Formula E

Formula E

Formula E

Formula E

Formula E

Formula E

Formula E

Formula E

On Tuesday in London, the all-electric racing series Formula E took the wraps off its new car. It's certainly striking, looking way more futuristic than the series' current machines, which to the uninitiated eye could easily be mistaken for any other open-wheel race car. What's more, its introduction will solve one of the biggest problems Formula E has right now; those mid-race car swaps will be a thing of the past thanks to a doubling in battery capacity.

When Formula E got started at the tail end of 2014, every team used identical Spark-Renault SRT_01E race cars. Since then, the series opened up the technical regulations a bit, allowing teams to develop their own control electronics, inverters, electric motors, and gearboxes. But, keeping costs sensible, everyone still has to use the same carbon-fiber chassis, which contains the integral lithium-ion battery pack.

But there's just one problem—the 28kWh batteries (developed by Williams Advanced Engineering) that the series has been stuck with just don't have enough juice for an hour-long race, even on the relatively low-speed city tracks upon which Formula E competes. Hence the spectacle of each driver having to swap cars mid-race, something that really hasn't helped this fledgling series win over skeptical petrolheads. Happily, that will be a thing of the past from next season (which gets underway at the end of 2018). For season 5, the new car, called the Spark SRT05e, will feature 54kWh batteries developed by McLaren Applied Technologies, meaning each team only needs two and not four cars per race.

But that is not all that has changed. The SRT053 has a radically different look to the current machine—or to any other race car I can think of, for that matter. In fact, it wouldn't look entirely out of place in a cut scene from Blade Runner 2049.

It's still an open-wheel design but with a very different approach to aerodynamics from the single-seaters you might see in Formula 1 or IndyCar. But that makes perfect sense for the series, since the primary aerodynamic concern is with reducing drag and maximizing efficiency, not chasing downforce. At the back, instead of a rear wing there's an integrated venturi that rises up and over the rear wheels.

There is one design detail that doesn't quite work for me, though: the cockpit "Halo" head protection device. As detailed in the current issue of Racecar Engineering (which has a great feature on the current Formula E car's aerodynamic design), the Halo was a late addition to the SRT05e. What's more, it is identical to the one that will be used in Formula 1 this season, since that is the device that the FIA has conducted tests on. But Formula E cars race at much different speeds to Formula 1, and several in the series, like defending champion Lucas di Grassi, would like to see a Formula E-specific solution. That, however, will need to wait for the third-generation car, due in season 8 (which will start in 2022).

Season 8 may well see many other changes to the technical rules as well. As regular will know , big OEMs are increasingly looking at the electric racing series as their new playground, canceling existing racing programs as a result. That's for a number of reasons. For one, a season in Formula E is unlikely to cost more than $40 million; that's not chump change, but it's an order of magnitude less than Audi or Porsche were spending in the World Endurance Championship and one-fifth the average budget required to play in Formula 1. (For reference, Formula E attracts about half of Formula 1's global audience, with 192 million viewers compared to 390 million.)

On top of that, there is some actual road-relevance to the race cars ; although the hand-built motors aren't going to show up in a mass-production EV, things like battery-management software and power electronics will, and the high-pressure environment of racing is a great place to stress test. But those same OEMs are concerned about maintaining that ability to conduct tech transfer.

Currently the rules only allow for a single rear motor/generator unit that must drive the rear wheels through a gearbox, but road-relevance means allowing different set-ups: a second MGU at the front axle or individual motors for each rear wheel, for instance. Ars understands that these discussions are ongoing between the series organizers and representatives from the car companies, although freedom to develop one's own batteries won't happen until 2025.

Listing image by Formula E