at Tesla, the electric-car company that’s just now shipping its first sports cars. Others worked at Ducati’s North American office in Cupertino. The people I met had varying degrees of motorcycle experience, from hardcore AFM club racer through to newly licensed street rider. I only saw one female staff member during my visit.

Tom Montano, a Bay Area native, is the Mission One’s chief test rider. He’s also the most experienced American TT racer. He’s handsome and fast, and I’d like to hate him for it but I can’t, because he’s also a nice guy. MG photo

The atmosphere is Ivy League engineering-school study-hall. Two of the walls are covered by huge whiteboards. On one side of the room, the notes are about the development of the business, while on the other side they’re all engineering. These include almost comically impenetrable (to me) equations. I wondered whether—if I could understand those notes—I’d learn the secret to how Mission plans to deliver on its performance claims. (Skeptics might be reminded of a famous New Yorker cartoon…

One thing’s for sure, Mission wasn’t about to dish on the internal workings of its bike. Among the things they wouldn’t tell me were what specific battery chemistry they were using or their system voltage. (But it’s lithium-something; there are only a few viable options, and to hit 150 mph, they’ll probably need to take a cue from Tesla which, I think, runs about 300 volts.) They wouldn’t even tell me what it weighs, and they handed a legalese non-disclosure agreement.

That meant that once I’d absorbed the atmosphere, there was little more to learn, so I was glad to get out to Napa and watch the bike run. We arrived at the track just as some car test/track day was winding down. Infineon Raceway is one of Mission’s key technical partners. It’s cool that the bike can test after the 5 p.m. weekday sound cutoff, because it’s almost silent.