Could Formula E GEN4’s Epic New Performance Satisfy Max Verstappen?

GEN4 is the most powerful Formula E car yet by a big margin.

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Formula E has changed a lot over its 12 seasons so far. From an almost comical beginning in its first four seasons involving a midrace change of car, the series has constantly improved its technology, with ultra-rapid pitstop charging added since season 11. But the next evolution promises the biggest step forward yet. Formula E GEN4, arriving next season, will deliver more power and many other changes to ramp up the excitement to a new level.

Formula E GEN4’s Massive Leap In Performance

“It’s a big step,” says Thomas Chevaucher, FIA Technical Engineering Director. “It’s the highest performing Formula E that ever existed, the most powerful, but also a huge technological step.” The new GEN4 car has a significantly updated powertrain, offering 600kW of peak power (815bhp), a 71% increase over GEN3’s 350kW, although race power will be limited to 450kW, a 50% increase on the previous 300kW. The car will have a top speed of over 208mph, with the ability to hit 62mph in around 1.8 seconds. Most significantly, all-wheel drive will be on all the time, rather than just in ATTACK MODE and qualifying. The dual motors can also deliver even more regenerative power than before – 700kW, a 17% increase over GEN3.

“This is our golden opportunity to unlock the full potential of Formula E,” says Ian James, Team Principal, Jaguar TCS. “That will only develop and improve further as we go forward. We're going to open a lot of people's eyes to how performant and exciting electric racing can be. Those of us who've been involved in the sport already know that the racing is second to none. Now we've got a lot more scope to develop the car. The opening up of the hydraulic systems, including the brake by wire and differentials, is going to give us so much more tunability compared to now.”

The three previous Formula E generations show a consisten progression in performance and range.

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“We’re facing GEN4 with excitement and anxiety,” adds Frédéric Bertrand, CEO and Team Principal, Mahindra. “Excitement because the promise is big, and the step up in performance is huge. Anxiety because we need to make sure that we build a good car while we first need to close season 12 well. Excitement is far higher than anxiety!”

“There is a lot of technology to be implemented for GEN4,” adds Lucas Di Grassi, currently driving for Lola Yamaha ABT and Formula E Season 3 Champion. “GEN1 to GEN2 was a huge step, and then GEN3 went sideways for a while. The original GEN3 was not way faster than GEN2. Now GEN4 is a huge leap.” One team principal even argued that GEN4 would be “game over” for other single-seater motorsports, back in 2024.

Even More Efficiency With Formula E GEN4

However, efficiency is still an important area for Formula E, even as the GEN4 power skyrockets. “Since its inception, Formula E has always been an incredibly efficient machine,” says Chevaucher. “The energy recovery that we are doing for GEN4 is reaching the highest level that we never had in Formula E history. Nearly half of the energy that we use during the race will come from regen. It's four-wheel drive, meaning that there are front and rear motors used both in traction and regeneration, with 700kW maximum power in regen, 100kW more than GEN3.”

In theory, it would be possible to do the entire race without mechanical carbon brakes, and even in GEN3 the rear brakes are there for emergencies only, with motor regeneration providing the main stopping power. “There will be phases in the race where we will not use the brakes at all,” says Chevaucher. “However, the grip of the GEN4 car and its performance make braking so late that you will need the extra power of the carbon brakes. But the energy-saving phase of the car will be without them.”

New aero packages and grooved slicks will get the best out of the more powerful drivetrain.

Formula E

“With just the regen, you get over 2G of braking, meaning that you can already decelerate twice as much as a normal car,” adds Chevaucher. “With the carbon brakes it’s 3.5G. The highest braking that you will use from the braking is for the first tenths of a second, because when you hit the brakes on a single seater, you are hitting them super hard and then you are decreasing the power very quickly.”

The GEN4 charging system remains the same, however, with ABB supplying the everyday energy replenishment, while the 600kW PIT BOOST comes from Fortescue Zero. “We used the first season as development for PIT BOOST, because it was more complex than just 600kW. It could be 600kW for all the cars at the same time during a race,” says Chevaucher. However, the GEN4 battery is another area of considerable improvement over GEN3 – 55kWh instead of 47kWh, of which just 38.5kWh of this was usable for racing. “The battery has the biggest amount of energy that we ever carried. The density is higher, so the usable energy is increasing by 30% compared to GEN3. It’s a huge improvement.” However, this has come with a significant weight increase, taking the car from 856kg without driver for GEN3 to 954kg for GEN4. The latter is also over 500mm longer and 90mm wider.

