September 11, 2025 • 37 mins
You’ve heard about Formula 1, right? But do you know about Formula E, its plucky all-electric sibling? This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi talks with Sylvain Filippi, co-founder and chief technology officer of Envision Racing, about why the world needs an electric racing series, how Formula E is improving the experience for consumer electric cars, and why he’s not too concerned about the US backlash against EVs.
Explore further:
- Envision Racing
- Lewis Hamilton’s Next Race Car Should Be Electric
- EV Racing Struggles as Climate Action Falls on Priority List
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd. Special thanks to Eleanor Harrison Dengate, Siobhan Wagner, Sommer Saadi and Mohsis Andam. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Zero. I'm Akshatrati.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
This week we are off to the races.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Tasha, where are we today?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
This is a different podcast, the issue it is different.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
We are still in London where we are inside an
exhibition hall which has been turned into a race track
for an electric car race, a Formula E. You've heard
about Formula one, right, but do you know about Formula E?
It's plucky all electric sibling. Earlier this year I went
to watch the Formula E race here in London with
(00:46):
Zero's producer Oscar Boyd. Where are we in the kind
of grand complex of the exhibition center. We are in
the pit lane looking at essentially broken apart cars right
now that are being readied for a race that's about
to start in a Cup of Ours.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
And these are oh electric cars, these.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Are all electric cars. It was the last race of
a very busy season. We had been invited by Envision Racing,
one of eleven teams each with two cars competing in
Formulae and as part of the tour I got to
go see the pit lane before the race started and
later even walk alongside the cars parked on the starting line.
I also spoke to one of Envision Racing's driver's Sebastian Buemi.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
It's the top electric racing series you can have in
the world. The cars are getting faster and faster. It's
actually really nice to be a drive in this championship.
It's very hard, but it's great.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
You know, the Formulae has been around for just over
a decade and the cars have come a long way
in that time. When the first race took place in
twenty fourteen, each driver needed two cars per race because
the batteries just wouldn't last the full course. Now each
driver uses just one car, which can accelerate faster than
a Formula one car and hit tops off around three
(02:01):
hundred and twenty kilometers per hour, tearing around corners with
a high pitched whistle from the electric motors. I was
very excited to see it. So this afternoon, we're about
to see your first ever car race. This is my
first ever carrage. I mean, I've watched it on TV,
and this is way more exciting. There feels to be
(02:21):
a lot more mood here with people watching, and yeah,
we're looking forward to it. And does it feel strangely
fitting that your first ever car race as a climate
generalist is with electronic cars. I think I would not
be going to a car race if it wasn't electric.
This week on Zero I'm talking with Silva Philippe, co founder,
(02:41):
managing director and chief technology officer of Envision Racing. I
asked him why the world needs an electric racing series,
how Formula E is improving the experience for consumer electric cars,
and why he's not concerned about the US backlash against evs. Silva,
(03:17):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Now, you started your career working for car companies, well
known car companies, but then you got into racing. What
drew you into racing and particularly electric vehicle racing.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
It's a really long story, so I will keep it short,
but for me, in short, it was the realization in
my consulting years of how powerful and how you know,
ultimately inevitable this technology was. An electric motor is so
much better suited at moving a vehicle than an icy engine. Ultimately,
(03:52):
so there was a sense of inevitability that electric house
will beware simply because of their sheer efficient seeing how
much better there are as a technology. And one evening
in a pub in London many years ago, we had
this crazy idea of starting the first ev racing series
and that was what year, So that was two thousand
(04:13):
and nine was when we had this project of launching
evy Cup, which was the kind of the baby project
before formerly and ultimately formally started in twenty thirteen when
we started the company.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
And so the evy Cup itself, can you talk through
what it is that you wanted electric vehicle racing to
be that would be different from what is currently all
forms of racing from Formula one to Lamont to like
other types of endurance racing. What do you want electric
car racing to look like?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
The original idea was pretty simple was to say, look,
we could see that there was this tsunami of electric
car that was going to come to market. Remember in
two and nine and ten, there were very few electric
cars on the road. The Nissan Leaf that was coming,
that was the first one. That was before the Tesla Modales,
you know, and the beginning. But doing all this projects
with CAM manufacturers, I knew that it was all coming
(05:04):
and I could see the amount of R and D
being spent and it was clearly happening. So really the
original adia was very simple was to say, look, we
have dozens and dozens of championships on IC engine, there
was for sure going to be a need and a
desire for at least one championship developing EAVY technology, and
so for me it was not a matter of whether
(05:25):
it's going to happen or it was a question of when. Really,
so for me, it was really fun to create my
startup and then start working on IVY Racing because it
was the very first project. So we had so much
pr and coverage in all the magazines you can think
of basis of that simple idea because it was just
so exciting to everybody. And then long story short, as
we started to get everything ready in the cars and
(05:45):
so on, then the FIA came up with the tender
or the call for expression of interest to run to
run form an AE, which was the same thing on
the biggest scale. Interestingly, not many people know the EU
Commission at the time was setting the very kind of
the very first automotive targets in terms of Louis missions
and entry cars, and I believe the European Commission made
(06:07):
a call to the FIA to say, to all your championships,
you ought to have one that's promoting electric cars. And anyway.
As always in life, it's all about timing. And then
twenty twelve was when the project kind of started on
paper and then the rear later twenty thirteen we entered
the team.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
So Formulae has been now going on for eleven years.
That have been eleven seasons. The most recent season just concluded.
Things have changed in that time, both for electric cars
and for Formula E itself. In the initial race you
actually had two cars for the same driver and you
had to come and swap midway because the batteries wouldn't last.
(06:45):
Now that's changed because there's a single car. Can you
just talk through the evolution of what the race looked
like when it started and how has it evolved to now?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yes, it is one of the of the funny stories
looking back, really because when we started to summariz before
getting to the details, you have to remember what the
objectives of formally are and the main two pillars are
really simple. The first pillar formerly is purpose and goal
in life is to be a technology innovation play. Really
it's about putting a problem which is mostly battery energy
(07:17):
density and partial and efficiency, and through racing to putting
the best engineering engineering minds improve or accelerate the rate
of innovation that will have normally happened in kind of
the normal world. The second pillar, of course is the
media platform, the broadcast, the promotion. Sport is very effective
to connect with people and a large number of people.
(07:39):
So if you can put together really exciting technology, innovation
and an exciting sport, you have something very powerful. So
to your point, when we started in twenty thirteen and
twenty first race in twenty fourteen and still the case today,
we are not we are limited by technology. We are
creating the best possible technology, whether it's battery, motors, inverters,
(08:01):
all these things are creating simply because we were limited
by the art of the possible. We are developing every
two years high voltage systems and software and so on
that didn't exist before. So in twenty fourteen and fifteen
at the eginning, the best technology available would only allow
us to run for twenty minutes with one car, so
to do a fourty minute trace, it was a very
peculiar situation where we had two drivers in the team,
(08:23):
but we needed two cars per driver, and each driver
would go on in car A do have the race
come back in the garage jump out literally out of
the first car, jump in a second car and go again.
And many all the media journalists at the time were
telling me, Silvan, what are you doing? If anything, you're
highlighting the problems of electric cars, like what are you doing?
(08:44):
And the answer was always the same. The answer was, look,
do not judge us on where we are today. This
is the starting point. We want to be judged on
how quickly we are improving that technology. So youway, long
story short. Four years later we managed to do the
same race distance at a higher power with only one car,
so clearly a massive jump in energy storage, energy DNT
city and efficiency. And then two Gene three. Four years
(09:07):
after that, we manage to again increase the power from
two hundred kilod to three hundred and fifty KILOWA, so
massive jump in power, again reducing the weight of the car,
increasing the efficiency, so really improving every single metric which
resulted in a much faster car. And today, without going
through all the evolutions, we are nine the Gen three evils,
so the second fives of Gen three, and we have
(09:28):
a car that can accelerate from zero to sixty an
hour in one point a second and has amazing performance characteristics.
