Motor racing is set for an electric makeover that will see a new generation of green cars speeding at 220km/h around urban racetracks – at least until their batteries run out.
Alejandro Agag, CEO of Formula E Holdings, says the global championship, which has been authorised by motorsport’s governing body the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile, will help finally make electric cars popular.
“That is one of our main objectives: to change perceptions of people about electric cars if we manage to have a championship that is sexy, that people like, that they see people racing without breaking down,” he told AFP.
Formula E is planned to start in 2014 with 10 races staged worldwide between about May and November.
Organisers hope for all the races to take place in city centres, potentially stretching from European capitals like Paris, London and Rome to more far-flung locales like Moscow, Beijing, Sydney and even Morocco’s ancient city of Marrakech.
Rio de Janeiro is the first city to come on board.
Agag said he wants races inside cities partly for the spectacle and partly to exploit what he says is a major advantage of the electric cars over Formula One’s scream machines: relative quiet.
“We have noise, but it’s a very moderate noise. The spectators will still have the emotion of watching the race with that noise there … but you won’t hear that noise up to one mile from the track.
“So it’s ideal for city centres, where noise pollution is a very serious problem.”
The big unknown is whether racing fans — who generally thrive on Formula One’s extremes of speed and noise — will embrace Formula E.
The prototype vehicle developed by France’s Formulec has a maximum speed of 220 kmh and accelerates from zero to 100 kmh in three seconds.
That’s not quite as fast as the monstrous Formula One cars, which can hit 100 kmh in less than two seconds.
The most crucial statistic, though, is battery life: 25 minutes.
That means that instead of Formula One’s pit stop ballet of tire changes, Formula E drivers will change batteries. Or, rather, they’ll hop out of their cars half way into the one-hour race and get into other ones.
To make things more interesting, the second car will be waiting 100 metres away.
“The drivers will have to race. It will be very spectacular on television,” Agag said.
Tire changes, which Agag criticised as environmentally unfriendly, won’t take place at all.
At the end of 10 races there’ll be a champion, while each race winner stands to get about 400,000 euros ($A496,000) in prize money.
Agag says he hopes traditional racing teams — McLaren has already expressed interest — will be joined by big brands like Google or Coca-Cola, as well as electric car companies, in creating the 10 teams.