Warwick Moto team

MSC Industrial Supply Co UK (MSC) is a 2024 engineering partner for Warwick Moto — the student-led electric racing bike team at the University of Warwick. Founded in 2019, Warwick Moto sees a team of students from the School of Engineering collaborate with industry partners to design and build an electric superbike capable of competing at the highest level.

The new bike, which is being fully built by the students in one academic year, is set to be unveiled in July, along with its heavily guarded and impressive specification, ahead of planned races in the Netherlands and the UK. It can be revealed that the new bike, which is also fully electric, will be lighter, and faster than its predecessor.

In 2021, the previous Warwick Moto team pioneered liquid immersion cooling for motorcycle batteries and developed a race-ready superbike called Frontier. It featured an all-electric powertrain capable of matching the performance of a 1,000cc combustion-engine superbike. Engineers from MSC will be providing a wealth of first-hand tooling and engineering support to the team, with a particular focus on the casing for the new motorbike’s battery.

The Warwick Moto team has already undertaken several CNC machining and 3-D printing development sessions at MSC’s Technology Centre in Wednesbury, while the MSC team will also provide ongoing consultancy support to the young and already experienced team.

Incredible challenge
Gregor Vetter, chief engineer and undergraduate student, said: “Juggling our academic responsibilities with this ambitious project has been an incredible challenge, but also an invaluable learning experience. Designing and building a high-performance electric superbike provides hands-on opportunities that simply cannot be replicated in a classroom setting.

“We are immensely grateful to our sponsors for making this one-of-a-kind project possible and especially MSC for giving us access to the cutting-edge resources and expertise at the MSC Tech Centre. Working alongside industry professionals and having access to ‘state of the art’ equipment and facilities has allowed us to transform theoretical knowledge into practical applications while developing critical problem-solving, teamwork, and technical skills.”

Dave Darby, managing director of MSC Industrial Supply Co UK, said: “When I first met the student team, I was taken by the ideas, energy, and progress they had already made. It is remarkable, especially when so many of those involved are juggling academic commitments alongside their involvement in the project.

“The 2024 bike is certainly the team’s most ambitious project to date, and it is a thoroughly rewarding experience hosting their engineers at our own technology centre and working alongside them. Designing a race-worthy superbike is no mean feat but adding in the environmental challenge of producing one powered only by electricity is even more impressive. The rest of this year is shaping up to be an incredibly exciting one for the team and we are looking forward to supporting them in the run up to the launch and throughout their racing schedule.”

The sponsors for this year’s bike are WMG at the University Of Warwick, Norton Motorcycles, MSC and Catapult.