If you look back on tell people to go on
YouTube and look back at the races in season one
and compared to the car today, it's absolutely unbelievable the
performance improvement in ten years. And the whole point is
racing gives a visual representation of the improvement of the
(09:51):
technology and hopefully people now watch for me day and
are just really amazed by how by how fast and
exciting this car is.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
So the acceleration itself is now faster than a Formula
One car, but the top speed still is a little
bit lower. So a Formula E car can go up
to two hundred miles per hour, whereas a Formula one
car can go up to two thirty or so. Now,
one way of thinking about more to sport is that
people just want to see fast cars, and of course
Formula one has a bigger base. And you know, I've
(10:19):
never been to a Formula One race ever, but people
tell me like it's a visceral experience because you're hearing
these engines that are very loud and you can feel
it as the cars drive past. Watching the Formula erace
in London, I thought that was loud, given electric cars
are typically much quieter than the Formula E electric cars,
(10:40):
but I've been assured that was not loud. The fact
that I could sit there without wearing ear plugs was indoors,
especially because the London track is indoors. But if it's
about people who just want to see fast cars, why
would people want to watch Formula E versus Formula One
where the fastest cars are today.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
It's evolution, It takes time. Formula One has been around
for seventy years, has the most incredible heritage and legacy
and glamor around it, completely well deserved because it's been
an amazing spot for so many years. Family in a
way we are still a startup, right we are only
eleven years old. But what I really like and what
the affair has done a good job, is to really
(11:20):
position the two championships in a really different way. We
are not competing. If anything, this cross pollination between the
two championships. So people are watching Family and pretty much
all the Family races are sold out and the growth
is pretty much turnips and on the air again since COVID,
So there's a strong appetite because people are realizing it's
something new and different. It's not one or the other.
It is just very different. You can come to a
(11:42):
family race and bring your young kids and your family
and it's in general terms more approachable and more family friendly,
and that's a great thing. But Formula one is also
a fantastic experience that you know that is different. But
it's funny you said that about the noise, because again
I heard that a lot when people say, oh, racing,
it's going to be very boring because there's no noise.
(12:03):
But first you realize when the twenty two cars arrive
at speeds. You have to remember, at speeds over one
hundred and miles an hour, most of the noise you
hear is aero noise anyway, which we have exactly the same.
So you hear the formerly pack arriving before you can
see it, which people didn't realize with the Etre cars.
But it's still okay, so you still get that emotion
and ultimately it's just a different experience. And you know,
(12:24):
we have the jenifour car coming end of next year,
which are developing, and that car will have absolutely unbelievable performance.
Getting very close to Formula one and seeing a cargoing
that fast at more than three hundred kph making relatively
low noise will be something unbelievable to watch. So it's
just different, and I think I think the two compliment
(12:45):
each other.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Let's look at the technology pillar of the two pillars.
In Formula E we talked about how people might perceive
and how the growth of the sport might happen as
a result. But the technology is what drives you. You're
the chief technology officer for Envision Racing and what is
the relationship between a racing team and the manufacturer Because
(13:05):
you know your current car is made by Jaguar. A
few years ago it was made by Audi. How does
that work and what kind of innovation does that result in?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Again, family in that sense is not different to pretty
much all the other series, including f ON. You typically
have teams competitors, and what is really good in families
that have a rige variety of teams. You have teams
that are full factory teams, so owned by the car manufacturer,
which makes competence and is absolutely needed because these manufacturers
(13:36):
develop part of the hardware of the car and ultimately
do a lot of the promotion around road cars, right,
So it's really it's a really important factor. Then you
tend to have another category, which is racing teams that
go racing as their core business, so kind of racing
empires that race in different series, categories and so on,
and formily is part of their portfolio. And then you
(13:58):
have a third category, which we happen to be the
only one in which is you know, we're racing team
that was completely built and it's completely dedicated to formally
because we we are overall a green tech company at Envision,
we only work on minable energy solutions and therefore only
(14:18):
really formally makes sense for us as a as a motorsport,
and it's part of the of the ecosystem. You have
teams and competitors which are needed. This is the core
layer of the championship. And then you have manufacturers who
developed the hardware part of it, which is the really interesting,
interesting part of the hardware innovation, and then the teams.
Of course, once you have that, there is still a
huge amount of work that is done by the teams,
(14:39):
which is the strategy, the software, the energy management, or
all the operational aspects of running a race team.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
And so are there technologies that have resulted from either
your work or other teams work that now exist in
commercial cars?
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Yeah? Absolutely, and that's the that's the bid that gets
really interesting. So to stop me if it's a bit
too geeky, but it gets it gets really interesting if
you put it in perspective. Right, So why do we
believe that IV mobility is the way for that's the
starting point. The reason the very simple its efficiency. There's
no other technology today that comes nowhere near in terms
(15:15):
of efficiency. And efficiency matters because it's all about the
energy you spend per mile travel. So to put some
numbers and put that into context, if you drive today
an IC engine petrol, diesel or whatever counter road, typically
that engine will be around twenty five percent efficient, but
that's actually when the engine is warm and you're on
the motorway. If you do a short score run in
winter when the engine is called, it can be less
(15:36):
than that. So it's really pretty horrible if you think
about it. You put ten years of full in your
car and maybe you want to actually makes it to
the wheel. The rest is wasted in friction and heat.
That doesn't make us feel very good. The reason why
IC engine cars have such good range despite being despite
having such a poor efficiency is because fossil fuel is
the most amazing thing there is so much energy stored
(15:58):
in alitter of fossil fuel, and it's why we are
so addicted to it. A good electric road car, it's
varying a lot and easycouser, but let's say eighty eighty
five percent, it's a pretty good position and it will
it will improve if you put ten kire what our
of energy in that battery, eighty eighty five percent of
that goes to the wheel a lot better. Very efficient
our racing cars, and I'm not making an unfair racing
(16:20):
to road analogy. It is genuinely comparing apples and apples.
If you compare deficiency from the output of the battery
all the way to the wheel, so battery inverter motor gearbox,
deef drive draft wheel, our efficiency is ninety six percent
and that is pretty mind blowing, right, So like from
storing the energy to the wheel, we're only wasting a
few percent of energy. And that's what makes electric mobility
(16:43):
a no brainer because then if you take an extreme scenario,
if you took a country, I don't make it up Germany,
if overnight all the cars in Germany were electric, the
country as a whole would need three to four times
less energy for road transport, which is the complete game changer. Yeah,
and if you need three or four times that energy overall,
(17:03):
then it's a lot easier to get that energy from
maneable sources. Yeah, because you need four times as Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
I mean, it was pretty interesting to see how much
of the car's race is run on energy that is
recovered from regenerator breaking through throughout the race. So forty
to forty five percent, right, which is crazy, Like almost
half the race is run by basically the energy gain
back from breaking. What of those technologies have ended up
(17:29):
in a commercial vehicle?
