Starting grid: Formula E set to bring electric racing to the streets

Nobody can doubt that the automotive industry is going through a period of rapid and dramatic change. Cars incorporating some kind of electric drive are now so commonplace on our streets that they barely attract comment; auto shows feature electric concept cars on the stands of virtually very major automotive manufacturer.

Yet the traditional home of automotive innovation, motorsport, seems largely immune to this new wave of automotive technologies. Motor races are still dominated by the reek of gasoline and the thunder of the internal combustion engine — and there are those who will tell you that these things are a part of the DNA of the track: without them, it just wouldn’t be a motor race.

The world motorsport governing body doesn’t agree, however. Driven by a desire to make motorsport relevant to the automotive sector, a concern over the increasing average age of motorsport’s fan base, and a need to bring an infusion of new thinking, a new generation of engineers and fresh sources of sponsorship into the motor racing world, the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) last year launched a brand-new racing series, to be contested only by purpose-built all-electric cars producing zero emissions at the tailpipe: Formula E.