"A bloody fantastic racing series": Dodds wants Formula E to move beyond the EV label

Electric or combustion? Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds believes the debate over powertrains has become "almost a religious debate". While he remains convinced that EVs will ultimately become the dominant technology for road cars, he wants Formula E itself to be defined less by what powers its cars. With Gen4, the championship aims to win over more traditional motorsport fans - and eventually be seen simply as "a bloody fantastic racing series".

Dodds also acknowledges that Gen3 did not fully deliver on every expectation originally placed on it. He believes the technology was not quite ready for the performance step Formula E had wanted, while development also came relatively late in the process. "Gen3 has been an incredibly competitive period of racing," Dodds says, looking back at the past four years. "But the product itself hasn't really captured the attention of traditional racing fans. They want cars going over 200 miles an hour, and they want to see blistering performance on track."

That is what he believes should change with the next generation. "Gen4 is a step change in the performance of these cars. Maybe for the first time, traditional Formula 1 fans are going to look at it and go: 'Wow.'" For Dodds, that feeds directly into one of Formula E's wider goals: continuing to build better race cars until the championship is no longer judged primarily by the fact that it is electric.

"Almost a religious debate": Dodds criticises the divide

"People have made this almost a religious debate," Dodds says of the argument around EVs and combustion cars. "It's either electric or petrol, and people almost fight over it. Why does it have to be like that? I don't see the need to choose."

His own garage, he believes, is a good example of a more pragmatic approach. "At home, I have two electric cars and one combustion car because they do different things for me. I don't see that as being a problem."

Dodds also expects attitudes to become less polarised over time. "I think the future will be much more pragmatic about this topic. Right now, it does feel quite political."

"The fastest racing car of the future would be electric"

That does not mean Dodds is backing away from electric technology. "I do think electric vehicles will be the pre-eminent technology for road cars." But he also accepts that the transition has not happened at the pace some once expected, arguing that the timelines may simply have been too ambitious. "Like many things in life, maybe people were very ambitious with the timeline."

At the same time, Dodds points to major differences between individual markets. China has become a huge EV market and countries such as Norway are already overwhelmingly electric, while the US is currently moving in a different direction. Electrification, in other words, is not progressing at the same speed everywhere.

What Dodds does not doubt is the outright performance potential of electric power. "If you and I were put in a room today and someone said, 'You've got to build the fastest racing car of the future, the fastest accelerating car,' we'd build an electric car."

At the same time, he openly acknowledges why combustion engines still have such a powerful emotional hold over many motorsport fans. "Combustion cars have a lot of history. People love the sound of them and, dare I say, the smell of them, because that's what they associate with speed and historic racing."

That emotional connection is precisely what Formula E, in Dodds' view, increasingly has to overcome through the quality of its sporting product. With Gen4 bringing a major increase in performance, the fact that the championship is electric should eventually become less important to how it is perceived.

"Our role is to make sure we continue building better and better racing cars so that, in the future, it's no longer about 'that's an electric racing series' and 'that's a combustion racing series'. It's just that we're a bloody fantastic racing series."