Two Britishers - Fred Spaven, a mechanical engineer, and Finn Varney, a filmmaker are working on a project called Charging Bullet. They have a mission to take a Royal Enfield on a 1200 mile (2000 km) road trip from Land’s End to John o’Groats in the UK. Now what’s so special about this trip are two things – 1) they are using a 1961 Royal Enfield Bullet 350 once used by Indian Army and 2) they have converted it to an all-electric motorcycle.
The 1961 Bullet, as per Fred, was in a very bad shape when sourced from India, where it was exported as a CKD unit from Redditch factory, where it was built in 1961. It was discovered in a market in New Delhi after it retired from serving Indian Army. Fred stripped down the Bullet with just the skeleton left.
A battery pack that uses twelve Nissan Leaf batteries was then installed where the engine and the fuel tank are placed. The battery modules can store 5kWh of charge while an extra six batteries will be placed in the panniers that will give additional 7.5kWh for touring.
The rest of the bike is stock and uses the conventional telescopic forks at the front and twin sided shock absorbers at the rear along with the drum brakes on both wheels. Varney will document the three-week long road trip.
The duo self-funded the restoration for the project and are looking for crowdfunding for further expenses.
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