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Yeah, so so I get to that so so so
exactly to your points, the two together super high efficiency
of the power train and the fact that we typically
use around forty just on the forty kilo hower in
the pack when we start the race, so.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
We can So that's about like a mid size electric
car on the road today, actually half size for like
a teslaticular battery.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Putting in perspective for people to understand in terms of
energy stores, it is the equivalent of about forty two
of fuel. That's the same amount of energy. So you
can do race at these speeds for close to an
hour on forty too of fuel. That's another way to
show that efficiency.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Right.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
So this is why it's so important in terms of
trickle down to road car. It's really easy. Informally, there
is no misalignment between the technical ordmap of formily and
what is needed for road cars. Historically, in a lot
of case in racing, any technology that makes a race
car go faster, you typically won't the opposite for a
road car. Informally, focusing entirely on the efficiency of these
(18:30):
power trains, which is the only thing to work on really,
as well as the energinety the batteries. If you can
gain you know the eighties five to ninety six percent
that talked about this ten to fifteen percent of efficiency gain,
they will directly translate to road cars. And what that
means is you can look at it two ways. Either
for the same size of battery cars will have fifty
percent more range or better still, which is the way
(18:52):
it's going. We are now pretty you know, instruation where
three hundred, three hundred and fifty mile range is pretty
much accepted. As you know, we don't really need that
much more. But if you can have a car that
is fifteen percent more efficient, we can now reduce the
size of the beach by fifteen percent, which makes the
car lighter. They'refore even more efficient, so you get into
this virtual cycle and more for the bull as well.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
After the break, I asked Silva Philippi whether Formula E
can ever hope to challenge Formula one's crown as the
world's top racing sport. And hey, if you're enjoying this episode,
please give Zero a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Recently,
Natasha Aras wrote that Zero is a great podcast on
the challenges of our time and the need for planetary measures.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
To be taken.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Thank you, Natasha. So about ten laps into your first
ever race, and we start right by the main stream,
half fast to the cars and here the car you
can hear them, they're going fast.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Smell, it's all just tires.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
It's all the tires burning. And the slope is also
all the tires were. On this show, we've talked about
electric cars a bunch of times. We have numbers from Tesla,
for example, where the motor efficiency not that the entire
powering motor efficiency itself has improved ten percent over the
past fifteen years, you know, which you can't say of
(20:26):
like an internal combustion engine, which you are getting very
small percentage improvements every year. But you know that's Tesla.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
The other giant and electric cars is Bid. Neither Tesla
nor Bid participate in Formula E. So first why is that?
And then second what of the Formula E innovation has
ended up in commercial cars because if Tesla and Bid
are driving that innovation without being involved in the Formula ecosystem.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah, yeah, so I'll give you a clear examples. So
first why Tesla and notes votes. I don't know exactly.
I know we were speaking to test at the very beginning.
The reality for TESTL at the time at the beginning
was simply that they were too busy doing what they
were doing. Their challenge at the time was manufacturing ramp
up and scalability, and frankly that was completely fair and
that's what that's what they needed. Bbody. I don't know,
(21:16):
but I know many ams are still looking at formily,
so you never know in the future in terms of innovation.
So basically you have to break down why how do
we achieve that efficiency? The first one is really high vaulted,
so again without getting to technical power, which is what
mus your car is a function of voltage times current
times app so if you have if you double the voltage,
(21:38):
you need half the current to achieve the same power,
and the losses are typically not in the voltage being
the current. So we started formily. So typically all the
electric road cars up two years ago were based on
a free fifty four of the vault architecture, all of
them including TESTA. We started racing informally at seven hundred
vaults and we're not racing at nine hundred and fifty vaults.
What that means is, first we had to create an
(22:00):
entire supply chain of components you could not find on
the market an inverter, an electric motor, or any components
that could that was suited to formally that were very
high pert and city very light, very high voltage developing
thrond kor there was no application for it, it didn't exist.
So we developed collectively as an ecosystem inverters motors, highly specialists,
(22:21):
super high performance motors inverters at this high voltage, and
ultimately we validated over many years of racing that these
really hig voltage components are reliable, efficient, and we basically
prove the technology on track which is back to my
point from the beginning is what formily is all about.
So from that exercise, we basically indirectly because the industry
(22:42):
works together, created that new standard which is now eight
hundred votes. So the latest premium electric broadcasts are based
on an eight hundred vot architecture, and it's trickling down
to Highindaikeia, I believe, and many others. And this is
a big, big deal because you can see mid range
affordable elect today. We'll have a range approxying proximating three
(23:03):
hundred miles when it was one fifty not that long ago.
A lot of that is coming from our voltage and
overall power train efficiencies, which is exactly what we're doing. Informally.
In the ic engine days, we used to compare to
Formula one. The typical time was about ten fifteen years
from when an innovation was in Formula one to the
way it would come to road cars in our world.
(23:24):
In the electric hor world, can we see that being
reduced to two to five years. And in the second
part is software, that's the big difference in actric cars.
Software allows you to refine how you use the energy
within your power train, and you can't find gains. I
remember Jaguar a few years ago explained that in their
Eyepace at the time, they managed to increase the range
(23:45):
by about twenty five miles without changing a single hardware component.
They just learned about battery duty, cycle butt dongivity and
simply the relationship between the battery, the invert and the
motor and using that better. And that's what we do
informally every race. Every race we optimize departure that we have.
So you look at our car at the end of
the season, that car is faster than at the beginning
(24:06):
of the season, even though it's the exact same car.
But through software, we are refining how we use the energy.
And that is really only possible in the electory cow world.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I mean, I've been writing about electric car since twenty seventeen,
and every year me and my dad talk about when
is it a good time for him to buy an
electric car, and he has very clear limitations. He's like,
I'm only going to buy a car that I can
afford and it can do these these things. And finally
this year, actually like this month, he's bought an electric car.
(24:35):
It's a four hundred volt architecture, but it's affordable now,
and you know it has a three hundred and fifty
kilometers range, which is plenty for him to be able
to do his city things. So it certainly is the
case that, you know, all these innovations trickle down. But
if you go back to Formula E, do you think
(24:57):
one reason to create this race is that perhaps one day,
you know, people will find these gas guzzling ear splitting
engines kind of boring and that Formula you will be
ready to become the successor to Formula one.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if boring is
the world, But for sure, what I anticipate and what
we're planning for for sure is that family is going
at very rapid pace, right like two can numbers we
have today well last year four hundred and ninety million
community audience. It's an accepted way of measuring a sport.
You basically take the audiensity traced and you add them
up and the target is to get to eight hundred
(25:36):
million by twenty thirty and to have five hundred million fans.
So when we achieve these numbers formally will be by
far the second largest motor sport, just after I f
on reaching these numbers will basically mean that our impact
is pretty massive because you're showing this technology to a
huge amount of people. So ultimately to your point, to do,
what we're trying to do is accelerate mass adoption of
(25:59):
electric cars. But I've said for the last twelve years,
if we really want mass market adoption and a really
complete system change, we will never get there through subsidies
and incentives and so on. We just have to deliver
product that is better. And the only way we deliver
product that is better is through energy, city and efficiency.
And exactly to your point and the how many stories
like this get to a point where you know what,
(26:20):
I'm going to buy a car? And already today over
five years in most cases having an electric car is cheaper,
but very soon we will get to a point where
we will get cost parity at purchase and then other
five years it's a lot cheaper. But really we are
working hard. So when you have such high efficiency and
high energidenity batteries and so on, you're buying an electric
car that is quicker, faster, more often to drive, nicer
(26:42):
to drive in traffic jam, costs you far less to
run because it's so efficient and is basically better in
every single way, and only when we deliver that then
you can anticipate mass adoption of electric cars. And again,
why are we doing this? Back to my very first point,
this really matters husually because if you look at climate
change in general, transport is roughly thirty percent of the problem,
(27:03):
right And even though you know, moving a country entirely
to electric seems like a daunting task, it's actually the
easiest in terms of climate change, so lo for lo,
easier than the carbonizing air travel, freight still, manufacturing, and
all these things that are more difficult. So it really
matters that we accelerate transition to it is as fast
(27:24):
as possible because it's a low hanging fruit in a way,
even though it sounds difficult, it's really important. And let's
not forget the massive health benefits. You know, we don't
talk enough about this. We are living in a system
currenty that doesn't really make sense where eighty percent of
people live in mega cities, and yet we put all
the pollution where people live. It is absolutely critical to
have zero tailpipe emission where people live. It's billions of
(27:48):
pound zeros dollars saving for the healthcare industry and it's
just a better way to live. So this is a
critical part of it.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
What do we think about tagmert I thought it was
really plant. I know it's a gimmick, but I actually
it changes the game dynamics so much we are like
two thirds of the One of the things I enjoyed
the most about the race in London is attack mode.
