Jo’s Diary: Ducati’s electric racing motorbikes

Which is why the Ducati invite felt so timely. As of the 2023 season, Ducati is now the sole supplier of bikes competing in the FIM Enel MotoE Championship, the electric class supporting the MotoGP World Championship. For a brand so often dubbed the ‘Ferrari of motorcycles’, this represents something huge and, certainly, a project that requires vast movement of funds and resources within the team.

Having signed a four-year contract with Dorna, the commercial rights holder for the MotoGP, the deal sees Ducati lease and supply machines for an 18-bike field (plus spares) for the MotoE rounds. The goal? Well, it’s a very practical way to experiment and test new technology.

It’s also clearly a bit of a passion project for Ducati, as became clear when I met Roberto Canè, Ducati’s eMobility director. He ushered me into one of the pit boxes, where I found a couple of Ducati MotoE bikes in different states of disassembly laid out in front of me.

In race trim, you’d be pressed to tell these were EV bikes. Yes, the big mobile charger connected to the back of the seat or the absence of an exhaust might give it away, but look at them from a distance and they appear as mean as anything else on the track. That is all part of the plan: why mess with a winning formula? Plus, Roberto tells me that, whenever possible, they tried to carry over parts to reduce cost, complexity and the amount of many variables they will be dealing with.

But do they ride the same? Roberto assures me so: ‘The bike feels the same as a MotoGP would feel. The riders did not have to adapt to the bike, they were able to get on track and immediately achieve really fast lap times’. This is corroborated by the team and their test rider, who all say that had the bike not been so quiet around the track, they could have easily been fooled to think they were testing another petrol-powered version.

As I dive deeper into the Aladdin’s cave in front of me, I am immediately drawn to the big carbon battery casing. Holding an 18kWh battery with 1,152 cylindrical cells, its precisely-crafted polygon shape brings back memories of days playing low-resolution Playstation games. ‘The main purpose of such a complex looking battery is technical, to ensure a good weight distribution – reduce the weight as much as possible, but distribute it in a way that still keeps the bike dynamically balanced’, says Roberto.

Weight has certainly been carefully considered when putting this bike together. At 225kg, it’s almost 70kg heavier than a current MotoGP motorbike (but 12kg less than the minimum requirements imposed by Dorna). So the V21L is certainly on the hefty side, yet not impossibly far off other commercial bikes. For comparison, it weighs only 20kg more than my Triumph, some feat when you consider that almost half its weight is accounted for by energy storage alone. Lightness was found everywhere possible, not only through the extensive use of carbon fibre and aluminium, but also the removal of superfluous parts such as the rear brakes.

Yes, that’s right. While Ducati has kept the front disc, it has ditched the rear one, using electric motor regenerative power instead. Roberto points at the empty space on the wheel and explains that, while the mechanical brake is gone, they have kept the physical brake lever. ‘The lever pushes some oil against a pressure sensor, then the electronics read the pressure level and use the electric motor to brake. It feels like the same braking force that you would feel with a mechanical system’. Clever.

Not the only clever thing, though. ‘The battery case is also a stressed structural part and is very robust’, Roberto adds. ‘All other parts of the bike, like the frame, motor, seat and swingarm, are connected to the battery. It behaves like a frame, to offer the same lateral and torsional stiffness as any other standard racing motorcycle’. Additionally, the whole electrical system runs at 800 volts, as it allows for reduced wire size. Every gram counts, as Ducati pushes not only for maximum performance, but efficiency as well.

To propel it, the V21L relies on a small but mighty bespoke electric motor rotating at up to 18,000rpm, generating a respectable 150bhp, enough for a top speed of 171mph at Mugello. The motor has one fixed gear, so no shifting is required, meaning the powertrain calibration is very easily adjustable, with riders deciding on the different levels of traction control, ride-by-wire connection between the twist grip and the torque provided at the rear wheel, and simulated engine braking, all according to their preferences.

