Mission R · the honest report

It won the race,
then never reached you.

A 2010 to 2011 electric race prototype from San Francisco's Mission Motors, built for the TTXGP series. It beat its rivals at Laguna Seca, made 141 hp from a 14.4 kWh pack, and was never street-legal. Then the company pivoted away from bikes, and a later road-going effort collapsed into bankruptcy. Sources on everything.

Start with what matters
The 10-second answer

A genuinely fast 2011 electric race prototype that won outright at Laguna Seca, with 141 hp, a 14.4 kWh pack, and a claimed ~160 mph top speed. But it was a track-only prototype, never street-legal, never sold to the public, and the company behind it folded. It belongs in history, not a garage.

Power
race prototype
0hp, 115 lb-ft, AC motor
class-leading for 2010
Top speed
claimed figure
0mph claimed
manufacturer claim
Battery
no street version
0kWh pack
large for its day
Buyable?
production planned
noprototype, company defunct
never reached customers
What it really costs

It was never
for sale.

There is no honest cost-to-own here, because there is nothing to own. The Mission R covered on this page is the 2010 to 2011 race prototype: it never reached production, never carried a consumer price, and the company that built it is defunct. A standardized 5-year cost-to-own does not apply, and we will not invent one.

One thing to keep separate: a later, separate venture under the name Mission Motorcycles announced a road-going Mission R and RS with quoted prices starting around $29,999 (and a higher RS), but that effort collapsed into bankruptcy by about 2015 and those bikes did not reach customers either. The prototype on this page and that later road project are different things. See §9.

The full report

Every module behind the headlines: what it actually was, the numbers decoded, the Laguna Seca proof, what happened to the company, and the standard scorecard. All sourced.

The 10-second honest answer

The Mission R was an electric racing superbike prototype from San Francisco's Mission Motors, built for the TTXGP and FIM e-Power series around 2010 to 2011. It used a liquid-cooled three-phase AC motor making about 141 hp and 115 lb-ft, fed by a 14.4 kWh pack, with a claimed top speed near 160 mph. In June and July 2011, rider Steve Rapp set an electric lap record and then won the joint FIM/TTXGP race at Laguna Seca by a commanding margin. It was a real, documented on-track winner, and it was never street-legal and never sold. Here is the full story.

A

What it actually was

Start here, because the most important fact is that this was a race prototype, not a product.

01

A track weapon, not a street machine

The Mission R was built to demonstrate technology and win races, not to be ridden home. Understanding that frames everything else on this page.

🏎Race teams and engineers

Its actual purpose. The Mission R was a closed-circuit prototype built to prove that an electric superbike could match combustion rivals, and at Laguna Seca it did exactly that.

Verdict, this is what it was for
📚EV-history enthusiasts

Its lasting role. As a milestone in electric performance, the Mission R is a genuinely important machine. It belongs in the story of how electric race bikes grew up.

Verdict, a real landmark
🚚Street riders and commuters

Not applicable. It was never street-legal, never homologated for road use, and never sold to the public. You cannot buy one, register one, or commute on one.

Verdict, not a road option
💰Anyone seeking a purchase

There is nothing to purchase. The prototype was not a production model, and Mission Motors is defunct. The later road-going Mission effort also failed to deliver. See §9.

Verdict, not buyable
The credibility behind it: this was not vaporware. The chassis was designed by James Parker and the bodywork by Tim Prentice's Motonium studio, packaging a large battery into a frame smaller than a 600cc sportbike. The engineering was real, and the on-track result proved it.
B

Innovations

What was genuinely class-leading for its day, rated honestly.

03

What made it special

For 2010 and 2011, the Mission R's numbers and packaging were exceptional for an electric race bike. Each badge tells you whether it was a genuine edge or simply context.

High-output race powertrain

A liquid-cooled three-phase AC motor making about 141 hp and 115 lb-ft, fed by a 14.4 kWh pack with a 100 kW motor controller. In 2010, that output and energy in a race chassis was genuinely class-leading.

★ Genuine edge
🏁Proven on a closed circuit

The performance showed up where it counts. The Mission R set an electric lap record at Laguna Seca and then won the FIM/TTXGP race there outright. A documented win, not a press-release claim.

★ Genuine edge
📐Compact battery packaging

James Parker's chassis packaged a large 14.4 kWh battery into a frame smaller than a typical 600cc sportbike. Tight, serious packaging for the era's cell technology.

✓ Solid
🌐A technology demonstrator

Mission Motors built the R partly to showcase the EV powertrain technology it intended to supply to other companies. That is also why it never became a product: the bike was the demo, not the business.

