1. Yates' stated mission is "to prove that electric vehicles don't have to be slow and boring", and to follow this pursuit Yates next designed and built an all-electric airplane based on a modified Burt Rutan Long-EZ in which he has set five official Federation Aeronautique Internationale world records and two Guinness World Records.
At age fourteen, Chip Yates was sent to Culver Military Academy, a co-ed boarding school in Indiana where he received his high school education.
Chip Yates went on to receive a master's degree in Business Entrepreneurship from the University of Southern California where he was later hired as an adjunct faculty.
From 1999 to 2002, Chip Yates competed in the SCCA Club Rally and Pro-Rally Series driving a 1989 Toyota MR2 that he built with a 1.6 liter supercharged engine.
In 2001, Chip Yates won the SCCA Southern Pacific Group 5 Rally Championship.
In January 2007, at age 36, Chip Yates entered a beginner's motorcycle track riding course at Auto Club Speedway near Los Angeles, California.
In 2009, Chip Yates competed in the AMA Pro Daytona SportBike class in televised professional races at Auto Club Speedway, Infineon Raceway, Laguna Seca, and Heartland Park, before his season ended prematurely with a broken pelvis sustained in a high-speed racing crash during AMA competition.
Chip Yates raced gasoline-powered motorcycles at the world level through his wild-card invitation and entry in the Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme World Superbike Championship round in 2009 at Miller Motorsports Park near Salt Lake City, Utah, where he was the only American to qualify and finish the 2009 World Supersport Race.
Chip Yates announced plans to ride the hand-built prototype in the newly formed TTXGP and FIM e-Power electric motorcycle race series.
In February, 2011, Chip Yates returned to Auto Club Speedway and announced his intention to set a professional level laptime fast enough to qualify the electric prototype motorcycle for an AMA Pro Daytona SportBike series event despite its claimed 585 pound curb weight.
Chip Yates was unable to close the gap, ending the test effort with a best laptime of 1:37.308 and top speed on the straightaway of 163.7 MPH, an improvement of 1.692 seconds over his previous best time, but still 1.428 seconds short of his AMA goal.
Chip Yates then entered the 89th running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb on June 26,2011, setting the record for the most powerful motorcycle of any kind to enter the race in its 89-year history, and setting the official outright record for the fastest electric motorcycle to complete the hill climb, beating the previous record holder's time by over four minutes.
Chip Yates received his private pilot's license on July 12,2012, after two months of training and just days before the record-breaking electric flight on July 18,2012.
The construction of the electric plane, earning of pilot's license and record flight all occurred within twelve months of Chip Yates setting the electric motorcycle world records at Bonneville in July, 2011.
The week following the record flight, the Long-ESA aircraft was displayed at the 2012 EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, where Chip Yates revealed the previously unseen cockpit video and telemetry from the aircraft in a presentation for the Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation.
On October 5,2013, Chip Yates set a Guinness World Record with his electric airplane at the California Capital Airshow in Sacramento, California for "Time to Climb to 500 Meters" with a performance of 1:02.58 measured from wheels stopped until the aircraft reaches the required altitude.
On May 22,2012, Chip Yates announced plans to build a 100-foot wingspan custom electric airplane that he intends to fly along Charles Lindbergh's 3,600 mile transatlantic route.
Chip Yates has been featured on a number of television shows, including in interviews with NBC's morning show Today in the Bay, PBS's feature series Real Orange, and he recently hosted a Discovery Channel aviation show on the Spruce Goose, for Discovery's "World's Top Five" series.
On November 14,2012, Chip Yates was interviewed by the Experimental Aircraft Association for their historical preservation video series entitled Timeless Voices of Aviation.
On October 3,2013, Chip Yates was named as the first ever Official National Spokesman for the Conrad Foundation's Spirit of Innovation Challenge, which celebrates the life and entrepreneurial spirit of astronaut Pete Conrad, the third man to walk on the Moon.
Chip Yates has delivered numerous keynote speeches at NASA Ames and Space Center Houston that are streamed live to students and teachers around the world to launch the Conrad Foundation's Annual Spirit of Innovation Challenge.
On October 19,2013, Chip Yates delivered a TED Talk at the TEDx Bermuda event entitled "Risk Is The Currency of Innovation", where he opened with a video showing examples of risk, failure and innovation.
On July 11,2014, Chip Yates announced that he would take three months off from electric vehicle technology and setting world records to write a book aimed at showing kids how to overcome adversity in pursuit of their dreams.
The working title is "The Hoodlum Diaries", a nod to the frequent trouble Chip Yates encountered as a frustrated high-energy kid before and throughout military high school.