FE speculation from another thread

[dcpduke]

Formula E.

[B.]

The China Racing in Formula E is not the China Racing that solicited the services of Antônio Pizzonia by requesting his phone number over Twitter.

Unfortunately.

[B.]

Just to double-post (I mean, I could go an edit the last one, but the only way to gain credibility is to get my post count out of NBCSN number-range):

http://www.teamchina-racing.com/

http://www.fiaformulae.com/teams/china-racing

Formula E has wrongfully listed China Racing's Twitter as @ChinaRacing, which I like to imagine is the personal and professional Twitter account of Greg Beck. It's certainly not this China Racing, though. It has the wrong logo, the wrong website, and makes zero mentions of Formula E whatsoever.

It's too bad Pat Patrick's into LNG instead of electric. They could have just merged him into Danica.

All in all, I think this double post was completely worthwhile and did a lot to enhance TrackForum's knowledge of Fan Force United's 2014 plans.

[lizardfolk]

China Racing is back? LOL

The China Racing in Formula E is not the China Racing that solicited the services of Antônio Pizzonia by requesting his phone number over Twitter.

Unfortunately.

I was going to ask what's so funny about China Racing? lol I still have no idea what this other China Racing is but this China Racing is formed from the old A1GP Team China group that Astromega was helping out

[jcolbert]

Formula E has wrongfully listed China Racing's Twitter as @ChinaRacing, which I like to imagine is the personal and professional Twitter account of Greg Beck.

It's not Greg

[B.]

It's not Greg

Oh.

[Privateer]

To be very honest I think it might be formula e but that kinda feels wrong... FE's an international series that world hops like all of FIA's series. If they can't get the sponsorship to do a full time IndyCar ride I can't see how FE would be cheaper and more affordable... But... on Formula E's facebook one of the most recent statuses said "Six Formula E Teams now confirmed. Number seven coming soon -any predictions?!"

The "#7 coming soon" kinda coincides with this announcement dont you think? Could just be a coincidence but it'll be a funny one if it is

I've yet to understand where Formula E money is coming from.

-It's not coming from ride buyers because what would they be buying into?
-The series has to spend all this money building these one-off street circuits that will only be used for Formula E and not with any other racing series because they're internal combustion-based, so they can't piggyback on other series or spread out costs by other series piggybacking on them.
-A world travel schedule, which is part of why A1GP is now out of business - not having the financial support for a world series.
-Andretti are not dumb enough to run this out of their pockets (they in the past fielded the A1 Team USA program but that was because A1GP paid them to run and enter the team at events), so who's funding this?
-The FIA's involved but they know better than to throw their money down a hole.

[JamesC2123]

-The FIA's involved but they know better than to throw their money down a hole.

You have to spend money initially to make money down the line. If you don't provide enough investment at the outset to jump start interest, you're doomed to failure. The FIA is extremely wealthy, and has a strong desire, especially under Jean Todt, to prove the idea of forward thinking and specifically "green" racing (see WEC, and the new F1 engine formula). I can absolutely see them providing support for the teams for the first few years.

[Deutsch]

You have to spend money initially to make money down the line. If you don't provide enough investment at the outset to jump start interest, you're doomed to failure. The FIA is extremely wealthy, and has a strong desire, especially under Jean Todt, to prove the idea of forward thinking and specifically "green" racing (see WEC, and the new F1 engine formula). I can absolutely see them providing support for the teams for the first few years.

Yep, it could quite conceivably be an investment from the FIA. Whether towards growing the series (Formula E) or pushing green credentials.

[vintage]

I'm fairly confident this is heavily subsidized, though some of these team will try to use it as a way to clean up on the economic front. I could totally see Zach Veach dumping a bunch into the Andretti deal.

i believe the FIA has set budget limits (maybe 1.5 million?) but it's unclear to me how they can really manage that.

[B.]

DHL is a major partner of Formula E.

Maybe that probably has something possibly to sort of do with Andretti Autosport. I'll confirm with my sources later.

[B.]

DHL is a major partner of Formula E.

Maybe that probably has something possibly to sort of do with Andretti Autosport. I'll confirm with my sources later.

That's the impression I was under, too.

[jkeener24]

Having a conversation with ourselves, are we?

[lizardfolk]

-It's not coming from ride buyers because what would they be buying into?
-The series has to spend all this money building these one-off street circuits that will only be used for Formula E and not with any other racing series because they're internal combustion-based, so they can't piggyback on other series or spread out costs by other series piggybacking on them.
-A world travel schedule, which is part of why A1GP is now out of business - not having the financial support for a world series.
-Andretti are not dumb enough to run this out of their pockets (they in the past fielded the A1 Team USA program but that was because A1GP paid them to run and enter the team at events), so who's funding this?
-The FIA's involved but they know better than to throw their money down a hole.

Honestly I have no idea either. But money seems to be magically going into electric car technology because of all the environment hype. Although not that that' necessarily a bad thing but people are fickle these days on what "issues" they'd like to back and at the moment it's just cool to jump on the electric car wagon especially after this movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F

Formula E has a lot of sponsorships and a lot of teams are jumping onboard. I'm assuming it's because a lot of them are finding sponsorships due to the novelty factor of FE which, to be very honest, has more going for it from a marketing standpoint than A1GP did. If done right FE can have a symbiotic relationship with the whole electric car movement. It raises awareness of electric cars and electric technology while that awareness will cause more interest to feed back into, hopefully, FE and the electric car industry. We know that industry in general is always strapped for cash as there were a few times that Tesla almost came close to bankruptcy.

Personally, I'd like to see it develop. Electric cars should stop being tiny hatchbacks.

[OrdinaryRaceFan]

I think Jay Penske once said somewhere that he has sponsors calling him about potential sponsorship deals in Formula E, which in IndyCar always worked the other way around.