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The first season of electric car championship Formula E culminates in two days of racing at Battersea Park in London this weekend, with solar power to be used to charge cars for the first time.
The race, which takes place in Battersea Park, London, will be attended by 60,000 people and sees 10 teams compete on a 3km circuit that follows the perimeter of the park.
Alejandro Agag, chief executive of Formula E, said: “We don't have the same heritage as F1 so we can risk more. You can try new things with Formula E."
“We are exploring other sources of power. We're going to use solar energy to charge the safety car for the first time in London.”
Each team uses the same pure electric car, the SRT_01E built by Spark Racing Technology and Renault. The SRT_01E has a chassis made by Dallara, uses batteries developed by Williams and an electric powertrain supplied by McLaren. The teams can make minor changes to the cars, for example to the suspension.
The SRT SRT_01E has a max power of 200kW (268hp), which is limited during race mode to 150kW (201hp) with an additional push-to-pass boost system that adds another 30kW (40hp).
The car's batteries, which each weigh 320kg, have a 28kWh capacity and is recharged from zero to full in 50 minutes, using a generator supplied by Greenwich-based startup Aquafuel. The generators run on glycerine derived from sea algae. The glycerine's production process emits marginal CO2 emissions and minimal emissions.
The service cars for the race – a hybrid BMW i8 safety car and two pure electric i3s use Qualcomm wireless recharging technology, which allows the cars to be parked over a recharging pad and deployed immediately. In London these recharging pads are being powered by solar PV panels for the first time.
The championship plans to gradually move away from the standard platform to encourage the development of electric vehicle technology that could trickle down to the mainstream market. One of the first areas to be opened up will be the motor generators in the cars.
Agag said: “Next season will have the same level of power, 28kWh in the batteries, so we will have the same race duration. But it will be interesting to see what happens with the new motors. We keep discovering new things with the championship. The teams say is that every motor sounds different. So we may have a championship where every car has a different sound.”
“In terms of batteries we want to go to year three with 33kWh plus additional regeneration. We are talking a 20% increase. The target is to get to year five with one car and have completely open development on the batteries.”
The season started last December in Beijing and has since visited eight other cities including Moscow, Miami, Berlin and Monaco.
Agag, said: “London was the most difficult but also the one that we most wanted to do. The track is very complicated. It's very narrow, a lot of the drivers have said it will be very challenging. The camber is going to be a major element.”
Formula E is expected to announce next years season within the next month. Agag said the number of races and cities is expected to remain the same.