Mercedes has presented a first look at its Formula E car in a ‘teaser livery’ ahead of its entry into the 2019-20 championship later this year.
The car will be displayed at the International Motor Show in Geneva between March 7th and 17th. When it enters Formula E, Mercedes will be the only manufacturer competing in both the electric single-seater series and Formula 1.“Formula E is going to be a completely new playing field for us,” said head of Mercedes Motorsport Toto Wolff. “But we are looking forward to the challenge of demonstrating the performance of our intelligent battery-electric drives in motorsport and of giving a positive boost to the EQ brand.”
The chief design officer for Daimler AG, Gorden Wagener, gave some insight into the thinking behind the ‘teaser livery’.
“The Mercedes-Benz EQ Silver Arrow 01 teaser car gives a foretaste of the first all-electric Silver Arrow from Mercedes-Benz,” he said. “Blue accents and the subtle contrast between matt and gloss in conjunction with the star pattern at the rear of the vehicle stage the progressive luxury in electric motorsport.”
Mercedes Formula E car teaser livery
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maiagus
4th March 2019, 14:35
(a little off topic) If the trend continues, in 10 years there will be no more open wheel/chassis in top level competition.
Together with the call for head protection, apparently the current best aero solution calls for covered wheels, small central body and large barges – if so, ot makes no sense to keep other parts exposed.
JMDan (@danmar)
5th March 2019, 7:43
They’ll eventually look like racing boats on wheels.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
4th March 2019, 14:36
I’m a fan of how they’re using tiny three-pointed stars as a design element of the livery, both in F1 and in FE.
gabe
5th March 2019, 0:56
I liked the 3 pointed stars pattern, too — but now it reminds me of treadplate from a truck.
tony mansell
4th March 2019, 14:36
Face of Monica Geller, voice of Janice. Shame as they are better looking than f1 cars at the moment
Matteo (@m-bagattini)
5th March 2019, 8:38
You mistype “face of Rachel Green” ;)
Palindnilap (@palindnilap)
4th March 2019, 14:46
Looks great on the shiny picture. On track I fear a bit that it will look like an umpteenth grey car. “Here are the Mercedes, the Nissan and the Venturi all bunched up together. I’ll just assume they are is the same order they were before. Oh crap”.
OK, I am partly colour-blind, so may not be the best person to judge.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
4th March 2019, 14:54
That’s a good point, especially against the tarmac colour.
Paul F (@)
5th March 2019, 13:10
It’s not just you. I’ve been having a tough time distinguishing the liveries on some of the FE cars too. I also regret the lack of a different camera mast color on FE as the helmets of the drivers are too hard to see behind the halo.
At least in F1 I know Seb has a black mast and Carlos will have the yellow.
Dave The Drummer (@davethedrummer)
4th March 2019, 14:48
Nice teaser. It’s much better looking than any of the current F1 stable, by some margin in my view.
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
4th March 2019, 14:52
Isn’t that Petronas color? Why not yellow Geely? The one they had collaboration in battery factory?
He Man
4th March 2019, 14:52
Hi Keith,
I love this website, but 1 improvement I think can be made is, when viewing pictures, you could press to view a full size pic and then swipe right or left to view the other linked pictures – like how you can view pics on motorsport.com as an example
kpcart
4th March 2019, 15:15
I think f1 will be electric by 2018, they have to be, they need to move with the future, internal combustion is garbage now even with do much invested in its technology, too inefficient now. F1 needs to watch out, all these manufacturers entering formula e, they may undercut f1. For now formula e is playing it safe with speed, but look at the tesla model 3 performance, the technology is now, formula e is there and f1 is not, I can’t imagine what motorsport will be like in 6 or so years. I live in western Australia, there is a new boom starting in mining here, lithium mining.
Krommenaas (@krommenaas)
4th March 2019, 15:28
@kpcart: they’re playing it safe with speed because there is no battery technology for a full-length full-speed race yet.
Jere (@jerejj)
4th March 2019, 16:26
@kpcart But in the end, it didn’t happen. F1 didn’t become all-electric by last year I mean.
tony mansell
4th March 2019, 16:48
Maybe its 2018 in western Australia, its 2019 elsewhere
Phylyp (@phylyp)
4th March 2019, 16:51
I could never get the hang of time zones :)
robinsonf1 (@)
4th March 2019, 17:00
Ah, those unlimited lithium mines… Batteries really are the [short term] future of motoring… *cough* *cough*
Pironi the Provocateur (@pironitheprovocateur)
4th March 2019, 17:30
Cannot agree more, all those progressive ecoguys promoting lithium mining and producing elecricity by burning fossil fuels… :) they are truly a walking contradiction.
petebaldwin (@)
4th March 2019, 20:17
Don’t forget the incredible amount of work that will be required to enable millions of people to charge their cars when they get home (at the same time!). What happens with people who don’t have a driveway or garage and have to park on the street? Even if some countries have the ability to make all of this possible, lots won’t so what happens with them?
Lee1
6th March 2019, 9:38
This is all solvable. We are not all of a sudden going to have every car on the road being an EV! People get home at all sorts of different times, it is not the Truman Show where everyone leaves and arrives home at exactly the same time. Also some people will need to charge every night some will only need to charge once a week. Others will not plug in their cars until the late evening. Smart charges will also help manage all of this.
