World Rallycross Championship will go all-electric in 2020
A new spark to keep the World Rallycross fire burning
THE WORLD Rallycross Championship will soon be ditching its extremely powerful petrol engines in favour of all-electric powertrains.
Following in the footsteps of other racing series such as Formula E, the World Rallycross Championship will become an all-electric form of motor sport as of 2020.
As part of the new technology adoption, the series name will officially change to “FIA Electric World Rallycross Championship”.
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Taking the boisterous noise out of rallycross may seem sacrilegious to some fans, but becoming an EV-only sport is quite a savvy move by the World Rallycross series.
With the rules mandating modified versions of production vehicles, the World Rallycross Championship should be quite an exciting way for car makers to promote their latest electric road cars to an ever-expanding audience of rallycross fans, thereby pulling more big name brands into the series, as has happened with Formula E.
An electric drivetrain also makes sense for the short, fast sprint races of rallycross. With each round lasting between four and six laps, on tracks that often take less than 40 seconds to complete, there shouldn’t be any need for drivers to swap cars mid-way because they ran out of battery power (we’re looking at you in particular, Formula E).
What’s more, the huge torque associated with pure-electric drivetrains is made for the sport.
Supplying the battery packs until 2023 will be Williams Advanced Engineering — an off-shoot of the Williams F1 team that provides engineering, testing,
manufacturing and operational consultancy services to the automotive, motor sport, aerospace, defence, health and energy sectors. Its goal is to “help customers meet the sustainability challenges of the 21st century and improve performance, with its expertise in aerodynamics and thermodynamics, electrification, advanced lightweight materials and vehicle integration.”
The company’s other projects have included producing the batteries for the FIA Formula E electric single seater series, an “electric flywheel accumulator” used in the Audi R18 Le Mans car and development of the Jaguar C-X75 hybrid supercar.
There’s no official word on when we’ll get to see the first all-electric World RX cars, but don’t expect them to be revealed until halfway through 2019 at the earliest.
Which electric models would you like to see taking part? Tell us below.
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