So you have this ability for an electric car which
for the race has a three hundred killer motor, but
(28:16):
for a few minutes can switch into this attack mode
and have three hundred and fifty kilo awards. So it's
sort of like the motor unlocks more power. And I
am told Mario Kart was the inspiration for this, that
you get that extra boost and then you can do
funky things with it, which is have drivers who were
nineteen get onto pole position in a race. Why was
(28:41):
gimmick like that necessary for you to make Formula E interesting?
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Yeah, it's a good question. So it's back to my
earlier point really about striking that balance between technology development
but also make the sport entertaining. So again we are
blessed in formally that you know, the racing itself is
bonkers enough that it's fun as it is, but attack
mood was just a genius idea really because it's ow
caase not only the what you can do with electric cars,
but also it makes the races so entertaining. So really,
(29:08):
the principle is quite simple, and it is kind of
derived from a principle from my workout where you basically
have some sensors on the track at a particular corner,
and if you go across the three sensors, then you
press a button on the stain well and you get
an extra fifty kilo from the front axle, so you
get a lot of performance and it basically mixes up
the game and it's the same for everybody. So it
gives a kind of a strategic element to the race
(29:31):
where what we did yesterday is not so easy to
go from the back to all the way to the podium.
You need a lot of starts to align. But through
energy management, which is really critical, how and when you
spend the energy that you have through the race and
the us of attack mode, if you use it at
the perfect time with the perfect energy management strategy, you
can make a lot of places. So it's a really
kind of interesting strategic part of the sport, but also
(29:54):
it's just super entertaining.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
So if we hit both of those pillars that formula
you was created with the technology pillar and sort of
engaging the audience pillar. If the technology pillar gives you
affordable electric cars that everybody can buy, that is enabled
partly because of the technology improvements and formulae, and people
find the sport interesting. Formula one now exists in a
(30:16):
world where it's not trying to sell you the internal
combustion engine car. It's just selling you a sport that
people are interested in watching. Do you think that's what
Formula E becomes. It's not about the electric car technology
in the way that it's trying to sell an electric car.
It might be interesting as a technology play, but it's
(30:36):
really a sport that people are interested in watching the race,
watching what the drivers do, watching the phenomena.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
I think that's really faraway. So the beauty of formulae,
it's also an ass you've challenged by a challenge we like,
as I said at the beginning, every two years we
are just pushing the technology forward. Well, we're running a
technology that did not exist two years before. That's just
that's going to be the case for at least two
few decades for sure. So these two pillos are going
to remain the same two pillos for many decades because
(31:04):
of course, when we reach ninety seven ninety seven point five,
they'll get a point where you know, you don't get
two hundred persent efficiency, right, we'll get to it, but
we can still always improve that. But then we have
batteries energtensive batteries. So at the moment we have eight
to ten percent improvement in battery energy density on conventional chemistries,
let's say. But at some point we're going to have
solid state batteries and we're going to have all sort
of technologies coming that will enable the most amazing racing
(31:28):
cars because imagine, you know, our gent four car at
six hundred kilo at which is you know, eight hundred
doors power. Imagine a car like that that is, you know,
lighter than Formula one. The performance would be unbelievable. And
that's not that far away in the future. So these
two pillars are going to remain for sure. There's you know,
it would be a good point to have when we
have no more technology development in eglectric cars, right, like,
(31:49):
we can always make these cars better for the future.
Formula one, on the other side, is in an interesting
situation because of course we know the new regulation twenty
twenty six to twenty thirty. In the coming up regulations,
the almost parenting are between petrol power and electric power,
and if any end of their electric power is the
same as what we run now.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Yeah, I think most people don't know that Formula one
cars are all hybrids. They all have electric motors in
them because the electric motor gives you an acceleration that
an eternal combustion in So from next.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Year and until twenty thirty you have this new regulation
Formula one where they will have about four hundred killoots
for the engine and three fifty from the electric motor,
which is what we run in Formalya today. We will
go to six hundred, so hence the performance so family
is almost at parenting, will be a Formula one between
the petrol and electric and that will open up a
lot of interesting developments for them. What Formula one does
(32:40):
after twenty thirty is a big debate because at some
point by twenty three on words, all the cars that
dealerships and what cars that people buy will be electric.
For the reason I explain, not necessarily because we love batteries.
But it's quite nice to drive a car run that's
using four times less energy. So it's inevitable what formula
one becomes the and is you know, not for me
(33:01):
to say. There are many ways of going. But of
course sustainable fuels come in the discussion, which is really
interesting for some applications. And it's funny that formula when
we'll end up helping develop stable fuels, yet the application
will mostly be for airlines and other applications, right, But
it's fine. It's still development, so it will be really
interesting to see where where they go from.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
There Are you worried about the fact that in the
US you are seeing a backlash against ev is given
how big US audiences are for sport in general and
how much they contribute to the sport in financial terms,
but also in eyeballs. Formly is about electric cars, and
if one large economy, well, the largest economy is not
(33:42):
that interesting in electric cars. Does that worry you?
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Yes? And no, for sure it's not helpful. There are
the moment headwinds in all sorts of directions. Having said that,
I am not worried one bit in the mid long term,
and one of the main indicators simply is we are
talking here about large industrial projects really, so at Envision,
we're building many giga factories to supply sales to car
(34:05):
manufacturers and static energy storage for grid, which is highly popular.
That's a very interesting discussion for another day. So all
these giga factoring projects, these heavy factories, these are you know,
three five year projects that you don't change your mind
on this project every two minutes. So ultimately, all these
(34:26):
projects that are ongoing, they will carry on. Will the
sales be a bit load and expected in a year, possibly,
but over five ten years. Back to my very earlier points.
Unless in the next few years we find a technology
that is more efficient than a battery electric car. I
doubt it, but if that were to happen, that's the
only thing that could deveil it. Ultimately, the sheer efficiency
(34:46):
of electric cars means that this is coming. This is
the only way to move people around on the road.
The exact timing is a bit complicated because each market
has a different demand base and timing and so on.
But I'm not worried about all long term. Interestingly, formally,
I don't have the exact number. And now you put
me on the spot. But I know this year our
race in Mexico and Miami had the highest of audience
(35:07):
in the US by like a long way compared to
previous year. So we are going really really fast in America,
and we have a roadmap of more races in North
and South America as well as growing globally anyway. So
we see more close to twenty percent on your growth
anyway in audience, but by adding more races, we're going
to accelerate that even further. So you know, on TV
(35:29):
sentiment in some parts of the world, frankly, I have
seen that since the beginning, you know, I mean, believe me.
When I was doing interviews two or fourteen years ago,
by electric racing, it was ninety nine percent on TIV settlement,
you know. So it is for me a lot easier
today than it was at the time. But you know,
it comes back to my point, all this will go
away once electric cars are better in every single metric
(35:49):
and then ultimately the discussion stops. Really, so that's what
we are trying to accelerate.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Thank you so far.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Great to be race.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
A couple of crashes, some safety cars, lots of very
how you say, it's a formula. I enjoyed it a lot.
I mean, it was way more exciting than I thought
it would be, and after the predictable start over the
first ten laps, it got super excited. There you go.
It's Nick Cassidy. Thank you for listening to zero and
(36:27):
now for the sound of the.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Week, Boom.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
That is beatboxer Wing performing his song Dopamine. Turns out
beatboxing is a competitive sport and I'm all here for it.
