Formula E: How a motor sport has been fast-tracking electrification

Think economy of scale, but with electric racing cars.

Presenters during the Africa Green Economy Summit (AGES) illustrated how the Formula E competition – happening this weekend in Cape Town, South Africa – presented on Formula E’s roadmap and experiences, illustrating how the electric sport’s popularity has in its own way been influencing the uptake and development of EV technologies.

Mobility formed a big theme for AGES and the presentation saw experts from the industry share their insights and experiences.

Dominic Wilhelm, executive director, United Leaders Center – United Cities, hosted the panel discussion Transition to Smart and Sustainable Cities.

Joined by James Barclay – Formula E Team principle for Jaguar – Giovanni Sgro, head of Maserati Corse, and Alberto Longo, co-founder and CCO of Formula E, Wilhelm stated the significance of a competition like Formula E, which until quite recently had not been a possibility.

“Formula E is the first net-zero sport in the world and the fastest growing…and its understanding of technology has had a very real-world impact,” stated Wilhelm, who correlated this with an effect on how cities and infrastructure has developed and become smarter.

As such competitions as Formula E continue to gain traction – popularity spurring competition as well as improvements in cost efficiency and range for Electric Vehicles (EVs) – this reflects on the developments of the industry itself.

“It doesn’t stay on the track. It gets into the hands of…electric vehicle drivers at lower costs and better performance, which means lower emissions and a net zero position in the city, which [we all] occupy.”

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Blink-of-an-eye developments

And what strikes this sentiment home is the speed at which EVs have come online.

So stated Longo, recalling the journey of getting Formula E off the ground:

“We got licensed from FIA in 2012 and [at that stage] nobody had invented a single seater full electric car…We saw the appetite from cities etc and everyone was really willing to jump into this venture, but the technology wasn’t there. [We used to have] two cars to finish the race, because of the range of a battery. In the middle of the race, we were swapping the cars; that was for four years.

“And in only four years, we managed to double the capacity of batteries…and now we are into fast charging. And step by step the technology is helping us to have faster cars and [more attractive] cars for the championship to be attractive to fans.”

And through this, Formula E both spurs and is boosted by developments in the industry. As these technologies are improved to better performance, so too are they adopted to serve consumers within the residential, commercial and even industrial sectors.

“12 years ago, there were two key barriers [in the way of] electric vehicles. One was the price and the other was the range. And only nine years [after then], we’re [rarely] talking about range.

“The price of the cars is still more expensive, but governments are coordinating initiatives and incentives to transform the mobility of their cities and countries.”

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Sports driving progress

Mirroring the sentiment of the competition driving tech developments was James Barclay who drew Olympic-level competitiveness as a motivation for exceeding limits and bolstering technological and energy efficiencies.

“It’s like being in a 100m race with 10 other athletes on either side while in the Olympic World Final. One digs into a level never reached before to beat them. They push human ability to another level. And for sports, this formula is exactly the same.

“As we push performance, we push efficiency. The more we push efficiency, the more we have range. And more range means less draw on energy.”

Specifically, Barclay referenced developments by US company Wolfspeed, which develops Silicon Carbide.

“Wolfspeed makes silicon carbide, a material we use in an inverter, which allows us to be more efficient with the power chain…In 2017 we started racing with that technology…As we stand here today, we have improved that technology by winning races and beating world class competition.”

And such improvements have come full circle:

“We announced last year…that every future Jaguar Land Rover vehicle will use Silicon Carbide technology – a perfect example of our ‘race to innovate’ philosophy; the race to road idea; taking technologies to bring them to consumers.

“There are other examples: energy optimisation tools that allow us to determine how much energy we will use during a race…and a pioneered second-life battery solution utilising mobile battery storage to power our garage during the Valencia pre-season test.

“This entailed utilising second-life batteries after their use in a production vehicle to become a mobile storage unit for energy.”