We Obsessively Cover the Green Scene…

Hollywood Electrics isn't Zero Motorcycles' top dealership by accident. The retail shop is all in on all-electrics, and it doesn't stop at simple sales and service. It also offers unique personalizations of the bikes it sells, along with complete custom creations. Its newest product takes that revamp ethos to eleven: introducing the Zero Cafe Racer with iPad integration.

The first bike to benefit from this reimagining is a 2010 trade in, but the package can be fitted to 2012 models as well. The bike has been stripped of most of its original bodywork and given a classic cafe racer seat and tail stock, with sweet LED brake and signal lights neatly assimilated. The tank gets a modern twist with an embedded – and removable – iPad that handles all your instrumentation, gives an in-depth look at your battery status, and lets you check things like range radius and charger proximity. It also allows you to tweak some basic tuning parameters.

Other alterations include Vortex clip-on handle bars and Bridgestone Battleax rubber wrapped around larger Excel rims. Its off-the-line giddyup has also been enhanced with some gearing changes for more suitable city performance.

Check out the gallery for a better look around the bike. We've also thrown in a few pics with some of Hollywood's other work, including the awesome none-more-black Darth edition.

Chip Yates retired his electric motorcycle last year after setting records at the Mohave Mile and Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, and notching several (slower than Lightning) FIM World Land Speed achievements on the Bonneville Salt Flats. If you thought he was done with his pursuit of battery-powered feats, however, you have underestimated just how crazy this Californian is. Case in point? He's just announced a plan to trace the path Charles Lindbergh took during his historic flight from New York to Paris in an electric airplane.

Not just any electric airplane though. To get around the energy density limits of today's batteries, the craft is to be refueled during in-flight rendezvous with drones, which will either recharge or swap packs. No, we're not making this up.

In the time it takes to make this flight of fancy flight of the century happen, Chip will keep busy with other high-flying adventures. He is currently converting a Burt Rutan Long-EZ (now dubbed the Long-ESA, for "Electric Speed & Altitude") to battery power, with which he will attempt altitude and speed records this summer. He is also in the midst of taking another important step in achieving immortal airborne fame: getting his pilot's license.

Scroll below for more transatlantic flight details in the official press release. You can keep up with Chip's flying adventures on his Twitter feed and at his new Flight of the Century website.

Nobuhiro "Monster" Tajima owns Pikes Peak, having summited quicker than anyone else these past six years. As we told you a little while back, his 2012 ascent will take place in a battery-powered racer for Team APEV (Association for the Promotion of Electric Vehicles). That car, the Monster Sport E-RUNNER Pikes Peak Special, has just been revealed.

The wraps came off this weekend in Tokyo at Toyota's Mega Web automotive theme park and, with a carbon fiber body and bubble roof, it looks pretty amazing. Unfortunately, no specifications have been released so far, but we suspect it has enough electric ponies to best his world-beating 9:51.278 record set just last year. Especially considering the path to the top will have no gravel road segments, as it has in years past.

You can watch the covers being pulled off publicly for the first time, along with bonus footage of it in action on the track, by simply scrolling below.

Engineering challenges are like a siren's call to Neal Saiki. Since leaving Zero Motorcycles in early 2011, the company he co-founded with his wife Lisa, he's spent lots of time and effort wrestling with the human-powered helicopter conumdrum. As engaging as that might be, however, he still hasn't been able to keep himself from considering how to build a better electric motorcycle; work that has, it seems, proved slightly less Sisyphean as he has just announced a pretty cool battery pack breakthrough.

His approach tackles the big battery drawbacks of cost and energy capacity head on by employing the same "18650" cylindrical cells that Tesla Motors so successfully uses. Then, to get around the labor intensive connection method of welding thin strips of nickel to each one, he has devised a way to mechanically connect the cells with enough pressure to keep the current dependably flowing through them.

This configuration makes it easy to replace a single cell if it goes bad – each one is thermally monitored for signs of failure – and also makes it super easy to upgrade when new, better cells become available. What's not to like?

Saiki calculates a 200-pound pack will hold a nominal 16.1 kWh of energy using 1440 individual cells. That, he says, should provide for a real-world, driving-down-the-highway, 100-mile range. By contrast, the "100-mile" bikes by Zero Motorcycles and Brammo hold around nine kWhs.

The system can also be adapted to four-wheeled vehicles. In that application, the pack would be arranged as a three-inch thick plate holding 26.6 kWh of energy per square meter (22.2 kWh per square yard). It's too soon to say whether or when the pack will be commercially available. Saiki's new company, NTS Works, is currently looking to work with "select OEM's on custom battery pack design and licensing." Scroll down below for the official press release for more details.

