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.
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.
Fresh off the news that Energica would be stepping down as the spec-supplier for the MotoE World Cup, today at Misano we learn who will be replacing the small Italian outfit: Ducati.
We get word today that electric motorcycle maker Energica will remain as the single-bike supplier for the FIM MotoE World Cup through the 2022 season.
That news is not too surprising, considering that Energica had a three-year contract with Dorna to supply bikes to the electric racing series, which included a clear technical roadmap from the Italian brand.
With the MotoE series effectively losing a year of development because of the coronavirus, it thus makes a bit of sense for Energica to remain on for an additional year.
It was just a month ago that we watched the MotoE paddock at Jerez burn down to the ground, torching effectively all of the bikes and material that were to be used in the all-electric series.
This was a major setback for the FIM MotoE World Cup series, and unsurprisingly the incident caused the complete revision of the series’ calendar.
The series says that single-bike provider Energica is on track to rebuild in just three months the 18 electric motorcycles that were burned in the flames. This means a new six-round calendar that starts in July in Germany, rather than Spain.
Today, we get our first indication of when we will see the MotoE bikes testing in earnest, as the FIM has announced a pre-season test at Valencia in June.
After announcing the 2019 FIM MotoE World Cup roughly a year ago, details have been slow to emerge about this electric motorcycle series, which will run in parallel to the MotoGP Championship.
Late last year we learned that Italian firm Energica had won the contract to supply MotoE with race bikes, which would be based off the Energica Ego production superbike, and now today we learn a little bit more about this fledgling series.
In a press event announcing Enel as the title sponsor (more on that in a minute), Dorna and the FIM laid out the basics for MotoE, in terms of teams, bikes, tracks, and race format.