Formula E
Launched in 2014, the FIA Formula E Championship is now a major global motorsports event. For TotalEnergies, which wants to meet the challenges of sustainable mobility, it is an ideal “test lab”. Starting in 2020-2021, its seventh season, the series switches status and becomes a world championship. To test and develop tomorrow’s solutions, we have set out our commitment to this discipline, alongside our partner DS-TECHEETAH.
Successful partnership between TotalEnergies and DS-TECHEETAH
Following our partnership with DS Automobiles, TotalEnergies is involved, since 2018, in the FIA Formula E World Championship with DS-TECHEETAH - made up of DS Performance, the sports division of DS Automobiles, and the Chinese team Techeetah.
Our engineers use all their expertise to create custom fluids for this car class, whose features are different from combustion vehicles. Our products must help delay the formation of a flame in the event of a short circuit. So, we design them with a specific focus on their insulating properties.
The electric engine also offers a higher output than a combustion unit: 95% compared with 45%. The calories produced – and therefore to be evacuated – remain higher and may generate significant levels of heat within the machinal components (engine and gear box). Our lubricants offer an optimized and efficient cooling to guarantee optimum temperature control.
The teamwork and close collaboration that are the hallmarks of our partnership with DS Performance have paid off, with DS TECHEETAH winning the Team title and Jean-Éric Vergne becoming the first person to win back-to-back Formula E Drivers’ titles in the 2018-2019 season. The team successfully defended its title in the 2019-2020, whilst Antonio Felix Da Costa, the other DS TECHEETAH driver, claimed his maiden Drivers’ title.
Formula E at the heart of tomorrow’s mobility
Formula E offers an outstanding test environment for technologies that are being developed. The E-Prix races are very intense and often held in hot countries, providing extreme conditions that must be imitated in our laboratory.
This has enabled us to collect valuable data that has been used to create our QUARTZ EV FLUID lubricant range, which is perfectly aligned with the needs of electrified vehicles, whether they are hybrids, plug-in hybrids or electric.
Driving progress in this segment, these pioneering products illustrate our commitment to meeting the challenges of tomorrow’s mobility, while offering energy solutions in line with the environmental and climate challenges faced.
TotalEnergies has organised itself so that its consumer product range designed for electric vehicles, QUARTZ EV FLUID, can benefit from its latest discoveries in FE within a matter of months. This applies both to electric motor cooling fluid as well as gearbox and differential coolant.
The same engineers work on racing products and TotalEnergies’ consumer range, thus ensuring technical developments can be rolled out quickly. Once the prototype designed for DS TECHEETAH has been approved, it is then a matter of adapting the technology to the requirements of production vehicles. This particularly involves ensuring a longer lifespan for products, with specific tests conducted in conjunction with car and gearbox manufacturers so that the link between racing and production vehicles is effective.
