Volkswagen And Ducati Just Unveiled An Electric Motorcycle With A Solid-State Battery That Charges In 12 Minutes

One of the greatest challenges facing electric motorcycles right now is that they’re limited by today’s battery chemistry. A manufacturer can give a bike a big battery for good range, but that drives the motorcycle’s price and weight sky high. If you take cells out, you drop price and weight, but also range. Ducati, with parent company Volkswagen, plus QuantumScape and PowerCo, just demonstrated a potential future for electric motorcycles. The Ducati V21L prototype motorcycle has shockingly good battery density and charging rates thanks to solid-state technology.

This motorcycle, which made its debut at IAA Mobility on September 8, is a huge deal for the Volkswagen Group. While Volkswagen is best-known for its cars, it’s also the owner of Italian motorcycle brand Ducati. This motorcycle, Volkswagen says, is the first Group test vehicle to be fitted with a solid-state battery. This technology was demonstrated live at IAA Mobility, too.

Volkswagen says that the technology demonstrated in the Ducati V21L prototype will be trickled down into Volkswagen, Cupra, and Škoda electric cars, but Volkswagen is also deeply understating its achievement here. This technology has the capacity to solve the biggest problem with electric motorcycles.

Solid Development

This development involves a lot of different players, so I’ll get straight into it. Volkswagen says that the parties involved in this project include Audi, Ducati, PowerCo, and QuantumScape. Those first three brands fall under the Volkswagen AG umbrella, with PowerCo, a company located in Salzgitter, Germany, functioning as Volkswagen’s battery cell manufacturer.

QuantumScape was founded in California back in 2010 with the mission of bringing solid-state batteries to market. Volkswagen AG is a major investor in QuantumScape, as is Bill Gates. As of present, QuantumScape is believed to be one of the frontrunners in developing mass-market solid-state technology, and given the news out of IAA Mobility, I believe it.

Last year, PowerCo was granted a license to put QuantumScape’s solid-state batteries into mass production, and that has since flourished into a joint development program. All of this work appears to be paying off, because company representatives took the stage at the IAA show to demonstrate what they’ve been working on.

The bike rolled out onto the stage is a modified version of the Ducati V21L, an all-electric racing motorcycle that marks Ducati’s first move into the electric arena. The normal version of the Ducati V21L features an 18 kWh battery pack equipped with 1,152 cylindrical 21700 cells. Less important for this piece, but still cool to know, is that the V21L has 150 HP, and on the track, it’s gone 170 mph on the Mugello Circuit. Amusingly, since this is a racing machine, “range” isn’t really a factor. Instead, these bikes have been known to go about eight laps or so. That’s fine since MotoE has even fewer laps than that.

Volkswagen and Ducati, with help from QuantumScape QSE-5 solid-state cells. From the release:

The demonstration bike contains a first-of-its-kind battery system designed by specialists at VW Group-owned Audi specifically for QS solid-state battery cells, and highlights the potential capabilities of the technology on the racetrack. This will be a rigorous proving ground for QS technology, which has shown unique capabilities, including 844 Wh/L energy density, just over 12-minute fast charging from 10% to 80% state of charge, and 10C continuous discharge.

“Today we’ve crossed the threshold from possibility to reality,” said Dr. Siva Sivaram, CEO and president of QS. “We believe that our partnership with PowerCo, together with Ducati as our demonstration launch partner, positions us to scale our transformative technology to gigawatt-hour production. Our world-leading battery innovation, combined with Ducati’s uncompromising craftsmanship and legendary commitment to performance, will help usher in a new era of electrified transportation.”

Volkswagen is pitching this achievement as being great for the car industry, and I’m sure it is. These companies have been working on this technology for a long time, and this prototype motorcycle is the first time their solid-state technology has left the laboratory and has been mounted into a working vehicle.

Why Solid-State Matters

QuantumScape explains why solid-state batteries are a big deal:

A solid-state lithium-metal battery is a battery that replaces the polymer separator used in conventional lithium-ion batteries with a solid-state separator. The replacement of the separator enables the carbon or silicon anode used in conventional lithium-ion batteries to be replaced with a lithium-metal anode. The lithium metal anode is more energy dense than conventional anodes, allowing the battery to store a greater amount of energy in the same volume. Some solid-state designs use excess lithium to form the anode, but the QuantumScape design is ‘anode-free’ in that the battery is manufactured anode free in a discharged state, and the anode forms in situ on the first charge.

The companies developing solid-state batteries tout a ton of potential benefits. By eliminating the carbon anode, solid-state cells can have much greater density, which is great for range. Charging speeds can also ramp up due to solid-state batteries not needing to have lithium diffuse into carbon particles. Developers of solid-state batteries say that their batteries would also last longer because they don’t have the chemical reactions between the carbon and liquid electrolyte that shorten the life of typical lithium batteries. Other touted benefits include greater safety due to better stability, and lower weight for a given capacity due to the higher density.

All of this is great for cars, of course, but it’s really awesome for motorcycles. As I’ve written about pretty extensively, electric motorcycles struggle with present battery chemistries. As things stand right now, a small, lightweight, and more affordable electric motorcycle battery doesn’t have enough storage to permit a long riding range. Conversely, a battery that is large enough to provide a good range is pretty heavy and drives the cost of the electric motorcycle beyond the means of many buyers.

This problem is minimized in cars because a car manufacturer can just make an aerodynamic car that has its floor filled to the brim with batteries. At the same time, some of the heaviest electric cars knock on the door of 9,000 pounds. Motorcycle riders are a bit less accepting of adding more weight.

As a result, many electric motorcycles struggle to compete, at least here in America and in Europe. Why spend $20,000 on a Zero that can barely go 100 miles on a highway when you can spend half of that cash to get a gas-powered motorcycle that will go anywhere?

This is where solid-state batteries can shine in motorcycles. In theory, a motorcycle with a solid-state battery can go further on a charge, replenish that charge much quicker, and do all of that without gaining tons of weight.

Maybe, this Ducati is a sign of the changing times. Volkswagen and Ducati aren’t the only ones working on solid-state two-wheelers, as companies in China and in Japan are, too. Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali does say that this technology would be great in a motorcycle, but sadly, there is no further information yet. So, I will wait with excitement for the first company doing business in America to announce a production solid-state motorcycle.

Top graphic: VW AG