Zenn Motor Company, the former purveyor of a neighborhood electric vehicle (NEV), and Eestor, the eternal purveyor of promises of a supercapacitor-based energy storage unit, have managed to defy at least one of the predictions hurled their way. The two intertwined companies have survived.

Despite the loss of its CEO a year ago, Zenn has been idling along, putting out mundane press releases about its financial maneuverings. Eestor, as is its custom, has remained mostly quiet. Until now. Both companies have issued announcements that are sure to excite the handful of people who still believe they will achieve the energy storage breakthrough that we first heard about in 2006.

Zenn's missive is mostly about a doubling sextupling down on its Eestor relationship, upping the ante to $30.5 million and receiving, in return, all rights to supply eventual energy-storing product regardless of territory or vehicle type.

For its part, the Eestor statement concerns technological developments. Apparently, the company has now successfully manufactured 20 micron-thick voidless squares of material capable of handling more than 3,500 volts that have "a dc resistance of greater than 700 terra ohms" (mmm... terra ohms... mmm). While this obviously sounds very impressive, the company warns that the aforementioned layers "do not yet achieve the level of permittivity necessary for commercial production." They are working on that though.

For all the pertinent details, you can check out both official press releases by scrolling down below.

Once again the electric ice-racing cars of the Trophée Andros have left their snow-capped mountain-top habitat for a little summertime fun at the Grand Prix de Pau Electrique. And, just like last year, the Exagon-prepared buggies put on two shows full of paint-swapping competitive action, whilst giving a kind repose to the eardrums of onlookers from the din of the Formula3 and other internal combustion classes.

Local favorite Mike Parisy, winner of last year's Saturday race, started on the pole in first event but couldn't quite hold off the impressive Adrien Tambay. While Parisy may have more familiarity with the Pau street course, Tambay is quite at home in the Andros Evo 2, having placed second overall in last winter's Trophée Andros Electrique.

Sunday saw Soheil Ayari turn his third-place finish the previous day into pole position for the final race. That contest turned into one of attrition with only five of the twelve starters making it to the finish line. With a collision taking out the three positions ahead of him on the first lap, Mike Parisy took full advantage of the clear track ahead and made the home crowd proud once again. Close behind him in second was last year's French F4 champion, the talented 17-year old Mathieu Vaxiviere.

Scroll down below for footage from both races as well as a cool bonus in-car clip of Parisy demonstrating his abilities, laying down some quick qualifying laps.

For a multitude of reasons – climate change, air quality, national security, etc. – a large reduction in the burning of carbon-based fuels is a good idea. Since higher prices are known to reduce consumption, one way to achieve this is to simply put a tax on fuel at the pump. It's been proposed by GM's Dan Akerson, Bill Ford and others, but the idea can be difficult politically and economically. With current prices already relatively high, further increases negatively impact the cost of production and distribution of everything we buy and can hurt a fragile economy.

Now, a slightly different approach has been proposed that would raise the price of carbon-based energy sources and encourage reduction, while helping the fiscally vulnerable absorb the financial cost. Hidden deep in an opinion piece for the New York Times that reminds us of the folly of continuing to pump CO2 into the atmosphere without regard for the future consequences, climatologist James Hansen makes the following suggestion.

We should impose a gradually rising carbon fee, collected from fossil fuel companies, then distribute 100 percent of the collections to all Americans on a per-capita basis every month.

He argues that this approach would effectively redistribute carbon-sourced wealth back to all but the biggest energy consumers and "stimulate innovation, jobs and economic growth", among other things, while creating a reduction in oil demand equal to six times what we expect to receive from Canada's tar sands via a certain proposed pipeline.

Though it doesn't seem to take into account the possible cost of administrating such a plan, compared to previous proposals, we think this one merits further consideration. Let us know what you think in the comments section by scrolling below.

Last weekend's TTXGP motorcycle races were proof that sometimes, slow and steady wins the race. Not that the four "eSuperstock" Zero S ZF9s were slow – ok, they are a bit sluggish compared to their superbike upperclassmen – but their reliability conquered all, allowing them to sweep the podium. How's that?

TTXGP is holding two races at each event and aggregating the scores. Michael Barnes easily won the first race on his "flying banana" from Lightning Motors but suffered from a malfunction in the second and retired, resulting with him finishing the weekend with 25 points. Tim Hunt, riding the #89 Lightning bike, had a DNF in the first race and won the second, scoring 25 points as well.

Martin Szwarc, Kenyon Kluge, and Kyle Schumacher finished each contest in 2nd, 4th, and 5th, respectively, giving them more points than the Lightning riders. And the trophies. It seems eSuperstock is not a separate class, as we supposed in our pre-race post, but rather, a "production specification category." Yeah, it's confusing.