≈ Context, not magic
Why this matters: we flag the powertrain and the on-track win as genuine edges for 2010 and 2011, the packaging as solid engineering, and the technology-demonstrator role as the key context that explains why a winning bike never reached customers. The bike was a proof of concept for a parts business, not a model line.
C

Keeping them honest

Marketing specs vs. the physics. The math is simple, so let us run what is known and flag what is not.

04

The "141 hp" figure, decoded

The headline output converts cleanly. For a race bike the more telling number is torque, which an electric motor delivers instantly.

# Horsepower = Watts ÷ 746
141 hp × 746 = ~105,000 W  (about 105 kW, matching the quoted ~105 kW motor)
Torque: 115 lb-ft  (instant, the EV advantage on corner exit)
How to read it: these are race-prototype peak figures, not a continuous road rating, and they are quoted by the manufacturer and contemporary press. The ~105 kW motor figure and the 141 hp figure are consistent with each other, which is a good sign the numbers are internally honest rather than inflated.
05

Range: what is published, and what is not

There is no clean, verified consumer range figure for the prototype, because it was a race bike, not a road model. We will show the math we can and refuse to invent the rest.

What we know: the battery is 14.4 kWh. We can show usable energy, which is the honest starting point for any range estimate:

# Energy is given: 14.4 kWh = 14,400 Wh nominal
# Usable energy after reserve and taper ≈ 88%:
14,400 × 0.88 = ~12,700 Wh usable

What we will not do: publish a single "range" number for this prototype. A race bike on a circuit and a road bike at cruising speed consume energy completely differently, and we have no verified consumer-cycle test for the prototype itself. Contemporary reports around the broader Mission program cited wide ranges (figures in the 80 to 150 mile region were discussed for various configurations), but those mix the prototype with the later, separate road-bike proposals and are not a reliable single number for this machine. So a verified real-world range for the Mission R prototype is not published, and we leave it blank rather than guess.

The honest position: energy in the pack is known (14.4 kWh). A trustworthy single range figure for this specific prototype is not, so we do not state one. This is exactly the kind of gap where guessing would be easy and wrong.
06

The Laguna Seca proof

The single most important real-world fact about this bike is not a spec, it is a race result, and it is well documented.

In June 2011, rider Steve Rapp set an electric motorcycle lap record at the Laguna Seca ReFuel time trials. The following month, on July 24, 2011, he won the joint FIM/TTXGP race there by a commanding margin, finishing nearly 40 seconds (reported as about 39.995 seconds) ahead of the second-place MotoCzysz.

Mission R (Rapp)
winner
2nd place
~40 s behind

That result is the bike's legacy: a clear, documented on-track win against direct rivals, not a marketing boast. Reports note the prototype's pace was competitive even with the 600cc combustion machines racing that weekend, which was remarkable for an electric bike in 2011.

07

Charging: not meaningfully specified

Charge time is just battery size ÷ charger power. For a race prototype, there is no consumer charger spec to plug into the formula, so we show the method and stop there.

# Charge time (hr) ≈ Battery Wh ÷ Charger W × 1.1
14,400 Wh ÷ (charger W) × 1.1 = unknown  # no verified consumer charger rating
A race-team setup is not a wall charger, and no standardized consumer charging figure was published for the prototype. Rather than invent a charger wattage to produce a tidy time, we leave this blank. The formula is here so you can see exactly what is missing.
D

What it costs

For a prototype that never sold, the honest answer is that there is no consumer cost.

09

There was no price, because there was no product

The Mission R prototype never carried a consumer MSRP. The only prices in the story come from a separate, later venture that also failed to deliver.

What people citeWhat it actually wasReality
The 2011 prototypeA race bike built to win and to demo technologynever priced or sold
"From ~$29,999"A later, separate Mission Motorcycles road-bike announcement (R and RS)announced, not delivered
The road R / RSThe road-going effort that followed the prototypecollapsed by ~2015
⚠ Do not conflate the two Missions The race prototype covered on this page and the later road-going Mission Motorcycles R and RS are different things from related but separate efforts. The prototype proved the technology and was never sold. The later road venture quoted consumer prices but went bankrupt around 2015 before reaching customers. Any price you see attached to "Mission R" almost certainly refers to that unfulfilled road project, not the prototype. We date this note (June 2026).
10

The 5-year cost to own

This is where the standard methodology simply does not apply, and saying so is more honest than forcing a number.

