World of Mugen TT

A huge amount of broadcast, print and online media content about the motor industry these days is taken up by electric vehicles (EVs), and rightly so. The electrification of transport is a huge challenge the world needs to embrace and conquer, so it's only right it's always in the news. However, while almost all EV discussion is about cars, Mugen has been busy at the Isle of Man TT races showing what can be achieved with the electrification of motorbikes. Motorcycles are already a quicker and more fuel-efficient way of getting around, but Mugen is now pushing the boundaries of possibility and expectation with all-electric racing bikes that are now beginning to out-perform some traditional petrol engine alternatives at the legendary Isle of Man TT.

Who are Mugen and what's their relationship to Honda?

A lot of people may already associate the Mugen name with Honda, but the relationship between the two companies isn't perhaps as straightforward as some may assume. Mugen is a completely separate company from Honda, although it was founded in 1973 by Hirotoshi Honda, who also happened to be the son of Honda Motor Company founder Soichiro Honda. The link between the two companies is, therefore, a family link and not a corporate one. Mugen is not, and never has been owned by Honda, but it is a trusted, longstanding family partner of the Honda Motor Company.

Who are Mugen and what's their relationship to Honda?

A lot of people may already associate the Mugen name with Honda, but the relationship between the two companies isn't perhaps as straightforward as some may assume. Mugen is a completely separate company from Honda, although it was founded in 1973 by Hirotoshi Honda, who also happened to be the son of Honda Motor Company founder Soichiro Honda. The link between the two companies is, therefore, a family link and not a corporate one. Mugen is not, and never has been owned by Honda, but it is a trusted, longstanding family partner of the Honda Motor Company.

Mugen is best-known tuning and racing Honda vehicles in a number of different formats, which include the likes of the Super GT Championship, Formula 3000, Formula Nippon, and even Formula 1. As well as its racing exploits, Mugen also supplies aftermarket parts for amateur enthusiasts to tune their own race cars and bikes. Although initially specialising in tuning Honda engines, Mugen has gone on to develop and now design and build both two-stroke and four-stroke engines, and even manufactures many of the major components itself now.In 2012, Mugen entered the TT Zero event at the legendary Isle of Mann races that had been going since 2010, which is an event exclusively for electrically powered motorcycles. The company had sent a one-off prototype bike to the event the year before in 2010 at the request of Hirotoshi Honda, which was used for a parade lap. Since the Mugen Shinden electric racing bike first took the course in anger in 2012, it's fair to say Mugen has gone on to positively dominated the event in recent years.

The TT Zero Bike and its history

The Mugen Shinden TT Zero bike is a bespoke creation that has literally been designed and built for no other reason than to compete and win at the Isle of Man TT Zero event. Because of this, the Mugen bike could effectively have a shelf-life of no more than 20 minutes.

The bike itself is made as much as possible from ultra-light, ultra-strong carbon-fibre, so the chassis, swing arm and bodywork are all made of carbon. Because it's an all-electric race bike, every available space that can possibly be packed with batteries is packed with batteries to make the kind of performance and range needed possible to compete and win in the TT Zero event.

Even though the bike is created for that single purpose the data, knowledge and experienced gained through this single-minded endeavour will inevitably help to towards the development of hybrid and all-electric vehicles of the future for motorsport and retail markets.

In its first two years of competition at the TT Zero events in 2012 and 2013, the Mugen Shinden was ridden to second place by Englishman John McGuinness. The Mugen was beaten to first place by another Englishman, Michael Rutter, who won riding the MotoCzysn around the course at an average speed of 109.6mph.

John took the title for the first time for Mugen the following year, 2014, with teammate Bruce Anstey securing a one-two for Mugen by taking second place. McGuinness and Anstey made it two years in a row with the exact same result in 2015, but in 2016 it was Anstey who took first place for Mugen, with McGuinness taking fourth place.

Anstey took the title for the Mugen again in 2017, and it was another one-two finish for the team with Guy Martin riding the second Shinden to second place. Mugen's domination of first place in TT Zero continued last year in 2018 with Michael Rutter taking the win for the team, who went on to win again this year in a record time for what's now the Bathams-Mugen team.

Mugen's 2019 TT Zero performance

The amount of pre-race testing the team can carry out before the main event is limited, but some quality track testing was carried out at Donnington Park before Mugen set off for the Isle of Man this year. Rutter said of the test session, "Doing that 25-minute session, we've learned probably more than you would in three laps around the Isle of Man because you can push a bit harder and it's safer to do so. Yeah, we've learned a lot."

Unfortunately, the Isle of Man weather wasn't kind to the event this year, and the first two practice sessions were cancelled due to the rain and a lack of visibility. Even when practice did finally get underway on the Wednesday, John McGuinness missed out due to the road having to be temporarily closed.

Despite limited practice, and therefore limited data for setting strategy for the race, both Mugen riders managed to get reasonably close to the kind of performance the team had originally been hoping for. Although they fell short of the 124mph average speed they'd set as their target before the event, both riders still managed to get their bikes going faster in a straight line on Sulby Straight than the petrol-powered Super Sport bikes on the day.

John McGuiness, returning to the team for 2019, put in what was clearly an absolutely stunning ride, especially considering his lack of practice on the Mugen this year. However, he still finished in second place behind what turned out to be a record-breaking performance from Michael Rutter.

It shows how much the bike's development has come on since 2012 when you consider the average speed of the first win for Mugen was 109.6mph, but this year's new record was a much quicker 121.91mph that sets a new standard for the race and the technology. Rutter completed the race in a new lap record time for TT Zero of 18:34:172, with McGuiness finishing less than a second slower in 18:34:956.

The future of hybrid/electric bikes?

We're not bombarded with hybrid or all-electric motorcycles because there hasn’t been the incentive for motorcycle manufacturers to develop hybrid or electric-only technology in the same way there has been for carmakers. It's probably because governments around the world haven't imposed the same sort of emissions standards on bikes as they have on other vehicles. At the moment, much of two-wheel electrification focus is concentrated on scooters and pedal bikes, so it will need a technological or cultural shift to inspire more development of electric and hybrid motorcycles. What Mugen is doing with its incredible performances in TT Zero is showing the world what can already be achieved by electric bikes, and this motorsport excellence could eventually lead to increased demand for electric and hybrid motorcycles from the general public. In the meantime, Mugen and Honda will continue to work together to show the world what can be achieved if we put our mind to it, and it's hard to see their dominance of TT Zero ending anytime soon.