How New Technology Has Not Only Changed Mobility But Also Racing
The New York City E-Prix took place on July 10 and 11. The ABB FIA Formula E World Championship returned to New York City for another round of close combat, wheel-to-wheel all-electric racing. The single-seater motorsport championship that uses only electric cars represents the pinnacle of new technologies in motor racing. Yet there is so much more to the technological advancements than just power and speed: Find out how the four megatrends of automobility — autonomous driving, electrification, shared vehicles, and connectivity — have changed racing over the past year.
Anyone sitting in a Porsche need only look to the left for the ignition to know that racing has always been part of our tradition — as has innovation. And of course, when you’re a frequent reader of our blog, you also know the four megatrends that will change the cars on our roads more in the next five years than in the past 50: ACES.
Mobility will become Autonomous, Connected, Electric, and Shared.
These trends are not only reflected on the road, but also on the racetrack. The ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, for example, changed how we talk about the future of motorsports. The proposal for a city-based, single-seater electric car motor racing championship was conceived by Jean Todt, the president of the world governing body of motorsport, in March 2011. With one of the longest-standing track records in motorsport dating back to the 1950s, Porsche’s entry into Formula E in 2019/2020 series with the Porsche 99X Electric was the latest step in the German manufacturer’s history of motor racing. After its most recent success in endurance racing, including multiple victories in both LMP1 and GT categories, the brand is also stepping into the all-electric racing series to ready the next generation of electric Porsche road cars.
Electric passenger cars benefit from developments on the racetrack
According to a study by Statista, the top reason to buy an electric car is the environmental friendliness — only 1.2 percent of respondents said they would buy an electric car because it’s fun to drive. Anyone who watches a Formula E race would wonder about this. Watching the powerful elegance with which the 250 kW (340 HP) Formula cars race through the road courses in Marrakech, Santiago de Chile, Rome, and Monaco gives you an idea that driving pleasure and agility are at the core of electric driving.
At the same time, road-going electric cars benefit from developments on the racetrack as well. The fierce competition between participating manufacturers such as Mercedes, Audi and BMW means rapid technological progress is an essential key to success. Battery cooling technology or regenerative braking: what makes up the decisive tenth of a second on the racetrack can also increase the efficiency of electric cars on the road.
Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup focuses on renewable fuels
And this evolution for a green kind of racing doesn’t just apply to Formula E, by the way: When the 2021 Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup season kicks off, the championship is committing to lower-carbon fuels. As a first step, the international cup will use advanced biofuels and eFuels that have the potential to reduce CO2 emissions significantly. Porsche and ExxonMobil are teaming up to use this beacon project to test the viability of renewable liquid fuels under tough motor racing conditions.
Another innovative solution for motorsport is a body kit made of natural-fibre composite materials: At last year’s Nürburgring 24-hour race, the team Four Motors joined forces with Project 1 Motorsport to present a sustainable innovation on the racetrack that could change the production of car body parts in the future. Fitted with a natural-fibre composite material body kit and powered by a 3.8-litre flat-six engine producing 313 kW (425 PS), the 718 Cayman GT4 MR took up the Nürburgring 24-hour race sporting the starting number 420.
We love our Formula E drivers, yet they need to be on the lookout for AI drivers
Just as electrification technology is entering the world of motorsport, connectivity and smart services in and around the vehicle are as well. Formula E cars are exchanging data with engineers — and this infrastructure of sensors and networks is the basis of what is already becoming, or what will become, the basis of completely new connectivity applications for road-going traffic. Not only race cars can communicate with the pit lane. Passenger cars will be able to exchange information with each other in order to process data on weather, road conditions or other kinds of useful information.
However, we are very happy that Formula E is not autonomous yet because we would not give up our talented drivers Pascal Wehrlein, André Lotterer, Simona De Silvestro and Neel Jani at any price. Yet that does not mean that Porsche does not have autonomous driving race cars in its sights: Roborace is an autonomous vehicle racing series that combines fully electric race cars with artificial intelligence, the first series of its kind in the world. Roborace was established to “accelerate the development of autonomous software by pushing the technology to its limits in a range of controlled environments.” Ever since Porsche first heard about this company, which builds driverless AI racing cars, they knew they had to see it in action at some point — change was in the air. In 2019, they had the opportunity to do so and joined the final track test for Roborace’s Season Alpha.
Autonomous racing has the potential to change the world outside of motorsport — and has already inspired a multitude of innovative approaches. Moreover, on-road testing for automated driving systems has been mainly confined to highly controlled environments. Roborace is not only about AI software tracking the vehicle location or sensing its surrounding environment. It’s also about how the vehicle behaves at the limits of its manoeuvring capabilities. Roborace takes autonomous driving to an extreme level and provides valuable real-world experiences and training data, which helps developers further improve AI driving systems.
Get excited about the future!
The future of mobility is coming. But before the AI drivers take over, we are rooting for the human Formula E drivers, André Lotterer and Pascal Wehrlein, of the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team.