Why there is no cost table: a 5-year cost-to-own needs a purchase price, a parts supply, a battery replacement path, and a resale market. The Mission R prototype has none of these: it was never sold, never produced in volume, has no parts ecosystem, and the company is defunct. A full 5-year breakdown for this model is not being itemized because there is nothing to itemize. We would rather show this clearly than fabricate a plausible-looking figure.
E

What happened next

A winning bike from a company that pivoted away and then wound down. The business story, not a service story.

11

From race winner to wound down

There is no owner community or reliability record to summarize, because the bike was never owned by the public. What there is instead is a clear corporate arc.

✓ What it got right

  • A documented outright race win at Laguna Seca in July 2011.
  • Class-leading power and battery figures for an electric race bike of its era.
  • Real engineering credibility in chassis and packaging.
  • Proof that an electric superbike could be genuinely competitive.

✕ Why it is not buyable

  • Mission Motors pivoted to supplying electric powertrains, away from building bikes.
  • The separate road-going Mission R and RS effort collapsed into bankruptcy by about 2015.
  • No production version ever reached customers.
  • No parts ecosystem, no street-legal status, no company to call.
⚠ The defining fact: there is no company and no product Mission Motors moved to a powertrain-supply business and then wound down its motorcycle operations. The later Mission Motorcycles road-bike venture went bankrupt around 2015 without delivering. So there is no factory, no parts channel, and no street-legal Mission R you can own. This is a history page, not a buyer's guide.
12

Parts & aftermarket availability

A bike is only as ownable as its parts supply. Here there is effectively none.

The Mission R was a prototype race bike. It never entered production, so there was never a parts catalog, a dealer network, or an aftermarket. With the company defunct since around 2015, there is no factory and no support channel. Anything surviving exists as museum, collection, or archive material, not as a serviceable consumer machine.

Part categoryAvailabilityReality
Battery / powertrainnoneBespoke prototype, no supply
Chassis / bodyworknoneOne-off race parts
Electronics / controllernoneNo factory, no catalog
ConsumablesnoneNo production support ever existed
F

The verdict

One scorecard, identical axes on every bike, even one that was never for sale.

13

The standard scorecard

Every machine on the site is scored on these same eight axes, by the same rules. For a non-production prototype, most practical axes score very low, and that is the honest picture: this is a landmark, not a purchase.

Value for money
grin per dollar
0
Real-world range
vs. claim
0
Reliability
core mechanicals
0
Support & warranty
company defunct
0
Parts & aftermarket
availability
0
Cost to own
5-yr, higher=cheaper
0
Street-legal ease
never homologated
0
Family-friendliness
a 160 mph race bike
0
Bottom line: judged as a consumer purchase, the Mission R scores poorly on almost every axis, because it was never a consumer purchase. Judged as what it actually was, a 2011 electric race prototype that won outright at Laguna Seca, it is a genuine milestone. It belongs in the story of how electric performance bikes grew up, not in anyone's garage as a usable bike. A real winner that the business behind it could not turn into a product.

The math toolkit

Our standing methodology, run identically on every machine, even one where several inputs are simply not published.

5 formulas, every bike
1Real energy in the battery
Energy (Wh) = Voltage (V) × Capacity (Ah)

The only honest way to compare two batteries. Here only the 14.4 kWh total is published, so we use it directly.

2Usable energy
Usable Wh ≈ Nominal Wh × 0.85–0.90

You never use 0 to 100%. The BMS holds a reserve and voltage tapers at the bottom. We assume ~88%.

3Real range
Range (mi) = Usable Wh ÷ Consumption (Wh/mi)

Consumption is the lever. For this prototype there is no verified consumer-cycle figure, so we do not state a range.

4Power you can feel
hp = Watts ÷ 746  |  Continuous = cruise · Peak = launch

141 hp × 746 ≈ 105 kW, consistent with the quoted controller. Race peak, not a road rating.

5Charge time
Time (hr) ≈ Battery Wh ÷ Charger W × 1.1

"Fast charging" is meaningless without the charger's wattage, which was never published for this prototype.

Why three of these come back blank here: range, charge time, and cost all need inputs that a non-production race prototype simply never had. We show the formulas so you can see precisely which inputs are missing, rather than papering over the gaps with invented numbers.

Sources & references

✓ Every figure on this page traces to a source below

We cite everything and date it. Manufacturer and press figures are labeled as claims; physics conversions are our own. Where a figure does not exist, we say so rather than invent it. Spot an error? Our corrections policy means we fix it in public.

History & company
Specs & race result

Sources retrieved May to June 2026. The Mission R covered here is the 2010 to 2011 race prototype; the later road-going Mission Motorcycles R and RS were a separate effort that did not reach production. Mission Motors is defunct.