The Berlin Wall

Yet another wall still stood in Berlin, waiting to be torn down, and last week a piece finally came down. It was an invisible wall, yet it stood tall and strong like the one that split the city in two until the winter of 1989. One that still stands not only in Berlin but in much of the world: that of widespread prejudice against electric vehicles.

The first blow to the wall was struck on German soil by the Formula E Grand Prix, which held rounds seven and eight of the season on June 10 and 11 in what was almost a metaphysical setting: at the Tempelhof Airport, on the temporary circuit built along the gigantic arc-shaped terminal in rationalist style.

The battery-powered single-seaters dueled along sweeping curves, cutting chicanes and speeding down the track at over two hundred kilometers an hour, their electric engines blaring past the crowds like a spaceship about to take off, lap after adrenaline-fueled lap, sending an important message to audiences: electric vehicles are very different from what you have always imagined.

Never have Marshall McLuhan's famous words rung so true: “the medium is the message” and the medium in question – one that is powerful, fast as lightning, with scorching acceleration, in other words, a four-wheeled rocket – with its futuristic design, embodies the exact opposite of the prejudice and preconceptions it is attempting to eradicate. That is, that of an unattractive electric vehicle, one that is slow, inefficient and, in general, not very “cool”.

That’s the true goal of Formula E, in addition to the pure excitement that never fails. As summarised byFederico Caleno, Director of New Technologies and Global Innovation at Enel, the championship’s main technological partner, “spreading electric mobility culture, especially among younger generations: like a child watching Formula One thirty years dreamed of driving a Ferrari one day, we hope that a child today, fascinated by Formula E, dreams of one day sitting behind the wheel of an e-car.”

An e-car that could be an Audi or a Jaguar (two manufacturers that today are present at Formula One with their vehicles), a BMW or a Mercedes (coming up next season), or perhaps a Ferrari, since the Maranello manufacturer recently expressed interest in a zero-impact version of the F1.

Alejandro Agag, CEO of Formula E, highlighted the importance of the concept during the third Smart Cities Forum event, promoted by FIA and held at Tempelhof on the sidelines of the races: “Today, vehicle emissions are one of the major causes of global warming. So the urgent need to spread electric mobility has become a true battle on which our survival depends. We will forever lose this battle if we don’t face it with the right technology. The Formula E microcosm offers us a unique opportunity because it is based on a high concentration of technologies that together form a very powerful combination: high efficiency batteries, fast-charging stations, smart meters, smart grids, real-time energy management, state-of-the-art engines.”