Now nearly 80 years old, formula racing is the world’s most popular motorsport. The distinctive vehicles used in championships – low-slung, sculptural and large-wheeled, fearsomely aerodynamic, with enormous rear spoilers – are instantly recognisable to legions of fans around the globe. Formula 1 (F1) is the sport’s top series, and the Grands Prix of 2022 amassed spectators numbering in the hundreds of thousands.
In 2012, professional racer Lucas di Grassi made the bold choice to join a new formula division – the upstart all-electric racing series Formula E. At the time di Grassi signed up, Formula E was little more than an idea: the series had no drivers, no tracks, and no cars. But di Grassi’s gamble on the fledgling championship paid off. In the years following his entry as the division’s first racer, Formula E has become immensely popular; it now hosts 11 competing teams and is the only formula series besides F1 to host a yearly world championship. Brazilian drivers are well represented in the division: di Grassi won the 2016/17 Drivers’ Championship, and his colleague Nelson Piquet Jr was the winner in the 2014/15 season.
While di Grassi has taken part in a wide variety of formula racing competitions, his early adoption of the all-electric variant speaks for itself. A sustainability enthusiast and champion of green causes, he hopes that his advocacy work and environmentally minded investing can make as big an impact as his high-octane racing successes.
Speeding toward the future
“There is a famous saying that motorsport started as soon as the second car was built, because people started competing with each other,” di Grassi says. “Today, motorsport serves as a laboratory for progress; it’s a regulated space where you can come up with crazy solutions that can be tested in a controlled environment.”
Di Grassi takes a moment to list off some of the innovations generated by organised motor racing: disc brakes, suspension systems and even rear-view mirrors – all of which are now standard features in consumer cars. While electric vehicles (EVs) are already commonplace on roads today, he hopes Formula E will spur new developments in electrified mobility, increase adoption, and boost awareness of sustainable, planet-friendly technologies.
“The motors, software and components used in Formula E will eventually be used in commercial vehicles – in two, three or four years, [consumer] electric cars will be much better than those of today,” di Grassi explains. “And because motor racing is popular and people are passionate about it, it’s easy to communicate the benefits of sustainable technologies – there’s a worldwide audience.”
Indeed, the mobility of the future has become an increasingly important topic for di Grassi. As a racer with a high degree of technical expertise – having been actively involved in the development and testing of Formula E’s racing cars – di Grassi has a unique understanding of both the opportunities and challenges facing the vehicles of tomorrow and their manufacturers.
More affordable forms of transport, di Grassi argues, will be the norm. One way consumers might see prices lowered is via the rise of what he describes as ‘micromobility’ – a category that includes both the traditional bicycle and newer developments like the rentable, app-linked electric scooters that are increasingly visible in cities around the world. Rentals of EVs will also become more popular, di Grassi continues, as consumers weigh the expenses of maintenance and insurance.
“If someone needs to travel with their family, there will be a car in the street that they can unlock,” di Grassi says. Car costs, he adds, are the “second-biggest expense” a person is likely to have besides a house, and a car is “a depreciating asset that stays in the garage 95% of the time”. In the near future, consumers could choose to offer their vehicles for rent during periods of non-use, generating an extra income stream. Fewer will choose to buy cars in the first place, opting for ‘pay as you move’ services instead.
“Cars are still status symbols in places like Sao Paulo, but we’re already seeing a lot of people in this area using apps and choosing ‘fluid’ mobility as they move around the city,” di Grassi notes. “In Sao Paulo, taxi drivers can use specific lanes, so you gain a lot of time.”
Pit stops and pitfalls
Of course, challenges abound; although hybrid cars are already fairly popular in many cities – the ubiquity of the Toyota Prius springs to mind – di Grassi says that battery limitations are the main obstacle to the ongoing success of fully electric cars. In general, charging a battery is more time consuming than refuelling, and a full tank of petrol will still take a driver further than a fully charged battery.
Di Grassi says that developments in battery technology should be a priority, especially for the types of vehicles that run constantly – namely, those used in public and commercial transportation.
“These types of transport are very predictable – they do the same routes,” di Grassi says. “In time, for example, we could put contactless chargers – like we have in phones today – at the stops where buses collect passengers. You can calculate exactly how much energy the bus needs to go from point to point.”
For the Brazilian market in particular, di Grassi identifies a number of barriers that could be lowered to speed up consumer adoption of EVs. Battery life aside, he says, the high price of electric cars is likely to dissuade some potential buyers and make petrol vehicles more attractive by comparison.
“With any new technology, the only way to become truly mainstream is to be cheaper than what is already available – that’s it,” di Grassi explains. “So how do you make electric cars cheaper than combustion cars? You either have to decrease the cost of the car or decrease the cost of capital expenditure. Borrowing money in Brazil is expensive.”
A period of government subsidy could be useful in boosting EV adoption in Brazil, di Grassi continues, until manufacturers can produce the vehicles at a scale large enough to achieve rough parity with petrol cars. A subsidy makes sense for policymakers, he adds, given the public health benefits that a mass transition to EVs would generate.
Now 38, di Grassi says his career as a racer is in its “late phase”.
“I’ve been thinking heavily about my next step – I’ve been racing professionally for 20 years,” he says. “Electric mobility is something that I love – if I can communicate its importance, change people’s minds and influence some industries, I’ll be satisfied.”