The lithium-ion cells are a typical, cylindrical 21700 format (21 mm in diameter and 70 mm lengthy, as used on older Teslas). A complete of 1,152 of them are packed into the carbon-fiber battery that doubles because the bike’s predominant chassis construction, delivering a complete of 18 kWh to an 800-volt electrical system. A aluminum entrance body holds the steering stem, whereas the motor, rear suspension, and cooling system bolt straight to the battery pack. A carbon subframe on the rear helps the rider.
“It’s a stressed part because the battery is designed to be very robust for safety reasons, as you can imagine,” mentioned Roberto Canè, “In a racing motorcycle, it’s not only a matter of the weight, but also the stiffness of the frame, which is very important for the riders, so together the front frame, the battery, the seat, and the rear frame behave like a standard racing motorcycle for lateral and longitudinal stiffness.”
Crash Protection
The security side is a vital one: There’s no crumple zone on a motorcycle to guard the battery, so its carbon construction must be sturdy sufficient to make sure the cells aren’t ruptured in a crash. Like at the moment’s hybrid F1 vehicles, the MotoE bikes have security LEDs that mild up inexperienced to indicate they’re protected to the touch and crimson if there’s any doubt, and even these LEDs are doubled up so as to add a layer of redundancy.
Fire marshals patrol the pit and paddock in full flameproof gear. MotoE realized its lesson the exhausting means. Before the inaugural season even obtained underway in 2019, all 18 Energica bikes meant for use in that yr’s championship had been destroyed in a fireplace within the paddock on the Jerez circuit when a charger short-circuited throughout a preseason take a look at.
By making the battery double because the bike’s construction, Ducati has saved the entire bike’s weight down to only 225 kg, an enormous discount over the 260 kg of the Energica machines utilized in earlier years. It’s nonetheless rather a lot for a race bike (premier class MotoGP bikes have a 157-kg minimal weight and get nearly twice the MotoE bike’s 150 hp), however the huge torque on faucet implies that off the road the prototype “V21L” Ducati’s preliminary acceleration is definitely quicker than the corporate’s MotoGP machine. At the quickest monitor it’s been examined at, Mugello in Italy, the MotoE Ducati hit 275 km per hour (171 mph).
That acceleration comes courtesy of 140 Nm of torque, delivered by way of the identical traction management and anti-wheelie methods utilized in MotoGP. The motor itself is an AC design, weighs solely 21 kg, and spins to 18,000 rpm, doubling as a generator to feed energy again to the battery underneath deceleration.
There’s no rear brake disc. Instead, the motor’s regen system is related to the rear brake pedal, mapped to reply like a standard brake. As with most electrical automobiles, there’s no want for a multi-speed gearbox—there’s only one ratio that takes the V21L all the best way from stationary to prime pace. “The motor drives through fixed reduction gearbox to the pinion and the chain, lubricated by a small oil pump,” Canè says. “On the other side of the motor, we have a water pump for cooling the motor and inverter using the small, lower radiator.”