North American electric car manufacturer Faraday Future is joining Formula E, the all-electric racing series run by the organiser of Formula 1.
Faraday Future will be entering the series in a technical partnership with Dragon Racing, one of the 10 existing Formula E teams. The company will also become a stakeholder in Dragon Racing, which is owned by Jay Penske, the son of motorsport legend Roger Penske.
The team, now called Faraday Future Dragon Racing, will make its official debut at the start of Formula E’s third season in Hong Kong this October.
For the 2016/17 season, Faraday Future’s R&D team will look for opportunities within the Dragon Racing platform to improve overall drivetrain performance. They will also refine data acquisition and analytics to improve vehicle simulation models, which will aid in more accurate predictions of vehicle performance and efficiency.
In the following season, the two organisations will work together to implement Faraday powertrain components, software, firmware and other hardware. This could include Faraday Future motors, gearbox and the FF Echelon Inverter – the same inverter that will be installed into every future Faraday Future production vehicle.
LeEco, the Chinese company that is bankrolling Faraday Future, is working on its own electric car and has said it will be involved in Dragon Racing sponsorship.