RACING
FORMULA E The Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) governs world motorsport, and was told in no uncertain terms by the European Commission that they had to create a new series based on alternative propulsion. You cannot imagine how much this must have riled the old guard, who would rather send a Maserati Tipo 61 Birdcage to the crusher than
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pander to the eco-warriors. After some protracted beard stroking they came up with Formula E, an electric race series modeled on the current Formula One format that will see a grid of up to 24 electric cars in a global competition. As an organization that has solely focused on the internal combustion engine for the last 108 years, they were blissfully unaware of the two
major limitations of electric racers. Even with the most energy-dense cells available, range is still limited to around 20 minutes of racing any more capacity and the size and weight of the cells interferes with the dynamics of the lightweight cars. Moreover, designing a gearbox that can handle the torque from race-spec electric motors is still challenging engineers, so most cars operate direct
Photo courtesy of Formulec
Formulec’s EF01 has demostrated a 0-60 run in under three seconds and a top speed of 210 mph.