MotoE to go on hiatus following 2025 season
The MotoE World Championship will be parked at the end of 2025, echoing the fate of the Isle of Man’s TT Zero as electric racing struggles to spark lasting interest.
It’s all over for MotoE – at least for now. Dorna Sports and the FIM have confirmed that the all-electric support class to MotoGP will be shelved at the end of the 2025 season. The move will bring the curtain down on seven years of what was billed as racing’s electric revolution.
On paper, MotoE had a lot going for it: big-name riders, factory backing, and a grid of identical Energica and later Ducati-built bikes. The racing itself was often frantic, with short, sharp sprints where the field stayed bunched up, slipstreaming down Mugello’s front straight or elbowing through the final corners at Misano. But as much as fans enjoyed the spectacle, the series never really broke through, certainly not enough to stand on its own two feet.
And that’s the problem. Dorna’s statement makes it clear: the fans didn’t bite, and neither did the industry. Electric motorcycles were supposed to be the future, but instead, the motorcycle world is pivoting hard towards synthetic and non-fossil fuels. From 2027, every drop of MotoGP fuel will be fully non-fossil origin – a milestone that matches the wider industry trend of trying to keep combustion alive, but cleaner.
This isn’t the first time a major race organiser has pulled the plug on electric racing. Cast your mind back to the Isle of Man TT. Their TT Zero race – the E-bike showcase once won by the likes of Michael Rutter and John McGuinness – was canned after 2019. The official line was that the tech hadn’t kept up with expectations, and the field had thinned to the point where the spectacle wasn’t worth the risk of running it. Sound familiar?
Both TT Zero and MotoE prove the same thing: building a competitive electric motorcycle is hard, and building one that excites crowds and sells road bikes is even harder. And without that connection – racing on Sunday, selling on Monday – the appetite for an all-electric class just isn’t there. The news makes Ducati's recent announcement, about its V21L race bike and its ‘first-of-its-kind’ solid-state battery, all the more confusing.
Speaking about the decision, FIM President Jorge Viegas said:
"Today we announce the suspension of the FIM MotoE World Championship as from the end of this season. In fact, and despite all the best efforts to promote this innovative category together with Dorna, the truth is that we haven’t reached our objectives, nor has the industry associated with performance electric bikes. The racing has been really fantastic and I would like to thank all the riders and teams that have competed in MotoE, and of course Dorna. Together we look to the future and are ready to embrace any new innovations and technologies."
Could MotoE come back? Possibly. The door’s not closed, and Dorna insists it will revisit the idea if the electric market finally kicks into gear. But if the fate of TT Zero is anything to go by, once a category is mothballed, it rarely comes back to life.
For now, 2025 looks like your last chance to hear the eerie whine of MotoE bikes screaming down a Grand Prix straight. After that, it’s back to petrol – albeit the greener kind – while electric motorcycles wait for their next shot at glory.
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Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!
