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Illustration for article titled Another German Carmaker Just Dropped Formula E — Photo: BMW Group

BMW on Tuesday announced that it is officially bowing out of the ABB Formula E Championship after competing in the series for seven seasons (as a factory team since season five). The automaker’s withdrawal is not effective immediately, but will finalize at the end of the upcoming season, which kicks off next month with a double header in Chile.

It’s less of a swift pull of the plug and more of a sunset of its Formula E operations. Still, the news is a setback: BMW is the second team to announce its departure this week, following an earlier announcement from Audi that it’s withdrawing from Formula E at the end of the upcoming season.

BMW Group struck a dramatic tone in its press release, stating that all opportunities to apply knowledge gained on the track to production EVs has been exhausted. In other words, the well has run dry and there is no point in sticking around. Here’s a clip from BMW’s announcement:

The same engineers who develop the drivetrains for electric production vehicles are also responsible for the drivetrains in the race cars. Examples of the successful transfer of technology between the Formula E project and production development include new findings regarding energy management and energy efficiency, the transfer of software for power electronics from racing to production, and an improvement in the power density of the e-motors.

The statement broadly outlines what it was that BMW transferred from track to showroom as a result of its racing in Formula E, and it briefly mentions the team’s modest record in the series. But the press release mostly seems sponsored by the letter “P” as in “production.”

BMW emphasized that its decision comes on the heels of a realignment and renewed commitment to increase EV production. There just seems to be little return on investment in the series; the company said that investment is better directed elsewhere.

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Cost has been a recent concern for the teams, and that prompted the FIA to draft regulations addressing this. But even with upcoming regulations mandating significantly lower operating costs, it seems BMW would rather its resources go to meeting the EV goals.

That’s not going to be easy. BMW wants one million of its EVs on the road by the end of next year, and seven million by the end of the decade. That’s a lot of blue-and-white roundels, let alone a lot of EVs.

Now we have two German marques leaving FE, but at least Mercedes is still sticking around. The upcoming season will be the first to have FIA World Championship status, so maybe the BMW i Andretti team will rally near the end.

Illustration for article titled The First All-Electric Rallycross Car Will Attempt To Prove It Can Compete Against Gas Cars This Weekend In Hungary — Screenshot: Lovecars on YouTube

Rallycross might be the perfect outlet for electric motorsport right now. The rounds are short and the action is fast paced, meaning cars don’t need a lot of range for a ten minute heat race. The instant torque means electric rallycross cars can dig out of the hole in rapid fashion. And while the weight takes a proper hot shoe to control, it’s far less of a detriment in a loose surface series than one that requires grip. All of that is why I’m so excited about STARD’s Projekt E electric Ford Fiesta making its race debut this weekend.

Rallycross ace and former WRC rallyist Manfred Stohl will be the guinea pig strapped into the seat for this EV vs ICE experiment. Ahead of the FIA World RX championship allowing electric racers in its Supercar class for the 2022 season, the STARD car will run this weekend’s round of the Hungarian Rallycross Championship at the Kakucs circuit.

The Fiesta is powered by a trio of electric motors totaling 450kW (about 615 horsepower) shoving forward thrust through all four wheels. That should put the car on more or less equal footing with the conventionally-powered two-liter turbocharged Supercars, which make around 600 horsepower in race trim. The Supercar class features an 11-car grid at this round, so Stohl will have plenty of competition for the race victory.

STARD CEO and lead engineer Michael Sakowicz had this to say about the upcoming race in a discussion with Motorsport.com: “It’s just another session in our extensive and continuous testing program. Our expectations are to collect further data and experience, and to have a great race weekend. It’s the first race event for us at all in this strange year.”

“It’s great that we’re giving an electric rallycross car its first proper debut,” said Sakowicz. “We’ve been pioneers in electric rallycross since 2015. We are not afraid of the challenge to do things no-one has ever done before, that’s why we’re leading the way.”

This car is meant to be a test bed for the upcoming Projekt E series, which will race alongside FIA World RX later this year as a standalone category with spec STARD powertrains. This event in Hungary will mark the first time that an electric rallycross machine has competed in the same event on track at the same time racing for the same trophy as other traditionally-powered cars.

To complicate things, World RX is adding Junior eRX as a third tier below Projekt E in 2021. So by the time 2022 rolls around, there will be three different specifications of electric rallycross car running around the track throughout a World RX weekend. Why is it so hard to get normal people to understand how racing works again? Oh, right.

If you want to see the Projekt E in action, check out this test with Tiff Needell. It’s a pretty astonishing machine, but it doesn’t sound like it’s designed to be directly competitive with FIA Rallycross Supercar classed gas cars. Maybe STARD has some tricks up its sleeve to keep the car competitive. Who knows what will happen. I look forward to seeing the result of this little experiment.