Ducati’s V21L MotoE Racer Is a 170 mph Rolling Laboratory

[Admin]

The Ducati V21L MotoE spec racebike in the paddock at Mugello. (Alex Photo/)

For the 2023 season, the FIM MotoE World Cup became an official World Championship class, and Ducati replaced Energica as the spec supplier, introducing its first electric motorcycle of any kind on the world stage.

Standing on the pit wall of race 1 of Round 2 at Mugello is a surreal experience. Eighteen electric Ducati prototypes rush by at 170 mph from out of nowhere. Exiting Bucine, the final corner before the straight, there’s no blaring overture to announce their coming. Like a storm descending, the air pressure changes and they’re upon you. Fantasms of speed, they vanish as quickly as they appeared. These Anemoi, these gods of wind, are only beginning to show their potential.

Roberto Canè, Ducati eMobility director, is candid about Ducati’s expertise in building electric motorcycles. “Before this application there was no knowledge inside Ducati. We are building [our knowledge] with this project. Racing for us is an advanced R&D department. This is R&D for us.”

The Ducati V21L’s battery pack. (Alex Photo/)

The Ducati V21L prototype is powered by 1,152 21 x 17mm cylindrical battery cells (6 cells in parallel x 192 in series) that produce 110kW (150 hp) and 140 Nm (103 lb.-ft.) of torque. The motor, Ducati’s own design, save for the rotor and stator, which were designed in collaboration with its suppliers, spins up to 18,000 rpm. There are 96 temperature sensors in the battery pack alone to provide Ducati with as much data as possible.

Claudio Domenicali, Ducati president and CEO, says: “Our MotoE technology is more similar to [Audi’s RS Q e-tron] Dakar buggy. The battery cell they use is similar. The advantage of the cylindrical cell is you can place them as you like. The big problem with batteries is cooling. Keeping the performance is about cooling the battery and the motor. The more you use power the more you produce heat. With 150 hp that’s draining current from the battery, it gets super hot. The battery starts to scream above 60 degrees [Celsius].”

The V21L uses separate liquid-cooling circuits for the battery and the motor and inverter. The battery pack, surrounded by a carbon fiber shell that acts as a stressed member of the chassis, weighs 110 kilograms (242 pounds), or about half the weight of the entire motorcycle

The V21L stripped of its fairings. Note the minimal “front frame,” reminiscent of Ducati’s production machines. (Seth Richards/)

Canè says, “If you compare this battery pack with other motorcycle or car battery packs, it’s lightweight. It’s unbelievable. Different motorcycles or cars have battery packs of the same quantity of energy that weigh double this one.”

On a racing motorcycle, weight is paramount. At the moment, current battery technology simply isn’t able to provide the power and range of an internal combustion–powered motorcycle of comparable weight.

Canè says, “The main problem was to make a compromise between range—that is weight, or the number of cells—and power and rideability. If I use cells that can provide lots of energy, it can’t provide lots of power. We need energy and power at the same time because we have a small battery pack. In a car it’s not a problem. They use a lot of cells and the battery pack is very heavy.”

“Electric cars are heavier,” Domenicali emphasizes. “From heavier to far heavier.”

Ducati provides spare bikes for teams. (Alex Photo/)

Since battery technology is the limiting factor in an electric bike’s performance, and Ducati isn’t in the business of battery production, the amount it can innovate is limited, but its expertise certainly has a bearing on battery performance as well as the overall performance of the motorcycle.

“We can innovate in lots of other aspects,” Canè says, “especially the management of the batteries: how you charge them, how you discharge them. There are special algorithms to take care of the cells. With the help of [parent company] VW Group, we’re in contact with the top battery cell developers, so we develop with them. They design batteries for our needs. Now, we have standard cells, but in the future we will try to find the best cells for our applications.”

Ducati is collaborating with QuantumScape, a US battery company that has investment backing from parent company VW.

