Newsletter of May 2021

Last Wednesday we revealed our newest electric superbike, the Delta-XE! The superbike weighs 220kg. We have achieved an acceleration of 0-100 kilometers per hour in less than 3 seconds and from 0 to 200 kilometers per hour in 9 seconds. Besides the high acceleration, the Delta-XE should be able to reach a top speed of 300 km/hour! 

We have achieved a peak power output of 150 kW, equivalent to 200 hp, which is a 20% increase compared to last year! We are carrying almost 600 Lithium Polymer cells. These cells can store a lot of energy and also release it quickly. Our battery pack has a total capacity of 13.5kWh, similar to the superbikes in the MotoE competition.

Haven't you seen the reveal yet? You can still watch it on our youtube channel! 

Just two days after its reveal, the Delta-XE was already present at its first event! On the 29th of May, we were present at the Dutch Innovation Days. We had a lot of great chats with people that were walking by and we were excited about the number of people that read about our project and our new superbike in the media!

Ten Kate Racing Products is one of our First Row partners. They provide a lot of racing components for our superbike and support us during the races. We are able to use their dynamometer and they provide us with a lot of racing-related knowledge.

This year SKF is a Second Row partner once again. They provide us with the bearings for the electromotor, the gearbox, and the pivot. Besides that, they support us financially. 

For the second year, we have a partnership with Cera Carbon. They converted our Ohlins front fork with a carbon outer part. They provide us with the front- and back sprockets that also contain carbon to reduce weight. 

What a good feeling to have revealed the Delta-XE. We worked hard to get it done before filming. Now we start a new phase. Working towards testing the full assembly. A lot of single parts have been tested and fitted already, but obviously, we do not want a bunch of working parts, we want a race-winning bike! 

Last month the powertrain and chassis planning was closely intertwined. For example, to test the motor we are building our own dyno. This takes engineering in both the mechanical as the electrical and software fields. Also, all the parts in the superbike itself are getting more and more intertwined as we are about to start testing.

During the days that the Delta-XE was filmed and photographed for the reveal video, the chassis team had time to reorganize the workshop. As you can imagine, working hard on a project like this day in day out, you discover how to organize the workshop most efficiently. 

Looking up from my desk I can see the Delta-XE in the workshop looking stunning and that makes me and the chassis team very proud. See you in the next one!

For powertrain, the reveal of our superbike meant that the core of the electronics had to be wired, the low voltage battery needed to be operational and the high voltage system installed. As always with doing the first assembly, we hit some bumps along the way but we are proud of the result!

We made a lot of other progress as well of course. We have almost finished our very own dynamometer and are excited to start testing, so we can see what we can get out of the motor. To make sure that the battery pack powering the motor is safe, we have done extensive functional testing on the battery pack and we have shown that the battery management system is fully functional. We will begin with building the final assembly of the battery pack in the coming weeks. We are getting closer to the end of the academic year and the bike getting closer and closer to being ready to race!