Formula E Season 11 Cars Now Accelerate Faster Than Any F1 Car Ever

Formula E Season 11 Cars Now Accelerate Faster Than Any F1 Car Ever

Now that Extreme E is on a hiatus while it turns into Extreme H, and World Rallycross has switched to a competition between EVs and combustion, Formula E is back to being the primary fully electric racing series. It’s going from strength to strength, with Season 11 unleashing technical improvements. As the season progresses into its second race in Mexico this weekend, I talked to Envision team’s Managing Director and CTO, Sylvain Filippi, about his expectations for the coming year of Formula E and beyond.

Formula E Season 11: All-Wheel Drive For Faster Performance

“Season 11 has a lot of changes on the car technically,” says Filippi. “It’s going to be a very steep learning curve for everybody. I’m very excited about the GEN3 Evo car’s performance. The reason why I’m still so passionate about Formula E 10 years on is because I deeply believe in the power of Formula E to make electric cars super sexy and exciting. Ultimately, that translates to road vehicles and makes people excited about electric cars. One of the ways of doing that is amazing performance.”

The Series 11 car can use both front and rear motors to improve acceleration. “We are now able to deploy the same power as before, 350kW (469hp), but split between rear and front powertrain, so we’re able to do zero to 60 miles an hour in 1.8 seconds, which is just mind boggling. Our Formula E car is now the fastest accelerating race car ever designed in an FIA championship in terms of circuit racing. No F1 car has ever accelerated faster.” The performance is assisted by just how light the Formula E GEN3 Evo car is – 760kg without driver, where the 2025 Formula 1 car’s minimum weight is more at 800kg.

“The drivers absolutely love the new car,” says Filippi. “We have more grip with new tires from Hankook and more grip with four-wheel drive. The car is an absolute beast. When you have 22 cars launching at that speed, it’s spectacular.” All-wheel drive isn’t available throughout the race, just during the qualifying duels, when launching off the grid, and in Attack Mode. “Up to 50kW can be sent to the front motor and that makes a huge difference in traction.”

This should keep the racing competitive, in a similar fashion to DRS in Formula 1. “Now with the front motor, a car with Attack Mode should be able to overtake the cars in front,” says Filippi. “It should create some amazing overtaking opportunities. Most of the time we’re not power limited, we’re grip limited. So even if it’s the same power, sending some of the power to the front axle makes an massive difference.” The motors could technically deliver 600kW, with 350kW on the back and 250kW on the front, but this is only harnessed for regeneration. “Almost half of the energy used by the car has been created by the car itself.”

Formula E Season 11: No In-Race Charging Yet

Since last season, Formula E has also been considering in-race charging like a Formula 1 pit stop, which would further shake up the competition. But so far this hasn’t seen the light of day. “It’s such a new technology,” says Filippi. “We’ve been testing it in the background at manufacturer days, even sometimes at races at low power throughout last season. Reliability is really getting there. It’s not a two-second pit stop like Formula 1. It’s going to be a bit longer. But if we can add 10% of battery capacity in a few seconds, that will be incredible. What we’re trying to achieve is more than twice as fast as anything else that’s been done. If it works, then it will be an amazing feat of technology.”

This technology is being developed in partnership with Elysia, formerly part of Williams Advanced Engineering, which has been working on 2MW charging for use with giant 264-ton mining trucks. “In-race charging will do what Formula E is supposed to do, which is to show a really amazing spectacle and amazing racing, while showcasing technology that doesn’t exist anywhere else.”

Formula E GEN4 And Beyond

The development of the Formula E car will take another leap in Season 12, when the GEN4 car is unleashed. “GEN3 Evo is based on the same chassis, but different body work,” says Filippi. “All-wheel drive means it’s a big step in performance and GEN4 will be another big step. The idea is a bigger battery, a lot more power, more grip and more downforce. That equals a much faster car. GEN4 will be a monster. We need a car that really captures imagination.”

“A lot of people are captivated by F1, not because of the racing itself, but the sheer speed and performance of the car,” says Filippi. “That’s what makes it so exciting. Formula E needs to become the same. We’re at the halfway point of GEN3 and we’re already deep into GEN4 development. The technology supporting us is increasing fast. The energy density power of batteries is improving greatly every year. By using the best technology that we can get our hands on and packaging it in a clever way, we can make big steps in performance. We’re not far off now from a point where the cars will be so fast that the limitation will be the circuit. In the early years of Formula E, we didn’t want somebody to be judged on the car, but how quickly we would improve that technology. After 9 years of development, the cars are night and day.”

“An indicator of how fast Formula E has developed compared to Formula One is there are still lap records for Formula One cars that go back as long as 20 years,” says Filippi. “The Silverstone record, for example, is 4 years old, which shows that nobody’s built a faster car in four years. For Formula E, there’s no lap record that’s more than one or two years old. Some of the simulations that we have on GEN4 will put us in touching distance of Formula One, too. We’ll leave in the dust any other championship, which is not bad considering it will only be a 12-year-old series by then. We are getting close to a point now where, if you were to have the same grip and downforce on the Formula E car, it could compete with Formula 1 in lap time. The next few years are going to be pretty fun.”

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