How was Formula E conceived and what would you say are its main objectives?
Motorsport is a fascinating marketing platform given its capacity to captivate people’s hearts. Accordingly, Formula E was conceived 12 years ago as a new motorsport championship to promote sustainability-enhancing and future-oriented technological innovation. However, Formula E’s mission is people-oriented: to accelerate sustainable human progress. Mobility is a fundamental reality of human life but is only one dimension of the wider issue of climate change.
The Formula E ecosystem—involving engineering, logistics, infrastructure, and so on—is composed of teams and partners who are aligned with the mission to catalyze a global transformation in mobility.
In other words, Formula E has a double purpose: to offer very concrete solutions to everyday passengers driving electric vehicles and to inspire the rest—the fans—to adopt more sustainable lifestyles.
We aim to make electric vehicles more reliable, by, for instance, making their batteries more efficient, but also to increase the range of electric vehicles available: compared to, say, ten years ago, today we have a significantly wider array of choices. So, the cutting-edge technologies developed by our teams for race cars will be transferred to everyday road cars. Maximum long-term innovation transfer is four years, not more. Jaguar, for example, after developing new technology in its racing cars, soon after introduced a software update to all its circulating I-PACE models, enabling all users to increase their battery life by 10%.
Simultaneously, to fulfill our purpose of promoting a more sustainable lifestyle, it is imperative that we race in inner cities. Such proximity allows people to project themselves driving an electric vehicle and to realize that a sustainable lifestyle is not only good but better than a non-sustainable one.
How fast and powerful is the Formula E car today?
Our ambition is to showcase the fact that electric vehicles are powerful and reliable. Because we have been continually updating the battery capacity of our vehicles, now all cars can reach 320km/h, whereas the first generation cars were not even reaching 200km/h.
What kind of audience does Formula E appeal to?
We are much more than a platform appealing to motorsport fans. We also appeal to families interested in supporting a greater cause, to the new generation of young people fascinated by e-technology, and to people interested in issues of societal relevance, such as diversity and gender equality.
The car itself is sustainable. But how do organizational methods, supply chains, logistics, traveling, and so on, factor into your sustainability equation?
Sustainability is engrained in everything we do. Of course complete sustainability is never reached, but our ambition is to be in permanent improvement. We are in a race with no finish line. Precisely because logistics amounts to 75% of our carbon footprint we integrate it as thoroughly as possible by, for instance, working closely with DHL, our logistics partner, by taking a geographical approach to the calendar, ensuring that we run on biofuels, by setting caps on the number of people traveling. Formula E advances a disruptive approach to motorsport because the sustainability lens is its only lens.
How do you decide on venues in a sustainable way?
It is a complex process since you must take many factors into account. For one, we prioritize racing on city streets, since that is where we seek to have the greatest impact. We also consider where we can set up a track that is effective from the racing perspective: where cars can overtake, pitstops can be comfortably set up, and so on. The weather must also be favorable. Accessibility by sustainable transport is imperative since we do not provide parking facilities. And we must avoid clashing with other important racing or international events.
Do you think that Extreme E is equally sustainable?
With its huge electric monsters, Extreme E has a different proposition altogether, yet at the same time sustainability is part of its DNA. The championship also guarantees gender parity by having a male and a female driver per team.
What would be your message to our readers and to everyone attending COP28?
I would encourage them to follow us and join one of our events since experiencing the show in person is something really different. It is, after all, the only motorsport event that takes climate change as its central challenge.
Additionally, it is perhaps the only motorsport championship where the drivers are paid for their skills, rather than paying for their drive.
