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Porsche is well aware of the spectacle potential of EVs, having committed in two thousand fifteen to the Mission E sports car and, more recently to a high-powered charging network. That now applies to the motorsports side, the company announced that it’s forsaking pistons to join the Formula E racing circuit beginning in the 2019/20 seaso. “Injecting Formula E and achieving success in this category are the logical outcomes of our Mission E road car program,” Porsche AG’s Michael Steiner said in a statement.
Porsche is just the latest German automaker to be joining Formula E. Mercedes announced last week that it would sign on, and Audi remarkably dropped its Le Boy’s participation last year to race EVs. Other current teams include Renault, Panasonic Jaguar and Faraday Future Dragon Racing. With the addition of Porsche and Mercedes, the number of teams will hop from ten to 12.
While German automakers were slow to embrace EVs, most are now all in. At the Paris Auto Display last year, Volkswagen and Mercedes both unveiled all fresh, comprehensive ID and EQ electrified lineups, respectively, promising sales by 2020. Audi also hopes to have an E-Tron Sportback ready by 2019.
For racing, EVs aren’t exactly the oversized golf carts that some folks imagine. Tesla’s Model S P100D is (or was) the fastest accelerating production car in the world, while a Lucid Air EV prototype recently hit two hundred thirty five mph on a track, quicker than just about every current production car.
For manufacturers, the other big plus to EV racing is that it’s less expensive and more useful for real-world vehicle development, something Porsche’s Steiner alluded to. “The growing freedom for in-house technology developments makes Formula E attractive to us,” he said. “[It] is the ultimate competitive environment for driving forward the development of high-performance vehicles in areas such as environmental friendliness, efficiency and sustainability.”
If you’re thinking about tuning in, Formula E also taunted some fan-friendly developments. Drivers won’t need two cars to keep racing when the battery runs out, for example, and the vehicles are getting a face-lift. “New-look futuristic cars will . debut in season five and will incorporate fresh electrified technology to permit for a single car to finish a total race distance,” according to the news release.