Electric cars find a new niche in auto racing...and fuel further innovation.
Part of a series on Global Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Marketing
Since the 1950s, Formula One (F1) has billed itself as the ultimate engineering challenge, the penultimate arena for an automotive manufacturer to prove their prowess in building the fastest, most efficient and innovative cars on earth. In recent years, however, the sport has struggled to maintain relevance, with high budgets and cars built around mechanical ideas that will never see their way onto the road. Combined with a static schedule of tracks well outside of major cities, the series is failing to draw in new fans. Grand Prix-level racing was once a monument to automotive modernity and innovation, but interest and involvement has shrunk over the past decade. If even the top-level of auto racing is struggling to draw interest from the world’s leading manufacturers, and fellow established top-level series have also struggled over that span, where is the money and engineering talent going?
Enter Formula E (FE), a radically different organization that brings auto racing into the 21st century with a fresh set of ideas and values that, by its 2010-2020 season, has attracted the likes of Jaguar, Porsche, Nissan, BMW, Audi, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Mahindra, and Citroen. It has the eyes and wheels of more established race car manufacturers, as well as those just emerging from a newer, burgeoning auto industry from the developing world. While every other major racing series on earth runs cars that are primarily gas or diesel-powered, FE’s competitors run all-electric open wheel racers.
The focus on electric power is emblematic of a series-wide focus on innovation. By mandating electric power, the league allows factories to use competition to develop their future electric technologies, driving efficiency and new ideas in the same way that auto racing has driven development in more traditional cars over the past century. Immediately, the series answers a key issue that its competitors have tried and failed to solve with smaller pushes toward road relevancy.
The innovative, everyday aspects of FE don’t end at the power sources. While F1 races almost exclusively at the same closed-circuit tracks miles from city centers year after year, FE runs on temporary street circuits around a rotating cast of ten cities a year. Where F1 runs advanced slick tires that only provide optimal grip in the dry on a clean racing circuit, FE’s cars run on a Michelin compound with grooves that operates in both wet and dry conditions, a tire closer to a road equivalent than any used in any other major racing series. While Liberty Media, F1’s American owners, has finally pushed F1 toward social media in 2017, FE has been running a fan vote on multiple platforms that actually provides additional temporary speed boosts to more popular drivers since its first season. All of this happens on budgets that are miniscule in comparison to the nine-figure annual cost of a top-tier F1 program.
The future of the automotive world may not be entirely electric, but it certainly seems to be at least one of the ways the market will remain relevant going forward. While its traditional channels have struggled to adapt, FE has found a niche that skews towards younger, leaner, and more socially-conscious - in both cars and audiences - than its older brother. It may never replace F1, and it may never find relevance within the U.S. of series like NASCAR or IndyCar, but in a marketplace that has become increasingly unsustainable, FE has something not one of these three series can claim: A clear vision for a way forward that translates across manufacturers, economies and cultures.
by Hunter A. Smith