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I’m guessing Yamaha and Honda have bought several starks and studied them as close as possible, and you can only build an state of the art electric motor in one way I guess? They don’t have to re-invent the wheel is what I’m saying.
So the problem is still battery tech, right? Honda shouldn’t need 10 years to put out a rival to a newly started company, or so I thought..
Mine was a mx1.0 but I don't see any significant change in battery in the newer models
The prototype is at the MXdN and Matty B had it on a vid. I thought it looked sick
This is undeniably true, but at the same time I live in massachusetts and theres even more tracks here now then when I raced during the early 2000s which was the tail end of the “golden age”. When I was racing it was a lot easier to go ride at the local sand pits, I think most of that is done now, but as far as tracks theres more now than there was back then. We had capeway rovers, southwick, crow hill, and a practice track in uxbridge. Then you had jolly rodgers and winchester in nh and central village in ct.
These days you have 508 international, mx23, diamond mx, jjs, bro mx, crow hill, southwick, and capeway rovers all in Mass. Plus jolly rodgers, winchester, and mx101 in nh, central village in ct, and buttonwoods in RI. So now today I can get to 508, mx23, crow hill, capeway rovers, and central village all in an hour. Diamond mx, mx101, southwick, and buttonwoods in an hour and a half. Thats 9 tracks within a 1.5 hour radius. Thats fucking nuts!
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I'm not sure exactly what changed between MX1.0 and MX1.2 but for sure they changed cells which bumped battery capacity from 6.5 to 7.2 kWh, probably tweaked their algorithms for battery management system. I haven't heard of any thermal issues with the 1.2.
You've had a very disappointing and frustrating Varg experience, it sucked. I don't know how long they could race Lommel but I can tell you they have no issues racing 25+2 at all tracks in France MX Elite championship.
30+2 is much closer that what your poor experience lead you to believe. We will only know for sure when FIM or AMA will allow them to race.
Yep, the lack of sound and emissions are hard to argue against.
"Real" bikes? I think they call that, "A tip of the hand." I don't give a flying fig about what average people buy, as I'm not average. For one thing, I'd rather drive a Porsche than a minivan - but if the Stark Varg had been developed and released by Honda or Yamaha or KTM? - you kid yourself if you think they wouldn't already be taking over. Not to doubt your wisdom, but you do realize formal race organizations forcibly detune Vargs in order to allow them to compete "fairly" with ICE bikes, right? But you go on thinking your image of the future is a dead-on certainty there, Nostradamus.
I have no doubt they will eventually take over, that's a given. I'm just glad it won't be in my lifetime.
One of them died before the demo too... #whoopsie
Maybe. It’s gonna take a lot of regulatory stuff. Or Honda could instruct DC and Feld to adjust the rules in a certain way when it gets a bike ready. The rules for larger 4-stroke displacements in the AMA Pro Racing rule book back in the 90s(ish) were written to specifically promote the development of the 4-stroke (which is what Honda always wanted). I’m not getting that same vibe with electric bikes.
So as a vet who's longest moto day out might be 15 mins x 3. yeh i'm 58 so i'm the limitation. But - could i should up to a race - do 2 practise sessions and 4 motos in same day on a sand track (Vet A-B speed depending on track) ??
Are you meaning on 1 battery or charging inbetween motos? And how long are your motos?
Uncovered, eh? Glad Yamaha was able to get to the bottom of this and expose... themselves.
Yes 100%. YouTube stark Varg range test. Two ex professionals riding the 1.0 (not the newest bigger battery). One got about an hour at thunder valley, the other got over an hour at imi track. Thats very fast guys. You can get 45 mins on a sand track. More if you can plug up between motos. Some people are getting 4-6hr rides on trails too.
Dont let smith deter you. Maybe talk to someone who has one in your area. They’re sick man. My area has hardpack track and I get a very good day of track + trail out of one charge. It’s been the most fun I’ve had on a dirtbike in a long time. I’ve owned quite a few newer bikes too from 2020-2025 (ktm 250f, husky fc450, crf 250r, crf450r)
Edit to add in my stark is the newest 1.2 or whatever battery. So idk if that’s a big difference from what smith had or what, but I’m loving it
I think the biggest thing with everything battery powered is it can vary so much and you really won't know until you try it yourself in your own conditions.
Myself and 2 close riding buddies all had or have starks, all for over 12 months and rode them in all sorts of conditions. We are all Vet riders and none of us could get run times like they say in that YouTube video.so I'm very very sceptical of videos like that.
Personal I think where Stark went wrong is designing the bike around the battery. I think quick change battery's with multiple batteries would a much better idea.
Absolutely, your mileage may vary. It's hard to extrapolate the range you'd get from other riders, it depends so much on terrain, speed and riding style, it can wildly swing.
Honda and Yamaha prototypes appear to have smaller batteries, don't know if they're conceived for quick swaps but that's the way newcomers like Bonnell or Dust are going, under 1 min swap.
