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Honda and Yamaha's Ernée Electric Demos Are a Look, Not a Launch

Honda's CR ELECTRIC PROTO and Yamaha's YE-01 Racing Concept are booked for 12:45 local demo laps Saturday and Sunday at the Motocross of Nations in Ernée. Power, weight, range, and any retail date are still unpublished.

Maya TorresOct 3, 2026 · 4 min read
Honda CR ELECTRIC PROTO number 68 in red, white, and blue E-Xplorer livery, studio side view with an electric power unit and no gas engine - Credit: MXGP / Infront - CR ELECTRIC PROTO shown in FIM E-Xplorer World Cup livery on the Sept. 29, 2026 Ernée EV demo release (mxgp.com image c240202_001H). Localized 2026-10-03.

If you ride a 450, the question at Ernée is not whether Honda and Yamaha have electric motocross bikes. It is whether the two prototypes on this weekend's nations program tell you anything you can use, or only that both factories are willing to run them in public.

They are willing. Infront Moto Racing's MXGP release, datelined Ernée on Sept. 29, puts the Honda CR ELECTRIC PROTO and the Yamaha YE-01 Racing Concept on the Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations program together, Saturday and Sunday, both days at 12:45 local time. That is 6:45 a.m. ET. By Saturday morning on the East Coast, Saturday's clock time in France has already passed. Sunday's lap is the one still ahead. MXGP is clear these are exhibition runs of development bikes, not a new race class and not a showroom launch.

Who is turning the laps

Honda's riders are Trey Canard and Justin Brayton. MXGP says Canard was Honda's first rider in an electric motocross race, in the 2023 All Japan Motocross Championship, and that Brayton comes in from a long AMA Supercross career. The same note says the CR ELECTRIC PROTO already raced the 2024 FIM E-Xplorer World Cup with Team HRC. In that first season, MXGP says, the team won the men's championship and finished second in both the women's championship and the team championship. The photo with the release is that prototype in E-Xplorer livery, not a new CRF you can spec on a dealer worksheet.

Yamaha named Ben Townley and Milko Potisek for the YE-01 Racing Concept. MXGP identifies Townley as the 2004 MX2 world champion and the 2007 AMA Supercross 250cc East champion, and Potisek as the 2011 MX3 world championship runner-up and a three-time winner of the Enduropale du Touquet. The concept was first shown at EICMA in Milan in 2025. Powersports Business calls the Ernée outing an exhibition run while Yamaha keeps developing an electric motocross race bike, and says it sits inside Yamaha's push toward MXEP, an electric series PSB describes as expected in the near future. That is not a class on this weekend's gate.

Two projects, one time slot

The joint demo is not a shared machine. MXGP calls the side-by-side runs a symbolic look at work Honda and Yamaha have done together, and it describes the YE-01 as Yamaha's fun-first approach to carbon neutrality: YZ450F chassis knowledge paired with a power unit from French specialist Electric Motion, aimed at keeping the feel of motocross while using what electric drive does differently.

Powersports Business, citing Yamaha, adds that the frame is a new design drawn from YZ450F chassis technology, that the power unit was built by Yamaha and Electric Motion for this concept, and that the bike has a mechanical clutch so a rider can still meter drive with a conventional lever. RideFirst goes further and says Yamaha describes a liquid-cooled AC synchronous motor, a lithium-ion battery, and a hydraulic wet multi-plate clutch. The MXGP release and the Powersports Business story do not print that motor or battery description, so it stays RideFirst's account of Yamaha, not a line in the Ernée program.

What is still off the sheet

Peak power, weight, battery capacity, range, charge time, and how long either bike is supposed to hold a moto pace are not in these write-ups. RideFirst says the YE-01 is short on exactly those figures, and that Honda did not use the Ernée announcement to confirm production, a price, or a retail specification. Yamaha has not posted a shop date either. If you wanted a number to set next to a gas 450, it has not been published.

What that leaves you

Sunday at 12:45 local (6:45 a.m. ET) is the listed window to see the CR ELECTRIC PROTO and the YE-01 on the Ernée track with Canard, Brayton, Townley, and Potisek. Watch how they leave the dirt, whether the Yamaha's clutch looks like a real tool for a racer, and whether the second lap still looks like a race bike. Then leave it there. A development demo is not a down payment, a practice plan, or a new class result. Until power, weight, range, and a retail timeline are actually published, the fence is the only honest comparison.

Further reading

- MXGP - Honda and Yamaha to stage EV motocross demo runs at the Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations in Ernée - official program, riders, and 12:45 local Saturday and Sunday - Powersports Business - Yamaha YE-01 electric motocross concept to run at MXoN - Yamaha exhibition run, YZ450F-based frame, mechanical clutch, MXEP context - RideFirst - Honda and Yamaha put electric motocross prototypes on the Ernée program - rider context and the motor, battery, and clutch details it attributes to Yamaha

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