Mugen Is Finally Going Racing with its Electric Dirt Bike

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.

Dubbed the Mugen E.Rex dirt bike, the package looked competent and ready for racing upon is unveiling. But what made the Mugen E.Rex very interesting to us was the fact that Honda had carbon-copied the machine for its own Honda CR Electric concept.

The ties between Honda and Mugen are of course very close, which only whetted our appetite further for this electric dirt ripper to ride an MX course in anger.

And now, it seems we will see the Mugen E.Rex in action after all, with the FIM E-Xplorer World Cup set to start later this year and with Mugen as an official manufacturer in the series.

The E-Xplorer series hasn’t outlined a calendar nor announced a set of venues yet, but we do know that it will feature urban and outdoor terrains, with ten teams of two (with each time having a male and female rider).

Billed as a sort of Formula E meets Trials meets Cyclocross, the World Cup is hoping to spur more electric action in the off-road sector, and a big piece of that puzzle is getting a company like Mugen onboard.

“We are very pleased to be registered as an Official Manufacturer of the FIM E-Xplorer World Cup,” said M-TEC Managing Director, Satoshi Katsumata.

“We are confident that this race will be the best place for us to apply the know-how we have gained through our participation in the Isle of Man TT-Zero class (EV-Bike class) and the ongoing development of the EV-MX E-REX bike, and to challenge ourselves further.”

We look forward to finally getting a chance to see the Mugen E.Rex in action (especially in its lastest iteration), and hope that it spurs other larger manufacturers to take notice. Thanks for the tip, Jon!