Whereas mass manufacturing of the HyperSport will occur at a devoted manufacturing unit close to Damon’s headquarters outdoors Vancouver, British Columbia, preliminary manufacturing will start at Damon’s San Rafael, California, engineering facility. The not too long ago acquired area is at the moment stuffed with placards and carts to visualise the assorted phases of the meeting course of; polished concrete flooring and pristine work surfaces look ahead to components.
The meeting portion of the store is on the opposite facet of the wall from the place Damon’s engineers churn out 3D-printed prototypes, machine the alloy elements going by way of closing growth, and crimp collectively early wiring harnesses.
Industrial-scale stamping, machining, and casting will finally change the hand-built nature of the preproduction bike you see pictured right here, nevertheless it’ll nonetheless carry the bespoke elements designed by and for Damon. “Each half on this [bike] is ours. We’ve developed it from scratch,” Dorresteyn claims. That’s not strictly true—industry-standard elements comparable to wheels, brakes, and suspension are the exceptions.
The prototype Damon HyperSport we visited within the workshop isn’t but road-legal, missing niceties comparable to flip alerts and useful headlights. With early manufacturing scheduled to ramp up in 2024, a lot of the group at Damon Motors is targeted on finalizing all the assorted {hardware} prototypes in order that correct manufacturing can start on the HyperSport, which continues to be set to hit these preliminary targets of 200 horsepower, 200 mph, and 200 miles of vary.
New Bike, New Bikers
The targets for the manager group are a bit of totally different throughout WIRED’s go to. Giraud says the corporate is in the midst of one more funding spherical, this time a $50 million increase to hold Damon by way of to manufacturing.
That’s a major hurdle to beat earlier than the corporate can lastly begin appeasing the 1000’s of preorders, a lot of which got here from events who don’t match into regular bike demographics.
Certainly, some 75 % of all Damon preorders have come by way of the corporate’s Instagram, with a median age of 37. Of the three,700 paid deposits, 1 / 4 are from individuals who don’t even personal a bike—increasing the market, definitely, however probably to inexperienced riders that would effectively require CoPilot’s intervention prior to they’d like.
Giraud is aiming excessive with the HyperSport, however he has plans to supply future fashions (some by way of partnerships) which might be reasonably priced for riders in all places, together with Indonesia, the place most bikes price round $2,000.
“Motorcycling is the biggest type of motorized transportation on the planet: 1.5 billion individuals each day. If we’re going to make motorcycling safer, one million a yr feels like perhaps placing a dent in it,” Giraud says. “And, from an electrification perspective, it’s not even a drop within the bucket.”
Giraud admits it is going to take Damon at the very least a decade to hit that degree of manufacturing, a timeline that appears optimistic for an organization that has but to ship a single bike to customers. However, whenever you’ve confronted loss of life and lived to inform the story, perhaps every thing else appears straightforward.
Lastly, the Trip
As Damon’s prototype HyperSport is not authorized, WIRED’s check journey cannot happen on the highway. As a substitute, Damon loaded up the bike and trucked it out to Thunderhill Raceway Park, one other two hours north of San Francisco.
Earlier than heading out onto the observe on the one useful Damon prototype bike on the planet, I did just a few warm-up laps on one thing a bit extra acquainted. Extra acquainted, however no much less loopy: a BMW S 1000 RR. That is among the many quickest sportbikes on the planet, making a tick over 200 horsepower and weighing simply 440 kilos. That it will do over 100 mph in first gear and dash to 60 in fewer than three seconds signifies that this “warm-up” was fairly sizzling regardless of a chilly observe on a cold, Northern California spring day.