This AWD Electric Bike With Bonkers Aero Is Targetting Speed Records

Although there are myriad styles of motorbikes, the way they go together is for the most part very similar. What you see here, though, is no ordinary bike. It’s one that tears up the rule book entirely.

This is the somewhat clunkily-named WMC250EV from White Motorcycle Concepts, which claims it’s the most aerodynamically efficient motorbike ever made. The key way it does this is by allowing air to pass through the middle of the bike using a single, massive duct that traverses the length of the machine.

Dubbed the ‘V-Air’, this arrangement helps lower drag by a whopping 70 per cent compared to the average production superbike. On a normal internal combustion-powered bike, this simply wouldn’t be possible, since you’d find the engine in the way. No such issue for the WMC, which is electric.

It features a 15kWh battery pack mounted nice and low under the V-Air duct, helping lower the weight distribution. This powers four electric motors - two 20kW units for the front wheel, and a pair of 30kW units at the rear axle. Yep, you’re looking at an all-wheel drive motorbike. The motors drive the wheels via an enclosed chain drive system neatly hidden within the front and rear swingarms.

When combined, those motors develop just over 134bhp, propelling a bike that weighs - despite a lot of carbon fibre being used in its construction - 300kg. That might not sound so impressive considering we regularly see sub-200kg piston-powered bikes developing over 200bhp these days, but they have a much harder time punching a hole through the air.

This bike’s gaping hole through the middle should mean it has no trouble hitting 200mph and nabbing the British electric land speed record. Once that’s in the bag, White will increase the power output and head to Bolivia in 2022 for the world record.

The aim is to exceed 250mph, which will comfortably obliterate the current 228mph record which former MotoGP rider Max Biaggi set on the Voxan Wattman in 2020.

Beyond the record hunting, there’s already talk of production possibilities. As more and more fully electric bikes emerge, something like the V-Air concept would be extremely useful in giving a decent range without resorting to fitting big, heavy battery packs.

Watch this space. Quite literally.