ALBERT PARK, VIC - MARCH 17: Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport driver Valtteri Bottas (77) ahead of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport driver Lewis Hamilton (44) and Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow driver Sebastian Vettel (5) at The Australian Formula One Grand Prix on March 17, 2019, at The Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit in Albert Park, Australia. (Photo by Speed Media/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Electric cars are more environment-friendly as they use the energy stored in batteries and have no exhaust emissions
Formula E is a single-seater motorsport championship for electric cars. The series was conceived in 2011 in Paris by FIA president Jean Todt and Spanish businessman Alejandro Agag, who is also the current chairman of Formula E Holdings. The inaugural championship race was held in Beijing in September 2014. Since 2020, the series has had FIA world championship status.
Formula E’s founding mission was for its race through the streets of the most iconic cities in the world – with a grid full of the best racing drivers and teams around – to show just what sustainable mobility was capable of, driving electric vehicles to the fore in the race for a better, cleaner future.
Since making its debut on the grounds of the Olympic Park in Beijing in 2014, Formula E has grown into a global entertainment brand with motorsport at its heart. Now, with 12 teams and 24 drivers on the grid, the championship has become a destination for the world’s best motorsport teams and racing talent.
The car industry may be going green and heading for an all-electric future, but it is very unlikely that we have electric cars in F1 in the near future.
In Formula 1, a race distance is about 200 miles. The amount of energy it takes to complete a Grand Prix that long is just not something an electric-powered battery can manage to produce. Formula 1 cars are designed to only convert just over 50 per cent of potential energy into horsepower. This means the amount of propulsion actually generated by the engine is just around 700kWh. And with the energy recovery systems of Formula 1 cars, an additional 1.11 kWh per lap is contributed. With this, the total energy expenditure over a race distance is only somewhere around 750kWh.
Considering a Formula 1 car’s mean race weight of 1,942 pounds, storing enough energy in a battery to complete one Grand Prix—with no recharging in between—is just not possible. If Formula 1 can solve the energy generation problem posed by full-electric cars which will allow a Formula 1 car to run a full race with no sweat at all, we might be able to see batteries takeover the circuits. But as of today, this is just not possible.
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