For instance, up until recently I worked quite a long way from home. I needed to charge my car each night and I plugged it in at about 11pm. However on a Friday it would not need to be plugged in as I did less miles at the weekend and there was plenty left to leave it until Sunday night. I now work close to home and I charge my car once a week.
Those that do not have driveways can either charge their cars at rapid chargers or will be able to make use of the chargers being installed in lampposts etc. There are also wireless charge points being developed that will simply be in the road so when you park over it you can initiate a charge. National grid have done studies into the potential impact and have worked out that we are likely to only need an extra 10% generation capacity if we all suddenly bought an EV overnight. I mean we already now have major Grid demand and everything holds together. Christmas day has huge spikes in demand when everyone is cooking dinner at the same time (ovens use a large amount of peak power). Also after a power cut the electric comes on for all houses in an area at the same time, turning everything in those homes back on at once yet nothing blows up and the rest of the country does not go into black out.
There are plenty of solutions for our problems. the only real problem is attitude.
Lee1
6th March 2019, 9:10
No one is promoting burning fossil fuels to produce electricity. The major benefit of EVs is that they get greener as the grid gets greener. Stop sensationalising things in order to push your agenda.
Lithium is also produced in a number of ways. It can be mined, it can be extracted from brine lakes (just like your table salt) and can be extracted from sea water. Currently most Lithium is produced by evaporating brine in large pools. Lithium is also not a particularly hazardous chemical so mining it is still better than drilling for oil!
It is probably better to learn about these things rather than stick to your old misconceptions.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
4th March 2019, 17:07
It’s going to be hard to outdo this for boldest prediction of 2019.
Lee1
6th March 2019, 8:52
F1 will not be fully electric in the next few years. Also despite being a strong supporter of moving the petrol car ban dramatically forwards I do not think F1 needs to be. It is not road relevant anyway even with regard to petrol cars so it certainly can keep going as a combustion engined series for quite some time. Of course there will be a tipping point where ICE is just not able to compete with Electric on racing speed but we are a little way off that right now. F1 adds little in the grand scheme of things to CO2 levels. I do see FE becoming more and more popular though.
GeeMac (@geemac)
4th March 2019, 17:19
Mercedes-Benz EQ Silver Arrow 01 – Terrible, terrible name for a racing car.
mrfill (@mrfill)
5th March 2019, 13:17
Not being silver, it is also pretty inaccurate…
Stephen Higgins
4th March 2019, 19:29
F1 will outfox FE by going to hydrogen – the real alternative fuel …
Jimmi Cynic (@jimmi-cynic)
4th March 2019, 19:50
Could be. But, everyone is giggling about F1’s transitional fuel source: helium. Free balloons for the kids!
Matteo (@m-bagattini)
5th March 2019, 8:48
@jimmi-cynic having hosted a party for my 3yo with a dozen of helium filled balloons… well, F1 needs to highly increase its budget if they want to use helium as fuel, that thing is damn expensive
Paul F (@)
5th March 2019, 13:14
It’s also a more limited resource than oil. At least Hydrogen can be cracked from water. Helium is only produced on earth by the radioactive decay of radium, I believe.
And of course it’s non reactive, doesn’t combust, etc.
Lee1
6th March 2019, 9:05
Yes helium is running out rapidly. There is only one storage facility on earth and that is in the US. It was developed for storing the gas for use in airships and has not had any Helium added to it since the height of the airship back in the 1930s.
It is also as you point out not combustible or reactive.
thegamer23
4th March 2019, 19:54
FE is not meant for Electric only tho
Agag (FE boss) said that, if a better tecnology (like Hydrogen) will come through, they will evolve into it.
Lee1
6th March 2019, 9:02
Hydrogen is not a great choice. It needs very bulky tanks which take up a lot of space and are almost impossible to package in a good way. Hydrogen also currently is produced from steam reformation of methane which uses a lot of energy and releases huge amounts of CO2. Also hydrogen cars have to have batteries anyway as fuel cells are not able to change power very effectively and are not able to store regenerated energy. Fuel cells are also only around 60% efficient which is far better than ICE but nowhere near the 90% efficiency of battery EVs.
Even if we produced all the Hydrogen from water, it would still be far less efficient as a process than simply charging a battery. The Hydrogen would require energy to split it from the water, then it would need more energy to compress it. Then more energy is needed to transport it to the fuel stations. Once in the car it will lose 40% of its energy in the fuel cell and then the remaining power will be put into the battery which will again lose 10%. You could probably power 2-3 battery evs on the same energy as a single Hydrogen car. And you would have a much worse car design as a result, Batteries can be formed in many shapes and packaged effectively into the vehicle in order to maximise handling, internal space, safety etc. A hydrogen tank is a pressure cylinder so has to be a particular size and shape. Even petrol tanks can be packaged better than a hydrogen tank.
Hydrogen could be a very good choice for mass storage for our renewable energy generation but it is a bad choice for cars…
Duncan Snowden
4th March 2019, 22:50
It’s… um… I mean, okay, it’s a “teaser” livery and all that. Maybe it’ll be different on the race car.
But… er…
Hey, it’s definitely very arrow-like. No doubt about that. Those new FE cars are really pointy at the front.
The thing is, though… it’s… ah… it’s not very silver, is it?
(Maybe they had some kind of trademark issue with Qinetiq. :D )