Having watched the Ducati V21L racing around Silverstone, I was struck by how fast the bikes came past. Not only that, but I expected them to be quieter. In fact, at speed they sound like jet engines at full chat. Some distance from the high pitched howl of their MotoGP siblings, admittedly, yet still capable of raising a few hairs on the back of my neck.

Even so, the race did seem to be over rather quickly.

‘The number of laps are limited by range, which in turn is limited by the amount of cells that could be fitted in the battery pack. Silverstone is quite a long circuit, so we get six laps’, Canè explains. There is also no warm-up lap, with every single drop of energy being squeezed for those few intense, yet fleeting moments of racing. ‘Adding more range would mean having a bigger bike, harder to ride. We had to make a decision, so we decided to keep this balance. But, you know, we are waiting for better performance’.

I probe Roberto to expand on what he sees as the next big thing for batteries and his eyes light up. ‘Solid state is a very interesting technology, but maybe a few years away. There are other chemistries, other advanced technology solutions that are coming that we would like to exploit for energy storage’. Claudio Domenicale, Ducati’s CEO, has previously hinted at this. He has mentioned that currently available lithium batteries for these type of applications usually operate on an energy density of less than 250 watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/Kg), but Ducati is keeping a close eye on new prototype cells where this has been raised above 350 Wh/Kg, with some experimental cells capable of 500 Wh/Kg.

Unfortunately, coming up with new battery chemistry is like trying to perfect a very complex soufflé. It’s not enough to get the mix of ingredients right just once: it needs to be consistently repeatable in all environments. Plus, the risk here is not just that your soufflé will fall flat, but will also burst into flames as soon as you take it out of the oven.

When I ask Roberto if he sees the current battery technology translating into the real world, he replies with a laugh. ‘For smaller motorcycles, now is the moment. But for big displacement motorbikes it is still tricky. It will take a few years to have enough performance, enough energy density – especially energy density – to achieve an electric sports bike that is truly comparable to a petrol one’. My thoughts entirely.

My past experience with an electric sports bike was a bit lacklustre. As I struggled with a broken network of chargers, I felt the whole concept of freedom so integral to owning a motorbike had been cut short. That, and the fact that I didn’t much enjoy standing in the rain for an hour waiting for the bike to charge. Still, if it had been a smaller zippier bike I could ride around town, that would have been perfect. Now it is Roberto’s turn to nod in agreement, ‘Yes, perfect!’.

I feel the need to ask, is Ducati exploring other options? Maybe synthetic fuel? ‘Yes, we are. That would be very interesting, and it would allow us to save all our heritage motorbikes’. We then dwell a bit on the big synthetic fuel conundrum, concerning who will invest in it. OEMs, both on the car and bike sides, are certainly interested, but they are customers. There is no technology to be developed from their side, as synthetic fuel can be retroactively used in today’s existing engines – plus they still have to invest in other alternatives, not putting all their metaphorical eggs in one basket.

Then you have the energy providers, all also focused on their current strengths, too swarmed trying to navigate the current legal landscape to shift investment into a costly, and still slightly risky endeavour. Still, there have been some efforts to push for further development. Porsche and Audi have been notably vocal, Formula 1 has committed to use 100 per cent sustainable e-Fuels from 2026, with MotoGP following closely in 2027. So not all hope is lost.

My lovely PR chaperone pops back into the box, kindly reminding me that my time with Roberto is coming to an end. I beg for two more minutes to ask Canè to name the team’s biggest challenge. ‘Our biggest challenge wasn’t actually technical at all. This project took a group of people made up of Ducati Corse [the racing division] and Ducati production, so the biggest challenge was to bring the people together, to work together, because, you know, the mindset of the Ducati Corse is very different from a production mindset. But it was so important to do it’.

I believe the MotoE project will bring invaluable learnings to Ducati, not only from an R&D perspective, but also through the growth of its own people and the many lessons learned and shared between road and racing.

As I say goodbye to Roberto, I notice that the bike we had been looking at had the name ‘Francesca’ etched onto its chassis. Another one was ‘Ludovica’. Every single one of the 23 bikes is named after a mother, daughter or wife of a member of the team. In amongst all those technologies and electrons, the hearts of passionate people still beat.