In EV catch-up race, legacy automakers hitch a lift with Formula E
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[January 23, 2024] By
Nick Carey
LONDON (Reuters) - Legacy automakers playing catch-up with EV leaders
like Tesla are leaning on their Formula E electric racing teams for
innovations to build better mass-production EVs with greater range and
efficiency, or a lower price tag.
Formula E has struggled to win over many motorsports enthusiasts, with
Formula One still attracting significantly bigger audiences because
electric cars lack the sustained power and noise of the internal
combustion engine.
But legacy automakers with electric teams say the race to maximize or
regenerate power - Formula E cars start each race with only 60% of the
battery capacity they need and have to generate the rest through braking
- helps them develop more efficient motors and invertors, and software
to enhance performance and range.
In the shift to electric, more powerful and efficient sports cars, or
more affordable mass-market models are likely to win their respective
races.
Tata Motors unit Jaguar Land Rover, which is investing 15 billion pounds
($19 billion) to catch up with EV production, will use silicon carbide
inverter technology developed for its Formula E cars to boost efficiency
in its next-generation premium-model EVs, said James Barclay, team
principal of the Jaguar TCS Racing team.
JLR has already used learnings from managing battery temperatures to
boost the range of Jaguar I-Pace EVs on the road today via over-the-air
updates by 20 kilometres (12.4 miles).
"The future is electric," said Thomas Mueller, JLR's head of production
engineering. "That's why Formula E is part of our strategy."
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Nissan is also playing catch-up with EVs, planning 19 fully electric
models by 2026. Nissan Formula E team principal Tommaso Volpe said its
racing car's software was initially based on the Nissan Leaf's.
He said Nissan wants more efficient motors, inverters and smaller
battery packs for mass-market EVs across its lineup. A senior engineer
with the team in France has weekly meetings with powertrain developers
in Japan for progress updates, he said.
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![](../images/012324PIX/busine67.jpg)
Team Principal of Jaguar TCS Racing Formula E Team James Barclay,
talks to media at the new technical headquarters of Jaguar TCS
Racing in Kidlington, Britain, November 30, 2023. REUTERS/Peter
Cziborra/File Photo
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"We transfer as much as we can ... but it has to be affordable for
the consumer," Volpe said.
Porsche Formula E is not just taking technology from its team to
develop luxury EVs, but also talent. The automaker has reassigned
two Formula E program top engineers to road models in the last year,
director Florian Modlinger said.
TECHNOLOGY LAB
Others have taken a different road.
BMW left Formula E in 2021, saying it had "exhausted the
opportunities" for technology transfer.
Mercedes also pulled out of Formula E and uses its F1 team to help
design more efficient EVs instead. Ford is returning to F1 racing in
2026, partly as a platform for EV development.
"The manufacturers that stay with us definitely see ... Formula E as
a laboratory to test technologies," said Formula E founder Alejandro
Agag, who cited fast charging as a key area where teams have made
progress.
The latest advances in motorsports have usually bled through to
mass-market models eventually.
But Stellantis, which is pushing to roll out electric models -
especially affordable ones - is taking findings from its upscale DS
brand Formula E team and passing them on to its other 13 brands to
accelerate EV development, DS Performance director Eugenio Franzetti
said.
"What is happening in the electric revolution is the technology
transfer will be super-fast," Franzetti said.
($1 = 0.7897 pound)
(Reporting by Nick Carey in London; Additional reporting by Alan
Baldwin in London; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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