Episode 287 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one sees us looking at the unveiling of the Ducati MotoE race bike for the 2023 season.
On the mics, we have David Emmett and Jensen Beeler as they look what is taking place in electric motorcycle racing with the FIM MotoE World Cup.
In many ways, Ducati’s MotoE project is the opposite of all the electric motorcycle projects which have gone before.
Up until very recently, conventional motorcycle manufacturers have mostly stayed well away from electric motorcycles, preferring to wait and see how the technology, and the political and legislative framework in which this all takes place, will play out.
Exceptions have been few and far between: beyond electric scooters, KTM have the Freeride, an electric enduro machine, and Honda worked with Mugen on their bike which dominated the TT Zero race on the Isle of Man.
That has left the field open for a host of new companies, which have operated with varying success. Silicon Valley produced a large swathe of start ups, mostly run by motorcycle enthusiasts from the area’s electric vehicle and technology industries, and funded with VC money.
A few others, such as Energica, are engineering start ups producing electric vehicles and based in areas with strong automotive industry links. Small companies with limited manufacturing and engineering facilities which relied on widely available components and techniques for a large part of their bikes.
So when Energica won the first contract to produce the MotoE racer, they were competing against other specialist electric motorcycle manufacturers, sometimes no bigger than a handful of people based in of small workshops.
But all had the same philosophy: to take their existing products and turn it into a race bike, by stripping unnecessary ballast and upgrading suspension, braking, and various chassis components.
Their race bikes, and the Energica Ego Corsa which became the MotoE bike when the series first started in 2019, are basically the electric bike version of Superstock spec machines: production bikes which have been turned into racing machines by upgrading existing components to racing spec.
At the technical presentation of their MotoE machine on Thursday, the contrast between what has gone before and Ducati’s approach couldn’t be greater.
Today is a big day for Ducati Motor Holding, as it is making its public debut of its upcoming MotoE race bike.
The first Ducati-branded electric motorcycle, the “V21L” is not only a culmination of Ducati’s motorcycle knowledge, but also a testing platform for the Italian brand to understand the future of two-wheel racing.
The bombshell racing news for 2023 has to be the fact that Ducati is taking over as the sole-manufacturer of the FIM MotoE World Cup, which runs at select MotoGP race rounds.
Before this news, Ducati was perhaps the last brand you would expect to embrace an electric powertrain, and since their MotoE announcement, the folks in Borgo Panigale have been working publicly on that goal with gusto.
Now today, we get our first proper glimpse at the Ducati “V21L” MotoE project, but also some of the performance specs we can expect in the MotoE series.
First off, the numbers you are dying to hear: 495 lbs (225 kg) ready-to-race, 150hp (110 kW) of peak power, 103 lbs•ft of torque (140 Nm), a 18 kWh battery pack (running at 800 volts) that can be charged to 80% in 45 minutes with the onboard 20 kW charger, and a top speed of over 170 mph (275 km/h) at the Mugello track.
Not to over-use an Italian cliché, but that’s a spicy meatball, and close to what Ducati achieves with its Panigale V4 superbike.
It was four years ago when we first saw Yamaha’s electric trials motorcycle, and the Yamaha TY-E was certainly an interesting entry into the space. That statement only becomes truer with version 2.0.
A such, the Yamaha TY-E 2.0 just officially debuted at the 49th Tokyo Motorcycle Show, and our initial wave of information shows a refined bike in Yamaha’s lineup.
Can-Am isn’t the first name when you think of motorcycle manufacturers, but the Canadian brand has a rich tradition in the two-wheeled world, especially when it comes to off-road racing.
They are getting back to their roots now though, albeit with a modern twist, as Can-Am has announced that it will return to the two-wheeled space, brining a lineup of electric motorcycles by the year 2024.
American Honda is bringing an electric dirt bike to market for kids, but it is not quite what you think. The CRF-E2 is actually designed and built by Greenger Powersports, which is in turn licensing the “CRF” designation from American Honda.
Despite the bike not coming from the Japanese factory, the CRF-E2 (note the lack of a “Honda” name in that title) will be sold through Honda’s dealerships in the United States.
With 3.4hp (2.5 kW) of peak power, a two-hour ride time, and a 2.5-hour charge time with the optional quick charger, the CRF-E2 is aimed at young new riders as an entry point into dirt riding. The MSRP is set at $2,950 in the USA.
Almost a year ago, Triumph Motorcycles announced that it was partnering with a group of British organizations (Williams Advanced Engineering, Integral Powertrain Ltd.’s e-Drive Division, and WMG at the University of Warwick) to create an electric motorcycle prototype.
The announcement featured a machine that looked very similar to Hinckley’s own Street/Speed Triple offerings, which means a sporty naked bike that should be well-suited for spirited urban riding.
Mugen is set to go racing with its electric dirt bike in the new FIM E-Xplorer World Cup series.
Racing under the M-TEC name in the new series, Mugen is perhaps an electric racing outfit that we had almost forgotten about, as the Japanese tuning house hasn’t been on the track with its Shinden electric superbike since 2019, when the Isle of Man TT canceled its electric race.
While the various iterations of the Mugen Shinden electric superbike have captured the headlines with their non-stop race wins at the TT, it was the company’s intriguing dirt bike concept that stunned on its debut.
Episode 83 of the Brap Talk motorcycle podcast is out with another “weekly” episode, for your two-wheeled listening pleasure.
This episode sees us unexpectedly discussing the future of the motorcycle industry, with a focus on electric motorcycles and the shift away from fossil fuels.
Stark Future is the newest electric two-wheel maker on the market, debuting their electric dirt bike, the Stark VARG.
Despite being a new outfit, Stark’s electric motocross machine boasts some impressive stats right out of the gate, with a claimed 80hp power figure and a 242 lbs ready-to-ride weight.
Perhaps most importantly, the Stark VARG looks the part of a serious dirt bike – electric or otherwise.