Ready to race: All teams in Formula E’s first season will use the same car, the SRT_01E
The race car accelerates down the straight, past One Birdcage Walk, to 120mph. The driver engages one of his power boosts to manoeuvre past the car in front, before swinging around the sharp corner of Parliament Square, Big Ben in the background and the Houses of Parliament whizzing past on the left. Crowds line the streets as the car passes over the finish line, accompanied by a thumping techno beat, to win the race.
No, this isn’t some pixellated futuristic racing game on a Nintendo or Playstation. This is real-life London, in June 2015, the final race of the first season of Formula E – a championship for cars powered exclusively by electric energy. The organisers hope it won’t be raining.
The exact route hasn’t actually been announced yet, but the hour-long race will take place somewhere in London – the final in a season of 10. The first race is in Beijing in September this year and is followed by races in cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles, Monte Carlo and Berlin. All the events will be free to attend, and will take place on city centre streets.
The organisers, the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) and chief executive of Formula E, Spanish entrepreneur Alejandro Agag, hope the allure of street racing in city centres and the novelty of the electric vehicle (EV) technology will create a spectacle that both appeases hardcore motorsport fans and recruits new ones from the Playstation generation. There are 10 teams from around the world participating, backed by people including film star Leonardo DiCaprio and entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, to fill the glamour quotient needed for motorsport marketing.
But behind the whizzy cars, A-listers and iconic landmarks are serious aims to encourage the development of EV technology and improve the public perception of electric cars. Bernard Niclot, technical director at the FIA, says that his organisation, which also produces the regulations for Formula One and the World Endurance Championship, has shaped Formula E’s rules to focus engineers’ efforts on a single area of the car – the powertrain.
“Our other championships encourage the development of other aspects of the vehicle. We want Formula E to massively help the development of electric vehicles, to be a platform to showcase EV technology,” says Niclot.
“This championship will help battery technology develop. In the short term, I think we will see some big gains in power density. Also, we will see some new powertrains quickly, in the second season. But the capacity of the powertrain will remain the same for the next two to three years. It would not be a good return on investment to change it before then.”
For Formula E’s first season this year, the 10 teams will all use the same car – the SRT_01E built by Spark Racing Technology and Renault. The SRT (Spark racing car) has a chassis made by Dallara, uses batteries developed by Williams, an electric powertrain supplied by McLaren, tyres from Michelin and systems supplied by Renault.
The car has been developed to be flexible so engineers can modify it more easily in future years, says Niclot. “The Spark uses a modular concept. If someone wants to create their own powertrain or battery pack, they can just change that part of the vehicle without touching the rest. We want money invested in electric powertrains, not carbon chassis or aerodynamics. We want to attract major suppliers in motors and batteries – tier-one OEMs.”
After a season of FIA-enforced parity, in 2015 Formula E’s rules relax and the championship becomes more open. Teams are expected to source and develop their own EV technology, in the hope of creating faster and more efficient cars.
However, there will still be rules in place, says Niclot. “We have a limit on the development of powertrains’ capacity to avoid excessive costs, which can be an issue in motorsport. We have also limited the weight of the cars, because if the batteries are too big it becomes too difficult to protect them from damage. We are also limiting the top speed, for safety reasons, in the cities.”
McLaren has supplied not only the powertrain but all the electronics for the SRT. These include the electric motor that drives the wheels via the five-speed sequential gearbox, the motor control unit and the supervisory control. The company was approached to produce the powertrain for the SRT towards the end of a project to develop the electric motor and controller for its own P1 supercar. This R&D fed into the development of the SRT’s powertrain, which is an ‘evolution’ of the motor and controller featured on the P1.
Wired for action: The powertrain and other electronics are from McLaren
The powertrain is “one of a lot of very smart things on the car”, says Peter Van Manen, vice-president of McLaren Applied Technologies. “The main difference between the SRT and a conventional EV is that the power density of the electric motor and controller has a better power-to-weight ratio than any other automotive system – 250bhp (186.4kW) out of a 26kg motor.”
The powertrain does not use off-the-shelf technology, but to minimise risk the components and design used are “well proven,” says Van Maren. “It’s been a tight and aggressive programme,” he says. “The two biggest parts of the integration process were the mechanical integration with the chassis and the integration between the battery and the powertrain itself. The only way to make that happen smoothly is close collaboration with the other partners in the vehicle. We’ve dealt with issues as they arose, so I have confidence there won’t be problems when we start.”
