Ducati continues to claim that it is unable to produce electric motorcycles for consumers at this time and attributes this to the state of battery technology.
Despite recent EV advancements made by the company’s parent company Volkswagen AG and the fact that Ducati itself is now the only manufacturer of electric racing motorcycles for the FIM MotoE electric motorcycle racing series, this remains the case.
The company intensified its efforts to put the breaks on electric motorcycles last week. Since “the battery technology really isn’t there,” according to Jason Chinnock, CEO of Ducati North America, ” it’s going to be some years” before Ducati produces an electric motorcycle for the general public.
Ducati has long complained that advances in battery technology prevent motorcycle manufacturers from creating electric motorcycles for consumers.
The company has even said that synthetic fuels are a more likely alternative to reduce emissions, instead of exploring EVs.
The statement from CEO Claudio Domenicali in support of an electric Ducati in 2019 that “The future is electric” and “We’re not far from starting series production” is now contradictory.
Although Domenicali’s comment raised hopes that Ducati was making significant strides in the creation of an electric motorcycle, he shot down those hopes two years later by attributing Ducati’s failure to batteries:
Let’s say that at this moment the main complexity in making electric motorcycles with high performance and autonomy lies in the battery. So we are following with great attention the evolution of this component, and at this moment we are evaluating when and at what moment the amount of energy that can be stored in a battery will somehow make a product like a full-scale electric motorcycle usable.
There is an evidently important evolution, because compared to, for example, fifteen years ago there was a very important change, another ten years ago again; today lithium batteries are very performing but are not yet able to store a sufficient amount of energy to keep the weight of the bike at its current level.
