The FIA has announced that nine manufacturers have been accepted as powertrain providers for the fifth, sixth and seventh FIA Formula E seasons.
Aside from Renault and Jaguar Land Rover, BMW now joins the picture, and Audi are in via the ABT Formel E route. Groupe PSA’s DS Automobiles is also on, with Mahindra Racing, NextEV NIO, Penske Autosport and Venturi Automobiles rounding off the list. The manufacturers are set to be involved in Formula E until season seven of the series runs out in 2021.
There was no mention of Mercedes-Benz, which in October last year was reported to be joining the series in 2018. Reports indicate that though there was no word on its participation, the automaker is set to eventually join Formula E in season five.
The 2018/19 season will see the debut of the new-look Formula E car, which will be produced by Spark Racing Technology, who won the chassis tender. From season five, the series will feature a new standard battery produced by McLaren Applied Technologies. All powertrains from the respective manufacturers will have to work with these components.
“The homologation of the powertrains that will be used as from season 5 is a very significant step because it means the cars will be able to run for twice as long while, at the very least, maintaining the same performance level,” said FIA president Jean Todt.
“This highlights how motorsport can stimulate and accelerate development of new technologies which can then be applied to road cars and in this case, it has even more of a key role, given that at the moment, electricity is one of the more practical alternatives when it comes to finding new forms of more sustainable mobility in the future,” he added.
The FIA said that the fifth season represents a very important step in the development of the electric race car series, because as from the 2018-19 season, each driver will use just a single car per race than the two employed currently.
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The Formula E engine sound is much better than that of F1.