Two Years of Planning, but Formula E Cars Are Finally Ready to Race

Remember the fully electric Formula E cars which we reported on a few months back? Well they’re finally built and ready to race! It has taken two years to create Formula E, which now includes ten teams, ten city-street circuits and its own championship. Aside from a few public demos, there hasn’t been much advancement for Forumula E, but now that the official Formula E operational headquarters and team facilities are in place at Donington, electric powered motorsports is one step closer to seeing the chequered flag.

The teams will be racing the Spark-Renault SRT_01E, which is lavished in carbon fiber and is certainly not to be confused with the the kind of electric road cars you might see driving around town. Styled much like a Formula 1 car, the Formula E vehicles are sleek and aggressive looking.

“It’s not just about racing, but the development of new technology that’ll filter down to road vehicles,” said Formula E Championship CEs Alejandro Agag, when speaking of the 200kW motor that powers each of the identical Spark-Renault SRT_01E’s. There is little room for modification this year, but the plan is to then open up the development side and push each time to innovate with what they have, much in the same way you see teams improving their Formula 1 cars each season.

The first race takes place in Beijing in September, where the teams will be hoping to attract fans, sponsorships and general interest all round. The hope is that the sport will be exciting enough to watch, while also providing the sponsorship to accelerate R&D within the electric vehicle space.

“We need to find new ways, either with more efficient batteries, or with other devices like supercapacitors and fuel cells. We need to find a solution for that. That’s why we’re doing Formula E.” said Agag.

Excited? I know I am, 2014 is certainly going to be an interesting year for the electric car.

Thank you Engadget for providing us with this information.

Images courtesy of Engadget.