In 2026 there will be an electric class in the World MX Championship

Theo

Well-known member
Likes
256
Location
Italy
One problem I see with laptimes comparison is that in motocross the rider makes a huge difference and it seems to me that the bike doesn't matter as much. I would be a little surprised to see better laptimes from a professional but non-top rider using an electric bike than from a top rider using a gas bike.
 
Last edited:

Johnny Depp

Well-known member
Likes
202
Location
Austin TX
Dave Prater with Feld mentioned early this year that SX would be doing the same thing soon. The MXGP thing had already been floated, and Anton at Stark replied that he would not be giving support to a separate class, he wants integration.
 

Beagle

Well-known member
Likes
576
Location
France
They have postponed the introduction of that class:
David Luongo postpones MXEP debut. - Get Dirt
Yes, OEMs seem so amateurish it's ridiculous.

OEM supposedly started asking MXGP to have an electric class in 2022 but 3 years later their electric bikes are still nowhere to be seen (except CR-E proto that has been around for 8 years without any specs nor production foreseen) so the class is postponed.

In the meantime, Stark has launched, they're now selling thousands of electric dirt bikes and racing competitively against ICE.

My take is that OEM are so late to the game that the series has to be postponed but will be revived once a couple of them are ready to compete with Stark (and any other startup that might be ready by then, like Flux maybe).

Anyway it's much more interesting to see Stark racing AX UK, SX tour, France MX Elite and WSX than to see them racing against themselves in an exhibition class.

Can't wait to see what Hicks, Zaragoza, Friese and Kobusch can do in WSX.
 

Erwin P

Well-known member
Likes
321
Location
Netherlands
Maybe for the better even.

I love the Stark, i think it's a bloody good bike and awfully fast. But with a Herlings/Coldenhoff/Prado at the bars i'm quite sure it will not finish most MXGP's.
 

Johnny Depp

Well-known member
Likes
202
Location
Austin TX
Maybe for the better even.

I love the Stark, i think it's a bloody good bike and awfully fast. But with a Herlings/Coldenhoff/Prado at the bars i'm quite sure it will not finish most MXGP's.
Sure would be fun to see them try, and that's how you learn. Personally the races or so long that they get boring and require too high a degree of physical fitness.
 

Beagle

Well-known member
Likes
576
Location
France
MX Elite is 25 min + 2 laps, Herbreteau finished all races and finished 6th in the championship, not too bad for their first try.

5 min more for AMA Pro MX might be stretching it a bit but they should start by racing SX anyway 😉
 

Erwin P

Well-known member
Likes
321
Location
Netherlands
Sure would be fun to see them try, and that's how you learn. Personally the races or so long that they get boring and require too high a degree of physical fitness.
Sure, but the time is a pretty set rule and they don't have to change that for E trying to compete.

@Beagle all the tracs i've seen in France are pretty hardpacked. Good luck getting 25 minutes +2 on deep sand tracks like Arnhem. My bet is the 1.2 will last 20 minutes there with a world class rider.
 

Beagle

Well-known member
Likes
576
Location
France
True, they don't often feature sand tracks in MX Elite, they didn't for this year, they had some mudders but it's not the same.
1758049005469.jpeg

1758049035551.jpeg

1758049071399.jpeg


Sometimes they do though, after all, we have famous sand races like Le Touquet.

MX Élite 2022 at Lons
1758048091929.jpeg

1758048146509.jpeg

MX Élite 2024 at Bitche (you read that right)
1758048272106.jpeg
 

Theo

Well-known member
Likes
256
Location
Italy
It's also hard to foresee the battery duration using technical data.
One way in which you can try and estimate whether the 7.2 kwh battery of the MX 1.2 would finish an MXGP race is to consider that, ideally, it can provide an average power of 14.4 kw (19 hp) for half an hour (because 7.2/0.5=14.4). Surely a pro would use peak powers way above that number and probably less while coasting in corners and while airborne, so it is possible that it would finish but also that it would not.
Besides, in reality, there are some losses; AFAIK, mainly these two:
• when the rider opens the throttle a lot, the current flowing in the powertrain will increase and the heat loss will be higher, so part of the energy of the battery becomes useless heat. That increased current will also increase the resistance of the battery, making it less efficient.
• When the speed starts being roughly more than half the top speed, more and more current is intentionally used to create a magnetic field in the stator, the d-axis, that weakens the magnetic field of the magnets in the rotor because the motor also behaves as a generator and the higher the rpm, the more it does that. This d-axis also consumes energy from the battery. I see that some of you have increased range doing offroad with taller gearing, I guess for this reason, and i guess that in professional motocross this phenomenon would affect battery duration, too.
So then the real average power useable for half an hour would be less than those 19 hp.

One thing that can change, though, is that maybe the rules can allow electric dirtbikes to use factory batteries. At that point, that 7.2 kwh number could increase as soon as they can make a higher density battery which lasts reliably for some decent time for the team, like one racing weekend.
 

Erwin P

Well-known member
Likes
321
Location
Netherlands
It's also hard to foresee the battery duration using technical data.
Onecould also use that fast riders (semi or ex pro's) here in the Netherlands drain the battery in 20 minutes. IF the 1.2 indeed does 20% more range that would give you 26 minutes. That being less than 30 + 2 laps is concerning.
 

Beagle

Well-known member
Likes
576
Location
France
Interesting calculation, the fact is that a pro rider finished all 30 min races (25 + 2 laps) in MX Elite 2025 championship with his 7.2 kWh battery.
So he did use under 14.4 kW average power at every race of every round (6 rounds, 12 races total).

He even provided some details about range for the first rounds: rounds 1 and 2 he finished races with 20-25% battery left. He had some range limitations in 1st race of round 3, was down on power (below 15%) and lost 3 places in the last laps, track was very soft, with steep climbs and hard accelerations taking a lot of power, but then he got no problem in race 2 and still ended up 5th overall.

That's real world data on real world tracks : Lacapelle-Marival, Pernes-Les-Fontaines, Castelnau de Levis, Gaillac Toulza, Plomion, Rauville la Place.

Hard to tell how it would translate to other tracks but that's the most thorough data we have with a pro rider racing a whole championship.

Getting 5 more minutes of it is about 17% more so give him a 8.6 kWh battery (swapping 5.0 Ah cells to incoming 6.0 Ah cells like Molicel P60B) and he'll likely finish 30 + 2 laps races (at those tracks) without any issues.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom