A Colorado Couple Built The World's Fastest Electric Motorcycle In Their Garage

Eva Hakansson and Bill Dube, a husband and wife from Denver, Colorado, have spent the bulk of their free time over the past five years tooling away in their two-car garage. Their labor of love, an electric motorcycle called the KillaJoule, is now an official record holder.

In late August, Hakansson, a 33-year-old PhD candidate at the University of Denver, and Dube, a research scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), took their backyard creation to the Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials in Utah.

With Hakansson at the helm, the KillaJoule reached an incredible 241.901 mph on Utah's legendary Bonneville Salt Flats. In an instant, Hakansson became the fastest woman on a motorcycle in the world, and the KillaJoule became both the fastest electric motorcycle ever built and fastest motorcycle with a side car. The record setting-run beat the previous electric motorcycle land speed record by a whopping 25 mph.

But Hakansson and Dube knew their creation could go even faster. So last week, they returned to the Bonneville and upped the ante even more by hitting a whopping 270.224 mph. "The computer model showed a possible maximum speed of ~270 mph," Hakansson wrote in her blog. "For the first time ever, practice agreed with theory. We were both pleasantly surprised. It doesn't happen very often, for sure."

KillaCycle Racing

The KillaJoule right after its 270 mph run

The KillaJoule is truly an incredible machine. Power for the record -setting bike comes from a 500 horsepower EVO electric motor with juice stored in a series of lithium nano-phosphate battery cells from A123 Systems. Weighing in at 1540 pounds, including Hakasson, the KillaJoule is constructed with chrom-moly steel tubing wrapped in pre-painted aluminum body panels. Here's a detailed breakdown of Hakansson and Dube's design:

"The main purpose of the sleek, sexy motorcycle is to show that eco-friendly doesn't mean slow and boring," says Hakansson. She's definitely spot on in her assessment: 240 mph is never boring.

Take a look at the KillaJoule's record-setting 241 mph run: