Could Honda race its electric motocross bike in 2023?

Honda is seemingly set to race its electric CR motocross bike in 2023, although the competition that will see it is yet to be confirmed. 

Honda released its 2023 Motorsports Programme Overview recently, and within it was some information about Honda’s electric racing plans. “Honda has another critical mission to pursue in the area of motorsports,” said Director and Senior Managing Executive Officer of Honda Motor, Shinji Aoyama. “It is the realisation of carbon neutrality. Honda has already been conducting research and development of technologies for carbon neutrality while proactively leveraging the field of motorsports.”

2023 will see an advancement of Honda’s carbon neutrality push within racing, beginning with two-wheeled motorsport. “From now onward,” Aoyama said, “we will further enhance our initiatives to put such technologies into practical use in our racing activities. Moreover, starting with motorcycles, we will explore possibilities of introducing electrified vehicles in actual races where we compete.”

Since Honda’s electric motocross bike has been in development since 2019, in which year a first prototype was presented at the Tokyo Motor Show, it should be assumed that an electric CR should be considered as part of this electrified competition plan. The first version of the bike competed in the Japanese Motocross Championship in 2019, but it has not appeared again since. 

There would not be a possibility for Honda to enter the bike in the MXGP World Championship or the AMA Pro Motocross Championship, for example, since the regulations in those series do not account for motorcycles with non-internal combustion powertrains. But, there are other options. 

The Japanese Championship, for a start, but also, as Moto.it points out, the FIM E-Xplorer World Cup is a possibility. The series is set to begin on 13 May in Barcelona, and has now limit on power output, demanding only that the competing motorcycles weigh more than 75kg and less than 130kg.

E-Xplorer is similar in a way to the World Supercross Championship and Extreme E, in that the teams are connected directly with the championship. FMX star Robbie Madison, and multiple-time AMA National Champion James Stewart are two team owners, but there are 12 in total and it is not impossible that Honda could find space in one of them to run their electric CR. 

Of course, with a wider view to competing in more mainstream motocross series’ the E-Xplorer championship is relatively unrepresentative, but it would not be a terrible place to debut a relatively new motorcycle with a technology that Honda has not yet raced. 

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