What types of offset do you focus on? People have different ideas about what is good enough, and they are not all equal.
We focus more on the creation of renewable energy, as this is what gives the most positive impact to the use of electric vehicles. Where we can, is the technology in the countries we run in—solar and wind farms in Mexico City, to give one example.
We are investing in carbon capture and removal technologies as well, and we are looking at ways to support the development of those technologies. It is developing rapidly, but it is still a very nascent technology.
What makes you an order of magnitude less carbon efficient than Formula One?
The amount of product we allow ourselves to take on the road. The number of cars, tires, spare parts, people moving, we do that with the total empty number to put it in the smallest number of crates to be transported. And where possible we transport by road or sea freight. We only fly if we have to fly our entire race series, and we can fit everything into three planes. We’re looking at how we can reduce that to two.
And where we’re taking flights, we’re looking at technologies like sustainable jet fuel. We tested that in one of the races last year—we went from Berlin to the next race.
Has sports technology made its way into consumer cars since the first race back in 2014?
Well, it works both ways. We’ve benefited from automakers around the world investing in EV technology, having the brightest minds in original equipment manufacturers working on battery development and EV powertrains. They benefit from being part of a racing series where we push the boundaries of technology every race.
A good example is Jaguar Land Rover. The Jaguar Formula E team learned something on the race track about the efficiency between the battery and the powertrain. They were able to take that learning, and update the software over the air for the I-PACE range, which is their range of electric vehicles on the road. That delivered somewhere around 25 to 30 miles more on the battery in those cars overnight.
If you look at someone like Porsche, he has used other things. So we have things in the car like attack mode, an extra level of power: 50 extra kilowatts during a certain part of the race. Now they have that button in their car, where you can push the car in the new Taycan, and it unlocks more power in the car.
Back when Formula E started, there weren’t that many EVs on the road. Now they are everywhere and are seen as very efficient and desirable. Many disputes about electrification have been overcome. Does this change the future goals of Formula E?
You’re right, you can’t compare the perception of this game in 2014 to the perception of it now. I think in 2014, when the game started, there were 800,000 EVs sold in the world that year. In the past 12 months, there may have been between 15 and 20 million.
It’s not like 2014 when we said, please consider buying an electric car. Now the goal is to get the current 50 percent EV rate to 100 percent, and to help make that happen by making the technology even better. We’re very concerned about that—whether it’s improving long-range technology, faster charging times, better performance. All our focus is on battery technology, fast charging, efficiency, all ultimately to accelerate the adoption of EVs.
Hear Jeff Dodds speak at the WIRED x Octopus Energy Tech Summit at Kraftwerk in Berlin on October 10. Get tickets at energy-tech-summit.wired.com