- MotoE Championship cancelled after 2025 season
- Ducati recently unveiled V21L MotoE bike
Ducati couldn’t have picked a stranger moment. The Italians unveiled the V21L, the world’s first motorcycle powered by a solid-state battery, and the first Volkswagen Group machine of any kind to use the tech. The motorcycle would be used for the MotoE Championship. However, Dorna has now confirmed that the championship has been cancelled after the 2025 season.
MotoE bosses didn’t dress it up. FIM president Jorge Viegas admitted the championship had fallen short of its goals, while Dorna chief Carmelo Ezpeleta stressed the need to follow the fans and respond to market signals. In plain terms: the bikes impressed, the racing was fine, but the wider audience never bought in. After seven years, the spark just never caught.
For Ducati, it’s a complicated picture. The V21L wasn’t pulled together in a few months; it took years of work with QuantumScape and PowerCo, and development budgets that could have bought a fleet of Panigales. By the time MotoE’s struggles were clear, the project was far too advanced to stop.
What they have now is one of the most advanced electric race bikes ever made: charging from 10–80 per cent in just over 12 minutes, delivering race-level power without fade, and riding sharper thanks to a lighter, denser battery pack. But the championship that should have been its showcase has vanished. Instead, testing will move to closed-door sessions, manufacturer events, and invite-only demonstrations — formats that don’t carry the weight of a world series.
It also throws up bigger questions. MotoE’s pause suggests electric racing hasn’t yet won fans the way petrol racing has. The races were short, the lap times comparable to Moto3, but the drama never matched MotoGP or WSBK. At the same time, Dorna is still driving toward its 2027 goal of fully non-fossil MotoGP fuels, proof that innovation is still alive, just not necessarily in the electric lane.
For the wider EV industry, it’s a reminder of how fragile momentum can be. Motorsport has always been both test bed and billboard, and without MotoE the spotlight dims. But Ducati’s V21L proves that progress hasn’t stopped. Solid-state batteries aren’t a promise anymore- they’re here. And whether fans are ready or not, the future has already left pit lane.