If you like this episode, please take a moment to
rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Share this episode with a friend or with someone who
loves Mario Kart. This episode was produced by Oscar boyd Our.
(36:59):
Theme music is comp by Wonderly Special thanks to Envision Racing,
Eleanor Harrison, Dungate, Smarsadi, Moses Andim and Shawan Wagner. I
am Akshatrati back soon.
Welcome to Zero. I'm Akshatrati.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
This week we are off to the races.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Tasha, where are we today?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
This is a different podcast, the issue it is different.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
We are still in London where we are inside an
exhibition hall which has been turned into a race track
for an electric car race, a Formula E. You've heard
about Formula one, right, but do you know about Formula E?
It's plucky all electric sibling. Earlier this year I went
to watch the Formula E race here in London with
(00:46):
Zero's producer Oscar Boyd. Where are we in the kind
of grand complex of the exhibition center. We are in
the pit lane looking at essentially broken apart cars right
now that are being readied for a race that's about
to start in a Cup of Ours.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
And these are oh electric cars, these.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Are all electric cars. It was the last race of
a very busy season. We had been invited by Envision Racing,
one of eleven teams each with two cars competing in
Formulae and as part of the tour I got to
go see the pit lane before the race started and
later even walk alongside the cars parked on the starting line.
I also spoke to one of Envision Racing's driver's Sebastian Buemi.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
It's the top electric racing series you can have in
the world. The cars are getting faster and faster. It's
actually really nice to be a drive in this championship.
It's very hard, but it's great.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
You know, the Formulae has been around for just over
a decade and the cars have come a long way
in that time. When the first race took place in
twenty fourteen, each driver needed two cars per race because
the batteries just wouldn't last the full course. Now each
driver uses just one car, which can accelerate faster than
a Formula one car and hit tops off around three
(02:01):
hundred and twenty kilometers per hour, tearing around corners with
a high pitched whistle from the electric motors. I was
very excited to see it. So this afternoon, we're about
to see your first ever car race. This is my
first ever carrage. I mean, I've watched it on TV,
and this is way more exciting. There feels to be
(02:21):
a lot more mood here with people watching, and yeah,
we're looking forward to it. And does it feel strangely
fitting that your first ever car race as a climate
generalist is with electronic cars. I think I would not
be going to a car race if it wasn't electric.
This week on Zero I'm talking with Silva Philippe, co founder,
(02:41):
managing director and chief technology officer of Envision Racing. I
asked him why the world needs an electric racing series,
how Formula E is improving the experience for consumer electric cars,
and why he's not concerned about the US backlash against evs. Silva,
(03:17):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Now, you started your career working for car companies, well
known car companies, but then you got into racing. What
drew you into racing and particularly electric vehicle racing.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
It's a really long story, so I will keep it short,
but for me, in short, it was the realization in
my consulting years of how powerful and how you know,
ultimately inevitable this technology was. An electric motor is so
much better suited at moving a vehicle than an icy engine. Ultimately,
(03:52):
so there was a sense of inevitability that electric house
will beware simply because of their sheer efficient seeing how
much better there are as a technology. And one evening
in a pub in London many years ago, we had
this crazy idea of starting the first ev racing series
and that was what year, So that was two thousand
(04:13):
and nine was when we had this project of launching
evy Cup, which was the kind of the baby project
before formerly and ultimately formally started in twenty thirteen when
we started the company.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
And so the evy Cup itself, can you talk through
what it is that you wanted electric vehicle racing to
be that would be different from what is currently all
forms of racing from Formula one to Lamont to like
other types of endurance racing. What do you want electric
car racing to look like?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
The original idea was pretty simple was to say, look,
we could see that there was this tsunami of electric
car that was going to come to market. Remember in
two and nine and ten, there were very few electric
cars on the road. The Nissan Leaf that was coming,
that was the first one. That was before the Tesla Modales,
you know, and the beginning. But doing all this projects
with CAM manufacturers, I knew that it was all coming
(05:04):
and I could see the amount of R and D
being spent and it was clearly happening. So really the
original adia was very simple was to say, look, we
have dozens and dozens of championships on IC engine, there
was for sure going to be a need and a
desire for at least one championship developing EAVY technology, and
so for me it was not a matter of whether
(05:25):
it's going to happen or it was a question of when. Really,
so for me, it was really fun to create my
startup and then start working on IVY Racing because it
was the very first project. So we had so much
pr and coverage in all the magazines you can think
of basis of that simple idea because it was just
so exciting to everybody. And then long story short, as
we started to get everything ready in the cars and
(05:45):
so on, then the FIA came up with the tender
or the call for expression of interest to run to
run form an AE, which was the same thing on
the biggest scale. Interestingly, not many people know the EU
Commission at the time was setting the very kind of
the very first automotive targets in terms of Louis missions
and entry cars, and I believe the European Commission made
(06:07):
a call to the FIA to say, to all your championships,
you ought to have one that's promoting electric cars. And anyway.
As always in life, it's all about timing. And then
twenty twelve was when the project kind of started on
paper and then the rear later twenty thirteen we entered
the team.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
So Formulae has been now going on for eleven years.
That have been eleven seasons. The most recent season just concluded.
Things have changed in that time, both for electric cars
and for Formula E itself. In the initial race you
actually had two cars for the same driver and you
had to come and swap midway because the batteries wouldn't last.
(06:45):
Now that's changed because there's a single car. Can you
just talk through the evolution of what the race looked
like when it started and how has it evolved to now?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yes, it is one of the of the funny stories
looking back, really because when we started to summariz before
getting to the details, you have to remember what the
objectives of formally are and the main two pillars are
really simple. The first pillar formerly is purpose and goal
in life is to be a technology innovation play. Really
it's about putting a problem which is mostly battery energy
(07:17):
density and partial and efficiency, and through racing to putting
the best engineering engineering minds improve or accelerate the rate
of innovation that will have normally happened in kind of
the normal world. The second pillar, of course is the
media platform, the broadcast, the promotion. Sport is very effective
to connect with people and a large number of people.
(07:39):
So if you can put together really exciting technology, innovation
and an exciting sport, you have something very powerful. So
to your point, when we started in twenty thirteen and
twenty first race in twenty fourteen and still the case today,
we are not we are limited by technology. We are
creating the best possible technology, whether it's battery, motors, inverters,
(08:01):
all these things are creating simply because we were limited
by the art of the possible. We are developing every
two years high voltage systems and software and so on
that didn't exist before. So in twenty fourteen and fifteen
at the eginning, the best technology available would only allow
us to run for twenty minutes with one car, so
to do a fourty minute trace, it was a very
peculiar situation where we had two drivers in the team,
(08:23):
but we needed two cars per driver, and each driver
would go on in car A do have the race
come back in the garage jump out literally out of
the first car, jump in a second car and go again.
And many all the media journalists at the time were
telling me, Silvan, what are you doing? If anything, you're
highlighting the problems of electric cars, like what are you doing?
(08:44):
And the answer was always the same. The answer was, look,
do not judge us on where we are today. This
is the starting point. We want to be judged on
how quickly we are improving that technology. So youway, long
story short. Four years later we managed to do the
same race distance at a higher power with only one car,
so clearly a massive jump in energy storage, energy DNT
city and efficiency. And then two Gene three. Four years
(09:07):
after that, we manage to again increase the power from
two hundred kilod to three hundred and fifty KILOWA, so
massive jump in power, again reducing the weight of the car,
increasing the efficiency, so really improving every single metric which
resulted in a much faster car. And today, without going
through all the evolutions, we are nine the Gen three evils,
so the second fives of Gen three, and we have
(09:28):
a car that can accelerate from zero to sixty an
hour in one point a second and has amazing performance characteristics.