Bonnell - you might want to remember the name. They're coming, and they're good.
There's a guy that races one in my hare scramble series, so far he's not able to complete the 2 hours plus a lap we race.
Pit Row
I think a massive part in people's wide range disparity is riding style and what power level/regen level they prefer. I've started running less regen and have noticed a big difference in range. When I first got mine I wore out before it needed a charge, now I'm using up to 30% for a 5-6 lap moto. When I first did the "pro plan" upgrade, it auto set the regen super high (80ish%) and I just compensated with light throttle application in the air, now I'm setting it down below 50% to help my mid corner roll speed/stability. Still have yet to run into an I stance where the battery won't keep up with light charging throughout the day though.
Through my experience regen never really changed my battery usage but it would have a big influence on if the battery would run hot or not. I ended up settling on around 30-40%.
And I also found that horsepower level only had an effect on battery usage when I would drop the power down to a level where it was physically making me go slower than my ability. Once I was at a HP level where I could go as fast as my ability would let me, going higher on the HP setting didn't use anymore battery, I just used less throttle.
Terrain, speed and weight will be what influence your battery usage the most.
Who has the story of why they only ran one?
Yesterday was actually the first time since owning it I had to wait for it to charge more before I rode. Rode a total of 1hr 22 min, started at 100%, 2 sessions later I was at 64%, charged up to 72%, 2 sessions later I charged from 45% to 55ish, ran it down to 18%, charged to 34%, ran it down to 10%, and I was more than worn out at that point. Dirt was very heavy/tacky and I was running it harder/more power/less traction control than usual. Haven't really done any scientific range tests based on power/regen, but I definitely noticed a range drop when I started playing around with regen/traction control
I'm 61 so probably too old to see what's coming next but I for one can't wait for more electric bikes. we probably have 10 or 12 tracks within a 2 and 1/2 hour range but the closest one is just over an hour that gets old
It sounds silly, but I do think they are going to have to augment some sound on to them. Not just for the atmosphere/entertainment aspect, but safety. I believe the electric rally cars in nitrocross do this?
It would be nice to be able to attend a supercross and not have the ringing in my ears after and the floaty headache from the fumes... especially when I want to take my little one. Don't get me wrong... I love the good smell of race fuel but after 3 hours its a bit much.
Side effects I could see though is losing some of the "grit" in the sport. Those races when the conditions are absolutely at their worst... you might just see races cancelled simply because it might be just be too taxing on the batteries and no one can dependably finish the race. Let alone... high voltage electricity near a bunch of water... consider me not a fan.
There is actually a ton of cool engineering possibilities. Both physically in the motors and virtually with software... like synthetic gearing designs. Things like a whoop button that helps tame the torque down and maintain traction of the top of the whoops.
You should check out some Hard Enduro World Championship videos with Eddie Karlsson and Toby Martyn (or even some GNCC with Shane Pinney), also seen in plenty local MX races: electrics run much better than gas bikes in deep mud, they don't fry clutches nor overheat engines.
Lots of videos of riders completely immerging their Vargs and riding it out, though to be honest I wouldn't try it.
As a spectator sport it would be much more family friendly but would obviously miss some visceral aspect of it. Not sure that would matter much for the younger generation.
Battery tech is moving ahead in leaps and bounds. Major manufacturers have solid state batteries coming, and start ups like Donut are already putting them in Verge motorcycles. Graphene on the other hand is the real game changer. Graphene Manufacturing Group and Rio Tinto have been developing a graphene/aluminum battery that is way ahead of Li batteries. Their ongoing testing has confirmed the data below. In short, with Honda and Yamaha moving along, the shift to electric is a lot closer than people think.
Yah as long as the claims that I've heard are even half true, electric could replace gas power ed bikes for 95% of people. If everything's true that they are all claiming than if cost was not a factor, electric would be able to replace gas for any type of racing motorcycle.
It is a very exciting time to be involved in motocross! And like Yamaha , I am not cheering for the death of ICE powered MX bikes. I know that there are a lot of people who enjoy the things that ICE adds to riding. Just like some people prefer 2 strokes to 4.
I have a customer who has a collection of bikes. 90's 2 strokes right up to brand new 4 strokes with A kit suspension. He had a Varg and loved it. He sold his because he wants to be able to ride all of his bikes and enjoy them. And the Varg is so good that it makes him not want to ride the other bikes. He is not able to get out and ride as much as he would like to, so he was having trouble adapting to hitting jumps and judging his speed without having a gear and engine sound to help him know he was going the right speed.
Battery tech moves fast indeed, your two examples just are a bit unfortunate.
GMG is real and may begin commercialization in a year or so however their tech is not suitable for an electric dirt bike (at current prototype specs it would require a 70 kg battery).
And Donut are just snake oil salesmen.
Sorry to hear you are on life support. My condolences and Godspeed.
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