Motorsport organizing body the FIA on Tuesday announced the names of nine constructors who have been granted homologation for Seasons Five, Six and Seven of the Formula E Championship. We’re currently in Season Three, which spans 2016-17.
Among them is BMW, although the automaker is yet to formally commit to the electric car series. BMW currently participates as a partner of American team Andretti Formula E.
Interestingly, Mercedes-Benz isn’t on the list despite Formula E organizers last October agreeing to reserve an entry for the automaker for Season Five.
Season Five, which spans 2018-19, will see the electric car series take the next major step towards becoming a credible form of motorsport. It’s when teams will finally start using a single car per race, rather than the current two due to batteries not holding enough charge to last a race.
Teams will be using common chassis supplied by Spark Technologies, as they do currently. The chassis design for Season Five is said to be adopting a new, futuristic look. Teams will also be using common batteries supplied by McLaren Applied Technologies. Constructors will be responsible for their own powertrains, however.
The constructors are:
- ABT Formel E (Audi)
- BMW
- DS
- Jaguar Land Rover
- Mahindra Racing
- NextEV NIO
- Penske Autosport
- Renault
- Venturi
“The homologation of the powertrains that will be used as from Season Five 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,” FIA President Jean Todt said in statement. “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.”