If you look back on tell people to go on
YouTube and look back at the races in season one
and compared to the car today, it's absolutely unbelievable the
performance improvement in ten years. And the whole point is
racing gives a visual representation of the improvement of the
(09:51):
technology and hopefully people now watch for me day and
are just really amazed by how by how fast and
exciting this car is.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
So the acceleration itself is now faster than a Formula
One car, but the top speed still is a little
bit lower. So a Formula E car can go up
to two hundred miles per hour, whereas a Formula one
car can go up to two thirty or so. Now,
one way of thinking about more to sport is that
people just want to see fast cars, and of course
Formula one has a bigger base. And you know, I've
(10:19):
never been to a Formula One race ever, but people
tell me like it's a visceral experience because you're hearing
these engines that are very loud and you can feel
it as the cars drive past. Watching the Formula erace
in London, I thought that was loud, given electric cars
are typically much quieter than the Formula E electric cars,
(10:40):
but I've been assured that was not loud. The fact
that I could sit there without wearing ear plugs was indoors,
especially because the London track is indoors. But if it's
about people who just want to see fast cars, why
would people want to watch Formula E versus Formula One
where the fastest cars are today.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
It's evolution, It takes time. Formula One has been around
for seventy years, has the most incredible heritage and legacy
and glamor around it, completely well deserved because it's been
an amazing spot for so many years. Family in a
way we are still a startup, right we are only
eleven years old. But what I really like and what
the affair has done a good job, is to really
(11:20):
position the two championships in a really different way. We
are not competing. If anything, this cross pollination between the
two championships. So people are watching Family and pretty much
all the Family races are sold out and the growth
is pretty much turnips and on the air again since COVID,
So there's a strong appetite because people are realizing it's
something new and different. It's not one or the other.
It is just very different. You can come to a
(11:42):
family race and bring your young kids and your family
and it's in general terms more approachable and more family friendly,
and that's a great thing. But Formula one is also
a fantastic experience that you know that is different. But
it's funny you said that about the noise, because again
I heard that a lot when people say, oh, racing,
it's going to be very boring because there's no noise.
(12:03):
But first you realize when the twenty two cars arrive
at speeds. You have to remember, at speeds over one
hundred and miles an hour, most of the noise you
hear is aero noise anyway, which we have exactly the same.
So you hear the formerly pack arriving before you can
see it, which people didn't realize with the Etre cars.
But it's still okay, so you still get that emotion
and ultimately it's just a different experience. And you know,
(12:24):
we have the jenifour car coming end of next year,
which are developing, and that car will have absolutely unbelievable performance.
Getting very close to Formula one and seeing a cargoing
that fast at more than three hundred kph making relatively
low noise will be something unbelievable to watch. So it's
just different, and I think I think the two compliment
(12:45):
each other.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Let's look at the technology pillar of the two pillars.
In Formula E we talked about how people might perceive
and how the growth of the sport might happen as
a result. But the technology is what drives you. You're
the chief technology officer for Envision Racing and what is
the relationship between a racing team and the manufacturer Because
(13:05):
you know your current car is made by Jaguar. A
few years ago it was made by Audi. How does
that work and what kind of innovation does that result in?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Again, family in that sense is not different to pretty
much all the other series, including f ON. You typically
have teams competitors, and what is really good in families
that have a rige variety of teams. You have teams
that are full factory teams, so owned by the car manufacturer,
which makes competence and is absolutely needed because these manufacturers
(13:36):
develop part of the hardware of the car and ultimately
do a lot of the promotion around road cars, right,
So it's really it's a really important factor. Then you
tend to have another category, which is racing teams that
go racing as their core business, so kind of racing
empires that race in different series, categories and so on,
and formily is part of their portfolio. And then you
(13:58):
have a third category, which we happen to be the
only one in which is you know, we're racing team
that was completely built and it's completely dedicated to formally
because we we are overall a green tech company at Envision,
we only work on minable energy solutions and therefore only
(14:18):
really formally makes sense for us as a as a motorsport,
and it's part of the of the ecosystem. You have
teams and competitors which are needed. This is the core
layer of the championship. And then you have manufacturers who
developed the hardware part of it, which is the really interesting,
interesting part of the hardware innovation, and then the teams.
Of course, once you have that, there is still a
huge amount of work that is done by the teams,
(14:39):
which is the strategy, the software, the energy management, or
all the operational aspects of running a race team.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
And so are there technologies that have resulted from either
your work or other teams work that now exist in
commercial cars?
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Yeah? Absolutely, and that's the that's the bid that gets
really interesting. So to stop me if it's a bit
too geeky, but it gets it gets really interesting if
you put it in perspective. Right, So why do we
believe that IV mobility is the way for that's the
starting point. The reason the very simple its efficiency. There's
no other technology today that comes nowhere near in terms
(15:15):
of efficiency. And efficiency matters because it's all about the
energy you spend per mile travel. So to put some
numbers and put that into context, if you drive today
an IC engine petrol, diesel or whatever counter road, typically
that engine will be around twenty five percent efficient, but
that's actually when the engine is warm and you're on
the motorway. If you do a short score run in
winter when the engine is called, it can be less
(15:36):
than that. So it's really pretty horrible if you think
about it. You put ten years of full in your
car and maybe you want to actually makes it to
the wheel. The rest is wasted in friction and heat.
That doesn't make us feel very good. The reason why
IC engine cars have such good range despite being despite
having such a poor efficiency is because fossil fuel is
the most amazing thing there is so much energy stored
(15:58):
in alitter of fossil fuel, and it's why we are
so addicted to it. A good electric road car, it's
varying a lot and easycouser, but let's say eighty eighty
five percent, it's a pretty good position and it will
it will improve if you put ten kire what our
of energy in that battery, eighty eighty five percent of
that goes to the wheel a lot better. Very efficient
our racing cars, and I'm not making an unfair racing
(16:20):
to road analogy. It is genuinely comparing apples and apples.
If you compare deficiency from the output of the battery
all the way to the wheel, so battery inverter motor gearbox,
deef drive draft wheel, our efficiency is ninety six percent
and that is pretty mind blowing, right, So like from
storing the energy to the wheel, we're only wasting a
few percent of energy. And that's what makes electric mobility
(16:43):
a no brainer because then if you take an extreme scenario,
if you took a country, I don't make it up Germany,
if overnight all the cars in Germany were electric, the
country as a whole would need three to four times
less energy for road transport, which is the complete game changer. Yeah,
and if you need three or four times that energy overall,
(17:03):
then it's a lot easier to get that energy from
maneable sources. Yeah, because you need four times as Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
I mean, it was pretty interesting to see how much
of the car's race is run on energy that is
recovered from regenerator breaking through throughout the race. So forty
to forty five percent, right, which is crazy, Like almost
half the race is run by basically the energy gain
back from breaking. What of those technologies have ended up
(17:29):
in a commercial vehicle?