However bad the Lightning crew might have felt after being shut out, they still fared better than Brammo. After putting down a few laps quicker than last year's record pace, rider Steve Atlas high sided on turn seven. While able to walk away from the crash, Atlas had six fractured vertebrae and was in no condition to continue. Luckily for the team, the bike was soon race-ready and Steve Rapp stepped up to the plate. It was shaping up to be an exciting race with the former Mission Motors rider running close behind the Lightning machines, when disaster struck again in turn seven and the Brammo Empulse RR went down on the low side. Steve #2 suffered a broken wrist and the weekend was over for the team. Such is racing.

Hopefully, the field will be a bit more crowded when the North American edition of the TTXGP gets to the Portland International Raceway on June 23. Besides a recovered Steve Atlas, Shelina Moreda will be joining the Brammo boys. In the meantime, scroll below for footage of the first race from the bike of weekend winner Martin Szwarc, as well as an additional video featuring Michael Barnes riding the Lightning in qualifying.

Last night, after nearly two years of waiting, the wraps finally came off the Brammo Empulse and Empulse R electric sport bikes. And, wow! Although it's received many refinements, there is still a strong similarity between the final design and the prototype, with lots of sexy to be seen in the naked streetfighter.

Since we've already seen the specs, the first question everyone wants to know is, "How much?" A lot. $18,995 for the Empulse R and $16,995 for the Empulse, to be exact. For that two grand difference you get fully adjustable suspension instead of semi-adjustable, along with carbon fiber construction of fenders and other body panel bits instead of plastic. You also get to take delivery this year.

Initial orders for the R will start dribbling out in June, with the production floodgates opening in July. The wait for the more affordable machine is expected to last until January 2013. Brammo is bullish on the numbers it will eventually ship. Speaking with CNN, CEO Craig Bramscher says he expects to sell upwards of 60,000 units across the entire product line and become a billion-dollar company within a few years. Hey, you gotta have goals.

Back to that price tag. It's steep, no doubt about it, but we think with good reason. Besides the big 10.2 kWh battery pack and breakthrough six-speed gearbox, your hard-earned cash is buying you top-notch components in places that count. That means Brembo brakes, Marchesini wheels wrapped in Avon 3D Ultra Sport rubber, Marzocchi forks up front and a Sachs shock out back. Not at all shabby, and since quality in these parts can save your life, you can consider them a worthy investment.

Check out the gallery above to get a close up look at all the sexy bits. Hit the jump to see Brammo's director of product development Brian Wisman go over the bikes features and demonstrate it in action for the LA Times along with the official press release.

Zero Motorcycles has come a long way since the company first showed up on our radar back in 2007, and has only seemed to gain momentum since then. In fact, it just announced a 240 percent increase in year-on-year first quarter sales. It's not been by accident.

Yes, it's hired some top executives from around the industry and taken advantage of good press opportunities. The company's also done a pretty decent job at reaching out to consumers. At last year's FIM/TTXGP race at Laguna Seca, for instance, it had a nice booth with a fleet of bikes on hand and gave hundreds of test rides to prospective customers. It was pretty impressive.

Mostly though, it's latest sales success comes down to product. Its line up has expanded from the initial Zero X dirt bike to a whole family of machines whose quality and specifications have improved with each successive generation. Not surprisingly, Zero believes the component that's been most improved is also responsible for its recent achievements. The latest ZF9 battery pack allows its S and DS models to claim a 114- and 112-mile range, respectively, (in the city) and that has translated into lots of cha-ching.

Indeed, not long after the 2012 bikes reached retailers, Hollywood Electrics claimed to have sold more of them in a few short weeks then it had all the previous model years combined.

If you'd like to see what all the fuss is about, Zero Motorcycles has announced a "National Demo Day" for the 19th of May at participating dealerships in the U.S. (you can click here to find one near you). Along with test rides, Zero will have factory reps at many locations available to answer questions and get feedback. Who knows, you may just find yourself riding one home. Scroll below for the official press release.

More power!

That is the mantra often repeated by Shawn Lawless and his EV racing crew, and it looks like they got enough of the stuff last Friday to propel his Rocket drag bike down Virginia Motorsports Park's quarter-mile strip in 6.94 seconds at an impressive 201.37 miles per hour. That's quick, son! And fast!

As with past record-settings, Larry "Spiderman" McBride was in the saddle when the fuse was lit. After nailing the throttle, he doesn't let up, and as the bike goes down the track you can see him throwing his weight around, trying to keep it going straight. The guy is fearless. Or crazy. Or both.

The Rocket is the same OCC-built machine we met (and loved) back in 2010, though it's received a few tweaks since then. It still has its 13-inch Dennis Berube-prepared DC motor, but instead of relying on two separate Zilla controllers, it now sports one custom Zilla box capable of dishing out 4,000 amps from the battery. Speaking of which, that is another area that's seen vast improvement.

