The Green Racing Virtual Summit was completed last Friday with great success after the participation of differents representatives from brands and competitions zero emission.
The virtual meeting began with words from the president of the FIM (Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme), Jorge Viegas who said that the Federation is very concerned about the electrification transition around the world.
“I am very concerned about the energetic transition. We have started three years ago with electric bikes and we must be the example, we must show the way to follow. We must go for no emissions”.
The former Mexican president, Felipe Calderón also welcomed the Green Racing Virtual Summit by saying he is serving day after day for the electrification to reduce the carbon emissions.
“I’m happy to be here today in the Green Racing Virtual Summit. We have an ambitious goal to become net zero by 2030. You can be a motorsport fan and also be a fan of the global planet and I am both at the same time; to drive a car and be sustainable.”
Hard but successful path
After the introduction, the first panel called “The Road to Zero Emissions in Motorsports” was moderated by Evolectric Co-Founder, Bill Beverley.
Álvaro Buenaventura, Regional Director Latam of Formula E expressed that it is good to see other championships coming behind the series.
Regarding the main problems they face from the grassroots of electric car competitions, Buenaventura said: “Mostly is about financial obstacles and the batteries backups. For example, Formula E started with problems because the batteries didn’t last an hour race. In that sense, we decided that every pilot have two cars and in the middle of the race they would change. Now, Formula E has developed a more powerful battery.
“Formula E has been the first motorsport electric series, we started in 2014. It is good to see other championships coming behind and creating a bigger ecosystem and not only governments but brands and fans are joining the boat”.
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On the other hand, Rodi Basso, CEO of the E1 Series highlighted that the electric boat competition tries to show to the people water mobility can be fast, fun and reduce the carbon emissions.
Cofounder & Managing Director of Electric GT, Agustin Payá and Teo Teodosiev founder of Kinetik Automotive explained the pandemic situation has delay their competitions.
Next, Hrag Sarkissian, Co-Founder & CEO of eSC, joined in an interview and told that racing and micro-mobility are spaces growing very rapidly because both are requirement for people. Sarkissian also highlighted eSC believes that mobility and motorsport will be electric in the future, nevertheless, he thinks sports need to be accessible and inclusive.
From innovation in series to everyday use
In the second section called “From the track to the road: “how motoring technologies are translated to the road with cars and 2 wheels” had Kevin Goldvarg (Network Development & E – Performance Manager – Porsche Latin America), Joan Orús (CTO & Partner of Hispano Suiza and CEO QEV Technologie), Mark Jan Uijl (Team Manager – Forze Hydrogen Electric Racing) and Ovidio Morales (Vice President Extra Sports Activities FIM Latin America – FIM).
On the advances of the German manufacturer, which relies on its participation in Formula E to improve the quality of batteries in ordinary cars, Kevin Goldvarg mentioned that Porsche plans that 50% of the brand’s vehicles will be electric in 2025: “It is ambitious but possible. Manufacturing the Taycan, it is created using exclusive power from wind, solar and water. Not only is an electric car but also manufacturing process is co2 neutral”.
“Innovation is a good word for us for batteries we use 800 architects, twice what the industry is now. There is also a maximum power that the battery can contain: 620 KWH. You can go from 0 to 200 kilometers per hour,” Goldvarg said.
Joan Orús explained that QEV has created a 1000 horsepower hypercar that weighs around 100 kilos (220 pounds) and that the experience of creating a vehicle for Formula E has influenced the construction of road cars.
No federation? No problem for Sim Racing
Finally, the third panel called “How Sim Racing can promote sustainability” was moderated by Guillaume Fouché, Business Director Latam of BloombergNEF with Mike Rockenfeller, Thomas Voigt, Jörg Walz (all from World eX) and Benedikt Brandmeier (Head of Sales & Business Development of the Drone Champions League).
In this third section, they expressed to be comfortable with the fact that Simulation racing has not an official federation. “In any case you will need federations because there is so much money, people but I think that a young company like us is trying to connect with the community and a federation can be a limiting factor. We are so much focus on the community than the government body. Honestly we like where we are now,” said Benedikt Brandmeier.
