Motorsport is a testing ground for environmentally friendly mobility which is why Osaka wants a Formula 1 race. This is just one of the interesting facts related to sustainable motorsport that you will learn this week. I also have details on the FIA’s Sustainability and D&I Report, sustainability at NASCAR and how Extreme E produced 80% of its race site power with hydrogen fuel cells. It’s all in this week’s Sustainable Motorsport Roundup.
Sustainable Motorsport News
The FIA has released their 2023 FIA Sustainability and D&I Report, highlighting the work they have done and the work still left to do. Some of the highlights:
- FIA Girls on Track reached 3500 girls and women across 5 continents in 2023
- 41 organizations have joined the FIA environmental Accreditation program in 2023
- The ISO Net Guidelines have been adopted to strengthen the FIA’s Net Zero Strategy
You can read more about the report and download it at https://sustainabilityreport.fia.com/.
The Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix is on the road to halving its energy emissions by 2028, organizers have said. In their 2023 Impact Report, total emissions from event operations directly under SGP’s control within the Circuit Park’s patron experience zones at last year’s F1 night race amounted to 1880.80tCO2e, a reduction of 20.7% from the 2022 baseline within the five-month reporting period. This excludes freight, logistics and travel by Formula 1 and competing teams. Read more at Global Sustainable Sport.
Joseph Wolkin of Forbes has a great feature on Riley Nelson, senior director, head of sustainability at NASCAR. “A large portion of Nelson’s strategy is to secure company- and industry-wide buy-in to Nascar’s overarching sustainability efforts. Among her efforts are growing the Nascar IMPACT team to a total of six full-time employees. This wider team enables them to educate people in Nascar about how the sport can be sustainable without pivoting away from its core values.”
Read the full profile at Forbes.
Osaka is creating a panel of experts to boost its bid to get an F1 race slot in the coming years, but what caught my eye was how they framed the importance of an F1 race.
“Since we announced in January this year that we would try to attract the F1 Grand Prix, we have received many opinions from various stakeholders and fans,” said Hiroshi Mizohata, president of the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau. “In Japan, motorsport tends to be viewed as a race for only a few enthusiasts, but diversity is progressing and it has become a sport that everyone can enjoy. It also has the character of being a testing ground for environmentally friendly mobility such as carbon neutral.”
Episode 36 of the Green Sports Blog Podcast features Michele Spiezia, Ellysium Racing’s ‘GM of Everything’.
“We could not think of a better guest to talk about that E-future on this episode of GreenSportsPod than Michele Spiezia, the ‘GM of Everything’ at Ellysium Racing, the racing team that is wholly dedicated to propelling electric vehicles as fast as possible, while also sparking advances in e-mobility at warp speed. Oh yeah, she happens to be the mom of Ellis, Ellysium Racing’s 18-year-old lead driver, aka “The Electric Renegade”, the driving force behind its vision for the future, and an EcoAthletes Champion.”
You can listen to the episode here.
Sustainable Motorsport Tech
Watch Andrew Coley, one of Extreme E’s commentators, in the video above as he explains what Hydrogen is and how it will be used in Extreme H to power the all-new Pioneer 25.
Here is another sustainable motorsport blast from the path. The Green4U was a company by Don Panoz that aimed to enter Le Mans with the introduction of an all-electric race car.
The Green4U Panoz Racing GT-EV team, led by Vice President of Engineering and Design Brian Willis, had outlined the race car͛s initial design and performance targets:
- 400 to 450 kW total power
- 175 to 180 mph top speed
- Removable battery pack design enabling battery exchanges during pit stops
- 90- to 110-mile range in race conditions
- All-wheel drive with two electric motors (One driving the front wheels and the second powering the rear wheels)
- 2,200 to 2,750 lbs. total mass with battery pack
- Roughly 192 x 72 x 48 inches (L x W x H)
- A unique carbon fiber chassis design with an offset closed cockpit
- Active aerodynamics to reduce drag on straightaways and increase range and performance
- Regenerative braking technology on all wheels
Sadly, it never raced.
I have two interesting developments in battery technology to feature this week.
Addionics, which is backed by General Motors’ GM Ventures venture-capital arm, has developed a new foil current collector, updating a component that “hasn’t changed much in 30 years,” CEO Moshiel Biton said in a recently published interview with TechCrunch. You can get more details at Green Car Reports.
Volkswagen is teaming up with battery developer QuantumScape to start mass-producing all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs) as it looks to ramp up the evolution of its EVs. The result? Likely increased range, reduced charge times, stronger 0-62 sprints and possibly higher top speeds. There’s no word yet on just which VW models could be outfitted with ASSBs first, but it has been mentioned the duo will target a ‘scaled-up’ model as the basis. Read more about this battery technology at Top Gear.
Series News
The video above is an exclusive behind-the-scenes special about the world’s first hydrogen racing series, Extreme H. The video follows the car through the testing process and you get a VIP pass to the official Extreme H launch.
Extreme E and ENOWA celebrated a unique milestone in motorsport at the recent Hydro X Prix in Scotland, producing 80 per cent of the race site power with hydrogen fuel cells. Using 700kg of green hydrogen supplied by ENOWA, the Official Green Hydrogen Power Partner of Extreme E, and fuel cell technology supplied by Kaizen Clean Energy, the Dumfries and Galloway race site was able to use the 11 Megawatt-hours (MWh) produced to support car charging, catering, and event control power.
Ali Russell, Managing Director of Extreme E, said: “Extreme E’s commitment to sustainability is a key pillar of our pioneering racing series. The 11MWh produced across the Hydro X Prix is equivalent to the energy required to power 1,000 homes in the UK, for a day, or charge the electric vehicles at the race site more than 350 times. That is hugely impressive as we continue to highlight how green hydrogen power and innovations can be best used for the long-term benefit of the planet.
The Big Picture
UEFA has hailed the recent Euro 2024 as a success in terms of its environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives, having seen 81% of spectators arriving at matches using eco-friendly transport. Some 275,000 fans purchased the dedicated Deutsche Bahn tickets, while 7,600 took up the opportunity to buy interrail tickets which allowed fans to travel between European countries.
More than 850,000 UEFA Fan Pass users activated their public transport tickets to travel around the host cities and their surroundings. Plans for a ticket combined with transport offerings were announced in October last year.
Read more at Global Sustainable Sport.
Getting to the Track Sustainably
- This Bonkers New All-Electric Sports Car Is Poised to Break the Porsche Taycan’s Track Record (Robb Report)
- This New Kawasaki Prototype Is a Hydrogen-Powered Version of the Legendary Ninja Motorcycle (Robb Report)
- SANY Launches Electric Truck for Freight Corridor (EV Magazine)
- Toyota’s Hydrogen Trucks: A Step in Decarbonising Freight (Energy Digital)
- Supercar maker sells EV division to focus on gas V-12s (Green Car Reports)
- Daimler Truck begins year-long customer trials of hydrogen fuel cell trucks (Freight Carbon Zero)
- This New Hybrid-Electric Airliner Could Hit the Skies by 2028 (Robb Report)
- How hybrid planes could make aviation more sustainable (World Economic Forum)
- Airbus and partners invest in Sustainable Aviation Fuel financing fund (Airbus)
- Google and DHL collaborate on sustainable worldwide shipping (DHL)
Author: Mark Boudreau
Mark is the publisher of Motorsport Prospects. As a former lawyer, he applies his legal background and research skills to assist race drivers by showcasing the resources they need to make their motorsport careers happen.