Formula E GEN4’s New Aero And Tires

In the past, Formula E focused on efficient aerodynamics rather than downforce, but that’s changing too with GEN4. “There are now two different levels of aerodynamics,” says Chevaucher. “One is low drag, so super-efficient, which we use for part of the season. Then there’s a high downforce high performance version that will be used at different times.” However, there is no decision yet when each will be employed. “This is under discussion.”

Formula E GEN4 will easily out-drag a Formula One car off the line.

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“The pace of the car will be very different from one version to another,” explains Chevaucher. “It will allow us to demonstrate the performance of the car by changing the front and rear wings. From the beginning, Formula E has been an efficiency competition, and for this, you must commit to low drag and low downforce. With the GEN4 car, we still show it’s a super-efficient machine, but also that it’s super high performance with high down force. It's not the downforce of Formula One, but it will still showcase what's possible. The GEN4 will be a very fast car, because it can already out-drag a Formula One car off the line.”

The tire options are different too. Instead of relying on one tire based on modified road rubber, there will be a grooved slick for general racing and a full wet option. “We’re going to get to a point where the performance is no longer seen as a limiting factor for the championship,” says James. “Quite the opposite. We're going to showcase something that is going to deliver the kind of exciting, close racing that we've been used to in Formula E alongside performance that takes it into the upper echelons of motorsport. Where people's eyes will be opened again is the fact that this is just the start of that journey. GEN4 is going to get faster, and at some point, it will overtake more traditional forms of motorsport. Four wheel drive all the time is the thing that unleashes what EVs are capable of.”

Could Formula E GEN4 Win Over Formula One Fans?

The GEN4 car is already changing a few skeptical minds about Formula E and might even give Max Verstappen less incentive to use the race series as an insult regarding the direction of Formula 1. “The responses on social media from hard motorsport fans that looked at GEN1 and laughed are saying that it's on the coattails of F1 now,” says Dan Cherowbrier, CTO, Formula E. “It's achieving far better acceleration and similar top speeds.” The larger battery will also mean the GEN4 car will be able to maintain that pace for longer during the race.

However, even with the GEN4 car, Formula E won’t be faster than Formula 1 immediately. “You're still constrained by the ultimate power you can have,” says James. “It's capped at 600kW. The drivetrain could deliver significantly more than that, if you chose to use full slicks.” Despite the new higher downforce package, the GEN4 car won’t have the cornering speed of an F1 car. “We haven’t entered an arms race for aerodynamics. But if you gave the teams the opportunity to develop the aero in the way that they wanted to, then you could showcase what that GEN4 and an electric single-seater racing car is capable of. There are aspects of the Formula E car and electric single-seaters that are going to be even more performant than the combustion engine car could be.”

Formula E GEN4 will be the most exciting electric racing ever.

Formula E

There will be plenty of additional underlying hardware updates, for example a new DC to DC converter from ABB’s Brightloop. “You're going to throw a lot of new things into the mix with GEN4,” adds Cherowbrier. “You’ve got the two different aero packages, you've got the tires, you've got the fact that you've got way more power available. In GEN3 the ECU on the car is standard across all the cars. It becomes manufacturer specific with GEN4, so they start to run their own computer on the cars. One of the big differentiators between different types of EV cars is the software they're running.”

Cherowbrier predicts a bright future with the new Formula E GEN4 era, which will also change the venues it uses. “As Formula E evolved in the early years, it was exciting racing, but it wasn't as fast as you might have wanted it to be,” he says. “Now, GEN4 is always fast now, so we start to think differently. That changes how we think about the tracks we use. We still want to be in urban environments, but we don't necessarily need to be in city centers with 90-degree beds, because that would take some of that joy away. We also want to schedule races so that we can get best use of the new level of performance. But I can't tell you too much about that, because it's all under discussion However, Di Grassi is already thinking beyond GEN4 towards a Formula E that could take the lead in racing: “The future car, the GEN5, could be the fastest and most technologically advanced motorsport in the world.”

This article was originally published on Forbes.com