Back in November 2015, it was announced that a driverless support series would be coming to Formula E in 2016 called Roborace.
The 20-car series will follow the FIA Formula E series throughout the 2016-2017 season as 10 teams - including one organized as a crowd-sourced community team - will field 2 cars apiece in an effort to develop autonomous technology.
All 20 cars will be identical. It will be up to the minds on the pit wall to determine whether their car wins or loses the race via the car’s real-time computing algorithms and AI technologies.
On Thursday, we got a look at the first designs of the Roborace autonomous race car, designed by Chief Design Officer Daniel Simon.
“My goal was to create a vehicle that takes full advantage of the unusual opportunities of having no driver without ever compromising on beauty,” said Simon, who has worked on Hollywood Sci-Fi movies such as Tron: Legacy and Oblivion. “Racing engineers and aerodynamicists have worked with me from the beginning to strike that balance. The Roborace is as much about competition as it is entertainment. Therefore - and quite unusual in today’s racing world - beauty was very high on our agenda and we work hard to merge the best performance with stunning styling.
“It was important to us that we generate substantial downforce without unnecessary parts cluttering the car to maintain a clean and iconic look. This is largely made possible by using the floor as the main aerodynamic device and we are currently developing active body parts that are more organic and seamless than solutions today.”
“Today is an historic day for motorsport, and the car industry in general,” said Formula E CEO Alejandro Agag. “This first image of the Robocar, designed by Daniel Simon, represents a vision of what cars will be, a vision of our future. In Formula E we are proud to promote, together with pioneers like Denis Sverdlov and Daniel Simon, a revolution in the world of motorsport, a project that will change the future of mobility.”
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