McLaren’s work on the car is ongoing. It will participate in the track testing before the end of March, and then build the powertrains for the first season’s 42 cars, which are scheduled for delivery in early summer. It will then have technicians and engineers at the races from September onwards to provide support. Beyond that, says Van Maren, “we continue to do development work on EV and hybrid technology. A successful Formula E series gives the technology more of a chance to evolve.”
Mark Preston is the principal of Japanese racing team Super Aguri, which has raced in F1 before and is participating in the first season of Formula E. As with all the other teams, it will use the McLaren powertrain this year in the Spark lightweight racing car. He says that the powertrain will be the focus for his engineers in coming years – budget allowing.
“If we can secure enough to do our own powertrain, we will,” he says. “In doing the first of 40 cars, they would have had to make some compromises. When doing it yourself you won’t have to make those compromises. And everyone is going to learn from the first year.”
On the technical side, Preston is excited about the prospects for Formula E to lead to “disruptive innovation” – something he believes that F1 no longer engenders. “F1 is more about process innovation. I knew what I needed to figure out next. With Formula E, I’m not sure where we are going to find the gains, and that makes it exciting. I’m hoping Formula E will deliver something disruptive, which is the point at this early stage. But I don’t know quite where it will come from.”
Formula E provides a blank sheet of paper for engineers to innovate, but ultimately those innovations must still take place within the traditional paradigm of motor racing – which, says Preston, means “the engine, aero and tyres”.
“The tyres are fixed, so we will manage them as we do in F1. Even though the FIA doesn’t want a focus on the aerodynamics, it’s still a big driver, so we will be making sure we get it right,” he says. “So the main thing is the powertrain, where there’s more potential for some big gains.”
As with the FIA’s Niclot, Preston sees the area ripest for development within the powertrain as the batteries. The Super Aguri team has already had discussions with a company about alternative battery technologies. Formula E will provide a proving ground for new technologies, he says.
“There might be up to 5-10% performance improvements in motors, whereas batteries still require the Moore’s law-type jumps. The form factor of batteries is changing. It’s more likely the racing car guys are the ones that are going to try those batteries. It’s those kinds of things that will provide the jumps. Racing takes those ideas that people in the car industry aren’t ready for yet,” he says.
Further into Formula E’s future, Preston is convinced the powertrain will feature in-wheel electric motors and all-wheel drive, because it reduces the amount of moving parts and makes repeatable units that will enable cost reductions. “You also get direct control,” he adds.
The other big advantage with EVs is that as the electric powertrain matures there will be more freedom to change the architecture of the car, he says. This flexibility could lead to different wheel configurations and positions for the driver in the vehicle, as well as a complete separation of the power unit from the motors in the wheel. The power unit could be made changeable, so you could use ethanol in Brazil or solar power in Australia. “Who knows what the power unit will be for Formula E in the future?” he asks.
Simpler steering: The SRT’s steering wheel is less cluttered than its F1 counterpart
This broad view of possible fuels is echoed by Thomas Laudenbach, head of electrical systems, electronics and energy systems at Audi Sport, another team committed to the first season of Formula E. He says that similarly to Audi’s road car departments, which his team has close links with, it is considering alternative fuels such as biofuels, fuels from algae, hydrogen and hybrids for future powertrains.
“We do not know what the future will bring – we may well have a variety of powertrains,” says Laudenbach. “At the moment it is electrical powertrains, because that is what is entering the market. But we do not know what it will be in 10 or 20 years. How we handle energy, where it comes from and how it is managed is the engineering challenge.”
Motorsport can be a driver for technology, he says. “It is extremely fast in development. You push the border forward, which is one of the reasons Audi is doing motorsport.”
He also views Formula E as good publicity for EVs. “It’s a great concept to bring Formula E into the cities – it’s a great PR activity.”
Similarly, McLaren’s Van Maren sees Formula E’s core concept of racing on the streets as helping to bring home the message that EV technology is a permanent feature for cars. “Without a doubt there will be more hybrids and EVs on the roads, and these should be in cities. It can only be good to have an electric racing series to help win people’s hearts and minds about this technology,” he says.
Van Maren also echoes Preston’s belief that motorsport has the potential to speed up technology development. “From an engineering perspective, you can accelerate development and allow the road car to pick up proven ideas, such as battery technologies and lightweight motors. We see the same effect in Formula One.
“Motorsport’s path in the world should be to embrace these changes, and for its engineers to show what is possible. You need people to have the confidence in these developments. If we can’t show it working, who will?”
Revving up development: Motorsport can be a driver for technology