A new off-road Extreme E (XE) electric series has been launched which will run in the world’s most extreme environment.
The new international series was unveiled officially to the world on Thursday by co-founders, McLaren F1’s Gil de Ferran and Formula E’s Alejandro Agag. The series is set to start from December 2020 and will cover five extreme locations.
The idea is to run on hard terrains with extreme climatic conditions with the venues yet to be signed off. However, the aim is to cover five different locations such as Tropical Rainforest, Desert, Artic, Ocean and Himalayas, which will send an important message.
The XE races will be run in a head-to-head format with two groups divided into six teams. Four each from the groups will form the Quarter Final and two each will make up the Semi Final and eventually two finalists.
The races won’t be broadcasted live as it will be telecasted in episodic format to the viewers with a digital partner yet to be signed up. Award-winning filmmaker Fisher Stevens has been roped in to be the artistic director and will produce the broadcasts.
The RMS St Helena will transport all the championship’s equipments and will act as a floating paddock and also be its operations base. British explorer and environmentalist David de Rothschild will be the series’ chief explorer.
Financially, the series states that it is fully funded with partners like Continental Tyres and niobium supplier CBMM already on board. In terms of the vehicles, the SUV electric cars will be built from scratch with the first test for the prototypes set for April 2019.
Most of the parts will be standardised which includes the chassis, batteries (supplied by McLaren), suspension, ECU & software, Formula E motor and energy limited. The cars will be manufactured by Spark Racing Technology like seen in Formula E.
It will have two motors with power output in the region of 400kW. Post the test, the production of the cars is set for July 2019 with the delivery being targeted for November 2019 and official testing to take place between December 2019 and July 2020.
Teams and drivers will be able to do race simulations as well in August 2020 with the shipping to start from September 2020 as racing is to provisionally begin in December 2020 and extend into January 2021.