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Yeah, so so I get to that so so so
exactly to your points, the two together super high efficiency
of the power train and the fact that we typically
use around forty just on the forty kilo hower in
the pack when we start the race, so.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
We can So that's about like a mid size electric
car on the road today, actually half size for like
a teslaticular battery.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Putting in perspective for people to understand in terms of
energy stores, it is the equivalent of about forty two
of fuel. That's the same amount of energy. So you
can do race at these speeds for close to an
hour on forty too of fuel. That's another way to
show that efficiency.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Right.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
So this is why it's so important in terms of
trickle down to road car. It's really easy. Informally, there
is no misalignment between the technical ordmap of formily and
what is needed for road cars. Historically, in a lot
of case in racing, any technology that makes a race
car go faster, you typically won't the opposite for a
road car. Informally, focusing entirely on the efficiency of these
(18:30):
power trains, which is the only thing to work on really,
as well as the energinety the batteries. If you can
gain you know the eighties five to ninety six percent
that talked about this ten to fifteen percent of efficiency gain,
they will directly translate to road cars. And what that
means is you can look at it two ways. Either
for the same size of battery cars will have fifty
percent more range or better still, which is the way
(18:52):
it's going. We are now pretty you know, instruation where
three hundred, three hundred and fifty mile range is pretty
much accepted. As you know, we don't really need that
much more. But if you can have a car that
is fifteen percent more efficient, we can now reduce the
size of the beach by fifteen percent, which makes the
car lighter. They'refore even more efficient, so you get into
this virtual cycle and more for the bull as well.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
After the break, I asked Silva Philippi whether Formula E
can ever hope to challenge Formula one's crown as the
world's top racing sport. And hey, if you're enjoying this episode,
please give Zero a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Recently,
Natasha Aras wrote that Zero is a great podcast on
the challenges of our time and the need for planetary measures.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
To be taken.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Thank you, Natasha. So about ten laps into your first
ever race, and we start right by the main stream,
half fast to the cars and here the car you
can hear them, they're going fast.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Smell, it's all just tires.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
It's all the tires burning. And the slope is also
all the tires were. On this show, we've talked about
electric cars a bunch of times. We have numbers from Tesla,
for example, where the motor efficiency not that the entire
powering motor efficiency itself has improved ten percent over the
past fifteen years, you know, which you can't say of
(20:26):
like an internal combustion engine, which you are getting very
small percentage improvements every year. But you know that's Tesla.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
The other giant and electric cars is Bid. Neither Tesla
nor Bid participate in Formula E. So first why is that?
And then second what of the Formula E innovation has
ended up in commercial cars because if Tesla and Bid
are driving that innovation without being involved in the Formula ecosystem.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah, yeah, so I'll give you a clear examples. So
first why Tesla and notes votes. I don't know exactly.
I know we were speaking to test at the very beginning.
The reality for TESTL at the time at the beginning
was simply that they were too busy doing what they
were doing. Their challenge at the time was manufacturing ramp
up and scalability, and frankly that was completely fair and
that's what that's what they needed. Bbody. I don't know,
(21:16):
but I know many ams are still looking at formily,
so you never know in the future in terms of innovation.
So basically you have to break down why how do
we achieve that efficiency? The first one is really high vaulted,
so again without getting to technical power, which is what
mus your car is a function of voltage times current
times app so if you have if you double the voltage,
(21:38):
you need half the current to achieve the same power,
and the losses are typically not in the voltage being
the current. So we started formily. So typically all the
electric road cars up two years ago were based on
a free fifty four of the vault architecture, all of
them including TESTA. We started racing informally at seven hundred
vaults and we're not racing at nine hundred and fifty vaults.
What that means is, first we had to create an
(22:00):
entire supply chain of components you could not find on
the market an inverter, an electric motor, or any components
that could that was suited to formally that were very
high pert and city very light, very high voltage developing
thrond kor there was no application for it, it didn't exist.
So we developed collectively as an ecosystem inverters motors, highly specialists,
(22:21):
super high performance motors inverters at this high voltage, and
ultimately we validated over many years of racing that these
really hig voltage components are reliable, efficient, and we basically
prove the technology on track which is back to my
point from the beginning is what formily is all about.
So from that exercise, we basically indirectly because the industry
(22:42):
works together, created that new standard which is now eight
hundred votes. So the latest premium electric broadcasts are based
on an eight hundred vot architecture, and it's trickling down
to Highindaikeia, I believe, and many others. And this is
a big, big deal because you can see mid range
affordable elect today. We'll have a range approxying proximating three
(23:03):
hundred miles when it was one fifty not that long ago.
A lot of that is coming from our voltage and
overall power train efficiencies, which is exactly what we're doing. Informally.
In the ic engine days, we used to compare to
Formula one. The typical time was about ten fifteen years
from when an innovation was in Formula one to the
way it would come to road cars in our world.
(23:24):
In the electric hor world, can we see that being
reduced to two to five years. And in the second
part is software, that's the big difference in actric cars.
Software allows you to refine how you use the energy
within your power train, and you can't find gains. I
remember Jaguar a few years ago explained that in their
Eyepace at the time, they managed to increase the range
(23:45):
by about twenty five miles without changing a single hardware component.
They just learned about battery duty, cycle butt dongivity and
simply the relationship between the battery, the invert and the
motor and using that better. And that's what we do
informally every race. Every race we optimize departure that we have.
So you look at our car at the end of
the season, that car is faster than at the beginning
(24:06):
of the season, even though it's the exact same car.
But through software, we are refining how we use the energy.
And that is really only possible in the electory cow world.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I mean, I've been writing about electric car since twenty seventeen,
and every year me and my dad talk about when
is it a good time for him to buy an
electric car, and he has very clear limitations. He's like,
I'm only going to buy a car that I can
afford and it can do these these things. And finally
this year, actually like this month, he's bought an electric car.
(24:35):
It's a four hundred volt architecture, but it's affordable now,
and you know it has a three hundred and fifty
kilometers range, which is plenty for him to be able
to do his city things. So it certainly is the
case that, you know, all these innovations trickle down. But
if you go back to Formula E, do you think
(24:57):
one reason to create this race is that perhaps one day,
you know, people will find these gas guzzling ear splitting
engines kind of boring and that Formula you will be
ready to become the successor to Formula one.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if boring is
the world, But for sure, what I anticipate and what
we're planning for for sure is that family is going
at very rapid pace, right like two can numbers we
have today well last year four hundred and ninety million
community audience. It's an accepted way of measuring a sport.
You basically take the audiensity traced and you add them
up and the target is to get to eight hundred
(25:36):
million by twenty thirty and to have five hundred million fans.
So when we achieve these numbers formally will be by
far the second largest motor sport, just after I f
on reaching these numbers will basically mean that our impact
is pretty massive because you're showing this technology to a
huge amount of people. So ultimately to your point, to do,
what we're trying to do is accelerate mass adoption of
(25:59):
electric cars. But I've said for the last twelve years,
if we really want mass market adoption and a really
complete system change, we will never get there through subsidies
and incentives and so on. We just have to deliver
product that is better. And the only way we deliver
product that is better is through energy, city and efficiency.
And exactly to your point and the how many stories
like this get to a point where you know what,
(26:20):
I'm going to buy a car? And already today over
five years in most cases having an electric car is cheaper,
but very soon we will get to a point where
we will get cost parity at purchase and then other
five years it's a lot cheaper. But really we are
working hard. So when you have such high efficiency and
high energidenity batteries and so on, you're buying an electric
car that is quicker, faster, more often to drive, nicer
(26:42):
to drive in traffic jam, costs you far less to
run because it's so efficient and is basically better in
every single way, and only when we deliver that then
you can anticipate mass adoption of electric cars. And again,
why are we doing this? Back to my very first point,
this really matters husually because if you look at climate
change in general, transport is roughly thirty percent of the problem,
(27:03):
right And even though you know, moving a country entirely
to electric seems like a daunting task, it's actually the
easiest in terms of climate change, so lo for lo,
easier than the carbonizing air travel, freight still, manufacturing, and
all these things that are more difficult. So it really
matters that we accelerate transition to it is as fast
(27:24):
as possible because it's a low hanging fruit in a way,
even though it sounds difficult, it's really important. And let's
not forget the massive health benefits. You know, we don't
talk enough about this. We are living in a system
currenty that doesn't really make sense where eighty percent of
people live in mega cities, and yet we put all
the pollution where people live. It is absolutely critical to
have zero tailpipe emission where people live. It's billions of
(27:48):
pound zeros dollars saving for the healthcare industry and it's
just a better way to live. So this is a
critical part of it.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
What do we think about tagmert I thought it was
really plant. I know it's a gimmick, but I actually
it changes the game dynamics so much we are like
two thirds of the One of the things I enjoyed
the most about the race in London is attack mode.
