What type of trade-offs do you focus on? People have different opinions about what is good enough and they are not all the same.
We mainly focus on the creation of renewable energy, since it is what gives the greatest positive impact to the use of electric vehicles. Where we can, it is Technology in the countries in which we compete.—Thus, the solar and wind farms in Mexico City, to give an example.
We are also investing in carbon capture and removal technology and looking for ways to support the development of that technology. It is developing quite quickly, but it is still a very emerging technology.
What makes you an order of magnitude less carbon intensive than Formula One?
The amount of product we allow ourselves to take on a trip. The number of cars, tires, spare parts and people that travel, we do it with the absolute minimum number to fit it in the minimum number of boxes to transport. And whenever possible we carry out transport by road or sea. We only fly when we have to fly our entire racing series and we can fit everything into three planes. We are looking at how to reduce that to two.
And when we take planes, we look to technologies like sustainable aviation fuel. In fact, we tried it in one of the races last year: going from Berlin to the next race.
Has sports technology reached consumer vehicles since the first race in 2014?
Well, it works both ways. We have benefited from engine manufacturers around the world investing in electric vehicle technology and we have some of the brightest minds in the world. original equipment manufacturers working on the development of batteries and propulsion systems for electric vehicles. They have benefited from being part of a racing series where we push the limits of technology with each race.
A good example is Jaguar Land Rover. The Jaguar Formula E team learned something on the track about efficiency between the battery and the powertrain. They were able to take that learning and wirelessly update the software for the I-PACE range, which is their range of electric cars on the road. This provided between 25 and 30 kilometers more range to the battery of those cars during the night.
If you look at someone like Porsche, they’ve used other things. So we have things in the car like attack mode, an extra level of power: 50 extra kilowatts during a particular part of the race. Now they have that button in their car, where they can press the auto in the new Taycan and it unlocks additional power in the car.
When Formula E started, there weren’t that many electric vehicles on the roads. They are now everywhere and are considered desirable and high-performing. Many debates have been won about electrification. Does this change the future objectives of Formula E?
You are right, you cannot compare the vision of the sport in 2014 with its current vision. I think in 2014, when the sport started, 800,000 electric vehicles were sold in the world that year. In the last 12 months, it’s probably between 15 and 20 million.
It’s not like in 2014 when we said: consider buying an electric vehicle. The goal now is to take the current 50 percent EV adoption rate to 100 percent, and help achieve this by further improving the technology. We’re absolutely obsessed with it, whether it’s improving technology for greater range, faster loading times, or better performance. Everything we focus on around battery technology, fast charging and efficiency is ultimately about accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles.
Listen to Jeff Dodds speak at the WIRED x Octopus Energy Tech Summit at Kraftwerk in Berlin on October 10. Get tickets at Energy-Tech-Summit.wired.com
