Former student takes his Master’s project to the next level as he aims to bring the ultimate electric motorcycle on the market by 2019.
In 2011, MSc student Bjarni Freyr designed a Folding Electric Motorbike for his master’s project at Center for Electric Power and Energy, DTU Elektro. The vehicle was awarded first prize at the internal DTU Elektro “Grøn Dyst” competition for the highly innovative skills proven in designing a vehicle as a contribution to public and personal transportation systems, thereby lowering cost, energy usage and greenhouse emissions.
Now Bjarni Freyr and co-founders Jesper Vind and Anders Lynge have started their own company called Fenris Motorcycles, where they strive to “Make Every Ride Electric”. With Fenris Motorcycles, founded shortly after Bjarni’s Master’s project, the two entrepreneurs now have close to five years of experience developing electric motorcycles – a rare expertise this point in time.
Two-wheeled Electric Beast
Named after a wolf of the Nordic Mythology, the new Fenris superbike will show its beasty capabilities by taking on the finest gasoline-powered sport motorcycles.
With a brushless, water-cooled AC motor specially developed for the motorcycle the superbike is very compact and weighs only 180kg, but still has a performance of 150kW/250Nm. A beautiful and savvy technical design will make this beast accelerate from 0-100 km/h in less than 3 seconds, and perform with a top speed of 300 km/h.
Electric engineering makes alterations possible
The digital approach to the construction of a motorcycle makes it possible to regulate both ESC-system, traction control with high precision and adjust the overall center of gravity through an app, allowing the motorcycle’s performance to be adjusted to the specific driver and his level of experience.
The construction of the Fenris motorcycle furthermore makes it possible to produce different types of bikes without changes in the core construction of the bike – something which is not possible on regular motorcycles.
Ambitious and fearless
Though the competition is tough, Bjarni Freyr and his colleagues has only positive thoughts about what the future holds, as they enter 2017 with the prospect of maturing their superbike prototype and start manufacturing to hit the retail in 2019.
Fenris Mortorcycles are not intimidated by competition. They see themselves as revolutionaries within the industry and want to do for the motorcycle, what Tesla has done for the electric vehicle.
The technical journal Ingeniøren had an interview with the founders of Fenris Motorcycles about the project. Read it here (danish)