So you have this ability for an electric car which
for the race has a three hundred killer motor, but
(28:16):
for a few minutes can switch into this attack mode
and have three hundred and fifty kilo awards. So it's
sort of like the motor unlocks more power. And I
am told Mario Kart was the inspiration for this, that
you get that extra boost and then you can do
funky things with it, which is have drivers who were
nineteen get onto pole position in a race. Why was
(28:41):
gimmick like that necessary for you to make Formula E interesting?
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Yeah, it's a good question. So it's back to my
earlier point really about striking that balance between technology development
but also make the sport entertaining. So again we are
blessed in formally that you know, the racing itself is
bonkers enough that it's fun as it is, but attack
mood was just a genius idea really because it's ow
caase not only the what you can do with electric cars,
but also it makes the races so entertaining. So really,
(29:08):
the principle is quite simple, and it is kind of
derived from a principle from my workout where you basically
have some sensors on the track at a particular corner,
and if you go across the three sensors, then you
press a button on the stain well and you get
an extra fifty kilo from the front axle, so you
get a lot of performance and it basically mixes up
the game and it's the same for everybody. So it
gives a kind of a strategic element to the race
(29:31):
where what we did yesterday is not so easy to
go from the back to all the way to the podium.
You need a lot of starts to align. But through
energy management, which is really critical, how and when you
spend the energy that you have through the race and
the us of attack mode, if you use it at
the perfect time with the perfect energy management strategy, you
can make a lot of places. So it's a really
kind of interesting strategic part of the sport, but also
(29:54):
it's just super entertaining.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
So if we hit both of those pillars that formula
you was created with the technology pillar and sort of
engaging the audience pillar. If the technology pillar gives you
affordable electric cars that everybody can buy, that is enabled
partly because of the technology improvements and formulae, and people
find the sport interesting. Formula one now exists in a
(30:16):
world where it's not trying to sell you the internal
combustion engine car. It's just selling you a sport that
people are interested in watching. Do you think that's what
Formula E becomes. It's not about the electric car technology
in the way that it's trying to sell an electric car.
It might be interesting as a technology play, but it's
(30:36):
really a sport that people are interested in watching the race,
watching what the drivers do, watching the phenomena.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
I think that's really faraway. So the beauty of formulae,
it's also an ass you've challenged by a challenge we like,
as I said at the beginning, every two years we
are just pushing the technology forward. Well, we're running a
technology that did not exist two years before. That's just
that's going to be the case for at least two
few decades for sure. So these two pillos are going
to remain the same two pillos for many decades because
(31:04):
of course, when we reach ninety seven ninety seven point five,
they'll get a point where you know, you don't get
two hundred persent efficiency, right, we'll get to it, but
we can still always improve that. But then we have
batteries energtensive batteries. So at the moment we have eight
to ten percent improvement in battery energy density on conventional chemistries,
let's say. But at some point we're going to have
solid state batteries and we're going to have all sort
of technologies coming that will enable the most amazing racing
(31:28):
cars because imagine, you know, our gent four car at
six hundred kilo at which is you know, eight hundred
doors power. Imagine a car like that that is, you know,
lighter than Formula one. The performance would be unbelievable. And
that's not that far away in the future. So these
two pillars are going to remain for sure. There's you know,
it would be a good point to have when we
have no more technology development in eglectric cars, right, like,
(31:49):
we can always make these cars better for the future.
Formula one, on the other side, is in an interesting
situation because of course we know the new regulation twenty
twenty six to twenty thirty. In the coming up regulations,
the almost parenting are between petrol power and electric power,
and if any end of their electric power is the
same as what we run now.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Yeah, I think most people don't know that Formula one
cars are all hybrids. They all have electric motors in
them because the electric motor gives you an acceleration that
an eternal combustion in So from next.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Year and until twenty thirty you have this new regulation
Formula one where they will have about four hundred killoots
for the engine and three fifty from the electric motor,
which is what we run in Formalya today. We will
go to six hundred, so hence the performance so family
is almost at parenting, will be a Formula one between
the petrol and electric and that will open up a
lot of interesting developments for them. What Formula one does
(32:40):
after twenty thirty is a big debate because at some
point by twenty three on words, all the cars that
dealerships and what cars that people buy will be electric.
For the reason I explain, not necessarily because we love batteries.
But it's quite nice to drive a car run that's
using four times less energy. So it's inevitable what formula
one becomes the and is you know, not for me
(33:01):
to say. There are many ways of going. But of
course sustainable fuels come in the discussion, which is really
interesting for some applications. And it's funny that formula when
we'll end up helping develop stable fuels, yet the application
will mostly be for airlines and other applications, right, But
it's fine. It's still development, so it will be really
interesting to see where where they go from.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
There Are you worried about the fact that in the
US you are seeing a backlash against ev is given
how big US audiences are for sport in general and
how much they contribute to the sport in financial terms,
but also in eyeballs. Formly is about electric cars, and
if one large economy, well, the largest economy is not
(33:42):
that interesting in electric cars. Does that worry you?
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Yes? And no, for sure it's not helpful. There are
the moment headwinds in all sorts of directions. Having said that,
I am not worried one bit in the mid long term,
and one of the main indicators simply is we are
talking here about large industrial projects really, so at Envision,
we're building many giga factories to supply sales to car
(34:05):
manufacturers and static energy storage for grid, which is highly popular.
That's a very interesting discussion for another day. So all
these giga factoring projects, these heavy factories, these are you know,
three five year projects that you don't change your mind
on this project every two minutes. So ultimately, all these
(34:26):
projects that are ongoing, they will carry on. Will the
sales be a bit load and expected in a year, possibly,
but over five ten years. Back to my very earlier points.
Unless in the next few years we find a technology
that is more efficient than a battery electric car. I
doubt it, but if that were to happen, that's the
only thing that could deveil it. Ultimately, the sheer efficiency
(34:46):
of electric cars means that this is coming. This is
the only way to move people around on the road.
The exact timing is a bit complicated because each market
has a different demand base and timing and so on.
But I'm not worried about all long term. Interestingly, formally,
I don't have the exact number. And now you put
me on the spot. But I know this year our
race in Mexico and Miami had the highest of audience
(35:07):
in the US by like a long way compared to
previous year. So we are going really really fast in America,
and we have a roadmap of more races in North
and South America as well as growing globally anyway. So
we see more close to twenty percent on your growth
anyway in audience, but by adding more races, we're going
to accelerate that even further. So you know, on TV
(35:29):
sentiment in some parts of the world, frankly, I have
seen that since the beginning, you know, I mean, believe me.
When I was doing interviews two or fourteen years ago,
by electric racing, it was ninety nine percent on TIV settlement,
you know. So it is for me a lot easier
today than it was at the time. But you know,
it comes back to my point, all this will go
away once electric cars are better in every single metric
(35:49):
and then ultimately the discussion stops. Really, so that's what
we are trying to accelerate.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Thank you so far.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Great to be race.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
A couple of crashes, some safety cars, lots of very
how you say, it's a formula. I enjoyed it a lot.
I mean, it was way more exciting than I thought
it would be, and after the predictable start over the
first ten laps, it got super excited. There you go.
It's Nick Cassidy. Thank you for listening to zero and
(36:27):
now for the sound of the.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Week, Boom.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
That is beatboxer Wing performing his song Dopamine. Turns out
beatboxing is a competitive sport and I'm all here for it.
If you like this episode, please take a moment to
rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Share this episode with a friend or with someone who
loves Mario Kart. This episode was produced by Oscar boyd Our.
(36:59):
Theme music is comp by Wonderly Special thanks to Envision Racing,
Eleanor Harrison, Dungate, Smarsadi, Moses Andim and Shawan Wagner. I
am Akshatrati back soon.
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