Formula E constructors won’t be able to introduce their own batteries until season five, reports E&T magazine. Instead, they’ll work together to create an updated common battery in time for the third season.

The journal quizzed Formula E boss Alejandro Agag on the sport’s technical roadmap last week at press event held in Battersea Park. It seems as though the original plan, which was for constructors to employ their own battery technologies from season three, has been modified in the face of concerns over rising costs.

Agag said: “The problem is that as we’ve been really looking in to the cost of developing a proper battery with all the latest technology available for year three, the cost is about £5m – maybe more than that – for just the R&D with the existing cells as well. We thought, ‘Let’s tell the teams to slow down a bit, pool their resources together and develop one battery.’ It will be a state-of-the-art battery, but they will all have the same. There is a new battery coming that is probably going to be better than anything than the teams would have done themselves separately.”

Agag believes the new batteries used by all the teams, and now set to be introduced for the third Formula E season, will be based around existing lithium-ion systems. However, he is hopeful there will be new technology available for the teams to develop themselves two years later.

He said: “I don’t think there’s anything ready apart from lithium-ion for season three. For season five, I don’t know – hopefully, maybe lithium-ion with other components. There are all these new chemistries coming out, so if anything is substantially better, we will definitely go for that.”

eandt.theiet.org