What Will It Take For Electric Cars To Replace The Ferrari And Porsche Posters You Had Growing Up?

Electric cars are the future - and no one disagrees with that, at least not in public anyway. People may scoff privately, and debate on how soon it happens - but it¡¯s coming. Using renewable fuel to power transport is not just untenable, as you will soon realise, it¡¯s also pointless considering we¡¯re running out of the good stuff. On the day of the Diriyah ePrix race last week, Tesla launched their electric pick-up truck and even as the debate raged on the ugliness or the prettiness of the vehicle, has seen close to 200K bookings.

But there¡¯s been a problem in the adoption - electric cars have struggled to become the poster cars that little kids would have up in their rooms. They¡¯ve been seen as fuddy duddies which drive worse than they look. It¡¯s changing, but it also means if you¡¯re going to drop off a life- changing amount of money on a ride, they¡¯ve struggled to be the first ride for most save the hippies.

Car racing thus plays a very important role in driving adoption and perception of how passenger cars are made, run and handle. The reality facing the world now is that the world needs to adopt to clean and electric cars faster than ever before and that¡¯s where Formula E plays an important part. ¡°Because it develops tech like gearbox, battery etc, it's the sport which is most relevant and placed to transfer tech into the cars of the current and the future.¡± Jerome d¡¯Ambrosio, Formula E driver for team Mahindra Racing tells us.

¡°The first four seasons showed electric cars could go fast, FE limits them to 225 kmph, but they¡¯re capable of 250+, the second two did away with the pitstop Formula E races are run start to finish) and the next couple of seasons will be showcasing fast charging,¡± says Dilbagh Singh, Team Principal and CEO of Mahindra Racing, the only Indian team in the circuit. So either pitstops come back or there¡¯s a time between sessions to pop out and do a quick charge.

Compared to Formula 1, all three of these have express and direct bearing on how electric cars are perceived and eventually their adoption. This year, even the big two of fuel-powered racing are lining up - Porsche and Mercedes. A bigger sign that things are changing.

Making A Noise!

One of the bigger reasons why street racing stopped was the amount of pure noise that these cars cause - depending on who you ask it could be terrible noise pollution or music to the ears. Formula E limits car noise to 80 DB - just to give you some context, my office is close to 75 dB on noisy days.

It does raise the other bigger question: would racing without the noise-- some have rather uncharitably compared it to Giant Hoovers (Vacuum Cleaners)-- be palatable to those addicted to V8/V12 sounds? Formula 1 just to give you a reference reduced noise on its cars for 2014 but brought the noisier cars after complaints, it wasn¡¯t purist enough. So more money was spent, making the cars noisier.

¡°There¡¯s always one feature why people like or dislike something. Look at it like a feature on your FB page. You really like it and there¡¯s a new feature that comes up and everyone hates it. And then they realise it¡¯s not that bad and they don¡¯t want to go to the old one,¡± explains Jerome d¡¯Ambrosio, who drives for Mahindra Racing. Electric cars are a bit like that - developing a habit, Ambrosio adds, ¡°once people are used to the habit, sometimes they even forget about what happened in the past.¡± And the example is legit. Now, it's only the question of making electric cars a habit.

Truth be told though, there were studies which highlight that having soundless cars were a risk for pedestrians crossing roads, when they just couldn¡¯t hear the cars coming. Some Electric cars have since had sound systems built in, to compensate. What you see already on the roads shows that eventually these cars will be the fastest ever thing produced.

So some of the poster-making is already happening. Mahindra itself through Italian car manufacturer Pininfarina showcased a concept electric hypercar that can do 0-100 kmph in less than two seconds and claims to be able to reach 350 kmph. The Bugatti Chiron has a record for 490 kmph so that¡¯s safe, but it¡¯s already faster than an F1 car.

But there are others in the game too. Tesla¡¯s upcoming Roadster aims to be one of the fastest accelerating cars in the world with a 0-100 km/h time of about 2 seconds. And it looks fantastic to boot.

What About Range?

There has been a bit of a struggle with Electric cars has been it¡¯s range. One of the biggest fears people have is running out of charge, right in the middle of a forest open to the elements and bears, even if you live 500 kms from the nearest forest. D¡¯Ambrosio thinks a lot of it is conditioning. ¡°Most of the time you use your vehicle for a very small range and the technology for that is already there. It¡¯s very, very rare that you will use it for a long range,¡± he says. True to his word, the tech for longer range has been around too. The first electric cars did 80 kms per charge, Tesla Model S can do close to 600 km per charge, the Battista will be able to do 450 and the Hyundai Kona Electric can do close to 415 kms. So unless you¡¯re driving to the borders of the country, you are going to be ok.

What Is The Future?

Dilbaag Singh believes ¡°the electric cars - at least in the sport - have come a full circle. They started off with teams becoming important and tech taking a back seat, slowly tech caught on and started threatening the driver. It was here that something interesting happened, tech companies across the grid caught on till there was one/two degrees of separation between companies and the only differentiator once again was the driver.¡±

Singh sits on a committee, (FIA¡¯s Electric and New Energy Champions Committee), which partly decides what the future of racing could be and is sure that hydrogen is definitely one of the things to consider. ¡°Solar is just too far of a dream - they¡¯re doing their own thing right now, experimenting, evolving but just don¡¯t have the power, scale for competitive racing.¡±

True to what he says, solar cars recently celebrated a milestone - touching 100 kmph in a race. Cute, but TBH, that¡¯s what people said about electric as well. If you said human beings were going to be driving race cars powered by batteries at 200+ kms for 30 laps, you¡¯d risk being institutionalised. Yet, that¡¯s happening as we speak.

Autonomous cars, yay or nay?

The other interesting development is something there isn¡¯t much agreement on though - if electric cars are becoming an imminent possibility, how far off could autonomous vehicles be? Singh isn¡¯t a big fan, but he does talk about a startup that¡¯s racing autonomous/robo driven cars. D¡¯ambrosio is a big fan though. He loves driving, but driving for him is ¡°an exceptional car up a mountain-pass,¡± and not so much ¡°being stuck in traffic behind the wheel of one.¡± He¡¯s of the opinion that autonomous cars should be looked at the function that they can provide. ¡°An autonomous car should be used as an extension of whatever it is you¡¯re doing, ¡°if I have to pop into office for 2 hours, I could be in office for an hour and spend the remaining 30 mins commuting both ways.¡± He lives in Monaco and uses a small electric car as his run-around car.

His colleague, Pascal Wehrlein has an electric bike. ¡°Only because he¡¯s too lazy to cycle,¡± says d¡¯ Ambrosio. Wehrlein laughs he¡¯d rather be driven around in an autonomous car by an algo than d¡¯ambrosio.

Mahindra itself has come a long way. It¡¯s first electric tryst was with an electric scooter called Bijlee, it¡¯s first electric passenger car was the Mahindra e2O. A two door city car which under the name of ¡®G-Whiz¡¯ was trolled significantly. The journey from that to the Battista is nothing less than spectacular and five seasons of Formula E have played their part getting us to a place where the Ferraris can be replaced by something electric on a wall, or at least a wallpaper.