The 2024 MotoE season has just ended, and in the last few months, Ducati's commitment has been divided between track races with the V21L model and the development of the new bike for the 2025-26 two-year period. We discussed it with Roberto Canè, Ducati E-Mobility Director, in this exclusive interview for Epaddock.
Ducati's tests for developing the new motorcycle for the 2025-2026 period are over. In a few months, the new MotoE will be ready for pre-season testing with the official riders of the seventh season of the MotoGP electric class.
In the last two years Ducati has tested and evaluated different types of cells to be used for the MotoE of the two-year period 2025-2026. The ones selected have a higher energy density that will allow to reduce the weight of the battery and therefore lighten the bike, reducing its weight by about 8,5 kg. The improved performance of the new cells could have been used to extend the duration of the race, but Dorna has decided to go in another direction. For the championship promoter it is a priority to lower the weight of the bike, to improve performance on the track, but also for safety reasons, while longer races would have had the disadvantage of making it even more difficult to fit in the track sessions of the MotoE in an already crowded race weekend. The chosen direction was therefore to maintain the same range but have lighter and faster bikes.
Therefore, the new version of the Ducati MotoE for 2025 will weigh just over 215 kg and have lower lap times than those recorded in the just-ended season, bringing it even closer to the Moto2's performance.
To better understand what kind of bike we will see on the track in a few months, we asked Roberto Canè, Ducati's Director of E-Mobility, to explain in detail the Ducati MotoE for 2025.
For those who don't know him, Roberto Canè is an electronic engineer from Bologna and the current head of all the "electric" projects of the Borgo Panigale company, MotoE in primis. After studying electronic engineering, his first experience in racing competitions was in Marelli's Motorsport team, where he worked on developing electronic systems for rally cars, SBK motorcycles and Formula 1. In late 2002, Claudio Domenicali, then CEO of Ducati Corse, called to ask him to bring the development of electronics for MotoGP within Ducati. Later, in 2020, Domenicali, who had become CEO of Ducati Motor in the meantime, needed someone to deal with electrification in Ducati and called Canè for this challenge as well. With his team, Canè is responsible for exploring how electrification and new technologies can support Ducati's growth in racing and on the road.
First of all, Canè underlined how the acronym of the bike remains unchanged: V21L. This is to highlight that the project remains the same, it is not a completely new bike, but an evolution of the existing one. The work of the E-Mobility team of Ducati focused mainly on the new battery that is not simply part of the electric powertrain, but is also a structural component of the bike. As you can see in this image, the battery and the motor form a single body to which the front frame, the rear swingarm and the inverter are connected.
The external carbon casing of the 2023-2024 battery remains, while the interiors are completely updated, to accommodate a smaller number of cells characterized by a higher energy density. If the first MotoE built in Borgo Panigale had 1.152 cylindrical cells of the “21700” type, next year this number will decrease, as each single cell will have approximately 16% more energy. The total energy of the battery will remain the same and equal to 18 kWh but, thanks to the new cells, the weight of the component will be reduced by 8,5 kg, going from 110 kg to 101,5 kg. This weight reduction will be exclusively due to the energy material of the battery and not to the mechanical part. The battery voltage also remains fixed at 800 V, as the number of elements in parallel but not in series has been reduced.
The new cells will be of the NCA type, like the previous ones, but with different characteristics to be able to store 16% more energy and allow even deeper discharge phases. The cells will be removed in order to maintain the center of gravity of the battery, and therefore of the motorcycle, in its current position. The aim is to not compromise the dynamic balance of the V21L and to keep the level of handling unchanged.
The rest of the powertrain remains unchanged; the motor and inverter require no modifications to work with the new battery pack.
Interestingly, the decommissioned cells will not be thrown away or recycled. Unlike internal combustion vehicles, where the energy carrier (fuel) is burned in the combustion chamber, producing energy, heat and exhaust gas, in electric vehicles, the batteries do not wear out and can be recharged. After a certain number of charging cycles, a battery for applications on cars, motorcycles, or boats ends its useful life, but it can be used for less demanding uses, such as domestic or industrial energy storage. In the case of the V21L, the state of health of the cell modules used in these two years is still so high (around 95%) that it allows them to be reused for high-performance applications.
TECH BOX – The NCA battery
The acronym NCA (Nickel Cobalt Aluminum Oxide battery cell) identifies a lithium-ion battery that uses a cathode composed of nickel, cobalt and aluminum. Unlike NMCs that use manganese, NCAs use aluminum to increase cell stability. The typical composition of the cathode of NCA cells is usually around 80% nickel, 15% cobalt and 5% aluminum. The high nickel content contributes to the high energy density and specific energy of the cell. NCA cells are characterized by a long service life and a high energy density (typically between 200 and 260 Wh/kg), which make them suitable for high-performance applications.
Returning to the bike, Canè and his team also worked on aerodynamic improvements to reduce the bike's drag and improve overall energy efficiency. On this front, Ducati can draw on the experience of its Racing Department. In fact, if in MotoGP aerodynamics allows to exploit the excess power of the engine, on MotoE, the same principles are used in opposite ways, but with the same purpose, to allow more power to be sent to the wheel, using less to penetrate the air. However, the solutions Ducati identified will not be used on the MotoE 2025. It was decided to sacrifice performance advantages to contain costs for the teams without buying new components.
Ultimately, in 2025 we will see a MotoE even lighter having lost around 45 kg from the first model, the Ego Corsa by Energica Motor Company, used in the debut season, in 2019.
Photos: MotoGP, Ducati and Epaddock
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