Still able to produce more than a megawatt of tire-crinkling energy, the 14.2-kWh battery in the beast this go round was 150 pounds lighter than the original magic box, also built by Derek Barger of High Tech Systems.

Scroll below for the record-setting video along with bonus footage of the seven-second backup and an earlier run. To read a more lengthy account of all the goings on, check out Chip Gribben's write up over at NEDRA's Yahoo group.

When the Concept_One electric supercar from Rimac Automobili first went on display at the Frankfurt Motor Show, there were those who assumed that it was more of a pedestal princess than an actual operational vehicle. They were proven wrong when footage emerged of it moving stealthily about the vicinity of the company's Croatian headquarters.

Then, the charge became that it wasn't capable of the high performance that was being touted. Consider that accusation confronted in fine rubber-burning fashion. Rimac is putting together a video that features the car flaunting its fantastic stuff, and has released a few excerpts from that film that will both excite the faithful and quiet the cynics.

This latest footage, however impressive, isn't meant to imply that all its development work has been completed. Indeed, the man behind the machine, Mate Rimac, tells AutoblogGreen that its 0-60 acceleration is still "only" around 3 seconds, with the torque vectoring and traction control systems still in need of tweaking. He also reminds us that this is just a prototype. The production version will be different. And by "different", we assume he means the final product will get even more awesome sauce.

The clip opens with a slow pan of the Concept_One's new custom HRE wheels and Vredestein tires, then, after a few measured glimpses of other portions of its sexy real estate, wistful slide guitar gives way to a drumbeat that underlays the beautiful wail of that aforementioned rubber being tortured through a series of accelerations and opposite-lock flinging about.

The $980,000 superlative is scheduled to make an on-track appearance at 24 hours of LeMans, as well as being displayed at the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este. There are also credible rumors of it becoming intimately acquainted with the Nürburgring. While you'll have to wait a bit before being able to see it perform in those venues, you can watch it get fast and furious now by simply scrolling down.

The first race of the 2012 TTXGP electric motorcycle racing series gets underway this weekend at Infineon Raceway. Along with the original open and TTX75 classes, the organization has added an eSuperstock category that should open the door to more participation.

The rules for the new class allows for bikes from manufacturers with sales of more than 25 units. While the first race will feature four new riders aboard Zero S ZF9s, we hope more will join as the season progresses. Next year, can expect to see brand rivalry heat up with the appearance of the Brammo Empulse on the market. That bike will be unveiled after the race on the 8th in Los Angeles.

Like last year, the field for this first race is pretty slim. Both bikes that had been expected to compete in the TTX75 class will now be no-shows and, with Moto Electra Racing sidelined for the first part of the season and Team Segway Racing MotoCzysz focused on finishing off a pair of new machines to bring to the Isle of Man for the TT Zero, the main class will be limited to three bikes.

Still, it will be very interesting to see how laps times compare with those from last season. Lightning Motors will two field closely-matched entries, combining the raw speed and power they have always displayed with a much more refined chassis setup. Brammo, which has snagged a sponsorship from Icon Motosports (congratulations!) and whose racing effort will now be formally known as Team Icon Brammo, will be using a smaller, yet more powerful motor and controller from Parker-Hannifin.

Game on!

Karabag has been selling conversions of a few Fiat models for a while now, but a new configuration of the 500, along with a low lease price, could see them moving more out the door. The new Karabag 500e makes use of the same electric drivetrain components that German forklift maker Linde Materials Handling employs to move about its precision workhorses.

The supply arrangement allows the elektrofahrzeug-maker to offer the Italian retro-cute for €34,999 ($46,000 U.S. at today's exchange rates) or lease it for a modest €299 ($393) a month. That price, they say, makes it cheaper to operate than the gas-powered version. (You can see how they calculate that at this Google-translated page from their website).

While the price may be moderate, so is the performance. The new 500e puts out a peak 28 kW (37.55 horsepower) and allows for a top speed of just 105 km/h (65 miles per hour). Acceleration is, um, leisurely, with 50km/h (31 mph) coming 8.5 seconds after lift off. The 11-kWh lithium-polymer battery is said to offer 100 km (62 miles) of range.

Linde has also lent a drivetrain to another vehicle with much (much!) better performance. The Linde E1 electric go kart has made the Guinness Book of Records by accelerating faster to 100 km/h (62 mph) than any battery-powered cart ever before: 3.45 seconds. If only it were street legal.

Hit the jump for videos of both the Karabag 500e and the Linde E1 kart, along with a longer, bonus video from Linde detailing its history and products, that also features the electrified Fiat and the kart.