The Hungarian E-powers factory team project has collapsed, leaving 50 riders and staff out of work for 2020, despite having agreed to a contract.

Despite several claims that the team's registration with the UCI was only postponed, multiple reports in Italy and riders involved in the project told Cycling News on Friday that the project has disappeared and will exist only as an amateur e-bike team in 2020 They confirmed.

The E-Powers team won the first Giro E-Electric Bike event, which covered several stages of the 2019 Giro d'Italia, with Davide Rebellin and Andrea Tafi appearing on stage as guest riders. This apparently sparked the idea of creating a professional team and competing in the 2020 Giro d'Italia, which will start in the Hungarian capital of Budapest.

Former Italian professional rider Sandro Lerici, with Valerio Tebaldi as lead director sportif, has contracted riders and staff to work on logistical needs and team structures. However, the team struggled to identify financial backing to satisfy the UCI and collapsed before making a final and basic appearance before the UCI licensing committee.

The professional team was supposed to be part of a larger cycling project in Hungary with a budget of 500 million euros, aimed at promoting cycling, building bike paths, and constructing velodromes.

Rebellin was to be one of the team's leaders, but La Gazzetta dello Sport reported that Tafi, who continues to dream of riding Paris-Roubaix 20 years after his victory, would also participate. Many others, including several Italian neo-pros, had also signed on, but in recent weeks there had been growing uncertainty about their futures.

When the team was not included on the UCI's list of candidates for approval for the 2020 Pro Continental, team manager Tamás Passe brushed off reports that the team would never materialize, insisting that he was still in talks with the main Hungarian sponsors and the UCI regarding registration He claimed that he was still in talks with major Hungarian sponsors and the UCI regarding registration.

The 2020 team was initially called the E-Powers Factory Team because bikes were supplied by E-Powers, a Hungarian e-bike brand founded by Istvan Vargas, and hidden motors and magnetic wheels were used in major professional races The UCI was forced to introduce special tests and X-ray equipment at major races to combat so-called mechanical doping.