Salt Motorcycles, an Australian firm with headquarters in Brisbane, currently provides only one model. The café racer-styled custom Salt Twostroke is based on a factory KTM 300 EXC TPI. This gadget will still cost customers $39,990 AUD or €26,100, but it is extremely special.
Evidently, Salt Motorcycles is able to continue developing its 1,200cc V8 engine due to its reputation. In October 2021, the brand debuted its V8 powerplant for the first time. Engineers were experimenting with various bore and stroke sizes to optimize performance while keeping a 48 kg weight.
Initially, Salt Motorcycles owner Brendan James intended to use regular gasoline to power the 1,200cc V8. As limitations on pollutant emissions tend to become increasingly stringent, Salt will convert the powerful engine to run on biofuel before turning it to a hydrogen unit. In lieu of this slow transition to cleaner energy sources, Salt will in the future develop the V8 to run solely on hydrogen.
Hydrogen delivers around half the power of gasoline and diesel (comparing equal displacements), but Salt engineers may modify the brand’s current V8 engine to accommodate hydrogen. Bredan James, creator and president of Line Hydrogen, is in charge of the company’s first solar and hydrogen power facility in Tasmania.
The A$100 million (€65 million) project, according to Line Hydrogen, will generate 1,500 kg of green hydrogen each day. The organization anticipates beginning manufacturing on January 31, 2023. Brendan James’s decision to build hydrogen engines is unsurprising given the scope of his enterprise.
Nevertheless, production is not the only component of the puzzle. End-users will require refueling at some time, hence the development of a hydrogen fuel infrastructure also affects the viability of the V8. Salt Motorcycle may have sped the conversion of its eight-cylinder engine to hydrogen, but without a proper support system, it will be quite a while before the V8 hits the road.