Before his current post as eMobility director, Canè spent 16 years managing the electronic department in Ducati Corse. As Ducati is keen to point out, the last decade and a half has been a time of rapid development in the field of electronics. Electronic systems found on its production bikes have in large part filtered down from Ducati Corse—which is to say from Canè's department.

Roberto Canè has worked at Ducati for 21 years. After graduating from the University of Bologna, he worked at Magneti Marelli before moving to Ducati. Part of Ducati’s success in the grand prix paddock and production world is surely due to its location in Bologna, where the famous university prepares engineers to contribute to the motoring mind trust of Emilia-Romagna. Ducati certainly benefits from the constant influx of new talent. (Alex Photo/)

Canè's deep background in electrical engineering means he’s particularly excited by the potential for electric powertrains. Controlling an ICE via throttle-by-wire—or spark advance or ignition pattern, in cases when extreme intervention is called for—seems crude by comparison. An electric motor is simple and direct in its relation to the twist grip, ECU, and power map; no throttle butterflies to control here.

As a result, the purity of the software code is unencumbered by the mechanical components of the ICE. To illustrate, Canè tells the story of when Michele Pirro, Ducati Corse test rider, first rode the V21L.

“It was December ‘21 in Misano,” Canè says. “It was cold. Michele went out with the bike for seven or eight laps and discharged the battery. He came in, sat down, and stayed silent for a while. It was a lifetime for me, but it was one minute. Then I asked him: ‘Please tell me something! Speak! Even if the bike is terrible and you hate it, tell me anything!’ Michele said: ‘I was just thinking about the laps I made. To me, the bike is perfect.’ That was the very first outing. We just adapted the maps from his MotoGP bike to our electric bike and it was perfect for him from the very first exit.”

Canè and the author discuss Ducati’s electric powertrain and the potential for production application. (Alex Photo/)

It’s telling that the V21L is the product of a direct collaboration with Ducati Corse and the production R&D team. From the outset, Domenicali’s goal was that knowledge gained from the racing project would belong as much to the production side as to the racing side.

Ducati is forthright about its plans to build a production electric motorcycle. For many Ducatisti, like the wider motorcycling world, weight and range—to say nothing of a comparatively skeletal charging network—are points of concern at this stage. Furthermore, so much of the spirit of Ducati is wrapped up in its booming engine. In terms of the sensations it gives, what will distinguish an electric Ducati from any other electric motorcycle?

“The idea is to provide an electric bike that provides at least the same sensation of a standard bike,” Canè says. “Every rider who has tried this bike [the V21L] was impressed because they didn’t expect it could behave this way. It’s still heavy but it’s not so far from a racing bike. Apart from the sound—but we are working on that and we will impress you another way—I think the feeling is fantastic. In some respects, it’s better because it’s perfect. The throttle response is exactly the same. It’s very easy.”

A Ducati tech prepares a spare bike ahead of race 1 at Mugello. (Alex Photo/)

The world waits to see what the future of mobility will be. The European Commission recently announced that it will allow the sale of new vehicles with internal combustion engines after 2035 if they run only on climate-neutral e-fuels. While Ducati’s electric know-how is gaining speed, it hasn’t placed all its eggs in one basket.

“We are at the window of hydrogen,” Domenicali says. “We have different meetings to understand more. [The debate between electric and hydrogen is] like 100 years ago with the internal combustion engine: Everyone said ‘diesel’ or ‘gasoline.’ A lot will depend on what governments and politics decide to back for creating a network of distribution.”

Andrea Mantovani leads Matteo Ferrari and Mattia Casadei on the way to an all-Italian podium at race 1 at Mugello. (Alex Photo/)

The MotoE project is clear evidence that Ducati isn’t waiting for political entities to decide the future. Even if the future of mobility isn’t entirely electric, Ducati will not have spent its efforts in vain. The V21L is, after all, a rolling laboratory, an experiment, a motorcycle racing as much in the pursuit of knowledge as it is in the pursuit of glory. However the V21L is perceived in the history books, there’s no doubt that in 2023 it goes like the wind.

View the full article