With the MotoE championship due to get under way in May, attention is turning to the 2023 season already, and the debut of Ducati's new electric race bike.

Ducati testing MotoE Race Bike

In the face of an ever-more popular MotoGP category, the fuss about MotoE, the electric version of MotoGP, seems to have died down a little in recent months.

That could be because the 2022 MotoE championship hasn't started yet. A provisional calendar had the first race taking place in March but the official calendar now has the first race taking place on 1st May and comprising seven rounds up to September. Quite why this has reduced from the 14 rounds originally touted is not clear.

While it would be fair to say that MotoE hasn't captured the imagination of the fans in the way that MotoGP continues to do, there's no doubt that it is an important test bed for electric powertrains. Currently, Energica supplies the race machines but, recently, it was announced that Ducati would be supplying bikes for 2023-onwards.

This came as a surprise to many as Ducati currently has no electric road bike offering and has released no news whatsoever about when that might happen, as it undoubtedly must. What goes on behind the closed doors at the Ducati factory is something we can only guess at but logic dictates that it involves electricity in some capacity.

The fact that Ducati is serious about its entry into MotoE was emphasised with the release of a video showing the prototype Ducati MotoE bike undergoing testing at a track in Italy.

This follows shots of the bike testing at Vallelunga in Italy in December, with test rider Michele Pirro on board. No results from that test were revealed.

Now, four months into 2022 and with a bare 8 months left until Ducati officially takes over the MotoE contract, the team has been testing the prototype, again at the Vallelunga circuit near Rome, this time with test rider Alex de Angelis on board. Also present was a full production team making a short video of the test.

A large part of the resistance to electric bikes is the lack of noise. However, as this video shows, the sound coming from this prototype is enough to make the hairs on the back of your head stand up. Imagine twenty of these things screaming around a track.

As far as 2022 goes, we'll still be watching the Energicas circulating but, if previous years are anything to go by, we'll soon be in 2023 and getting ready for the new era in MotoE with Ducati.