ABB enters third season as title partner of Formula E as fanbase grows

This week, on Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd of November, the ABB FIA Formula E Championship returns to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, for a double-header race to open season 6 of the motorsport series. The race also marks ABB’s third season as title partner.

The upcoming championship will feature a second season of the Jaguar I-PACE eTROPHY, a support series for racing versions of the Jaguar I-PACE electric SUV. Contested over the course of 10 rounds in eight cities, the I-PACE eTROPHY series showcases the performance and durability of Jaguar’s battery-powered production EV. ABB, as the series’ official charging partner, will again supply specially modified Terra 53 DC chargers to the teams throughout season 6.

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Since the conclusion of Season 5 in New York last July, teams re-convened last month for three days of pre-season testing in Valencia, Spain. There, they were able to track-test new components and introduce new drivers. Among those beginning a new relationship is Swiss ABB Ambassador Simona De Silvestro, who this season will be test and reserve driver for Porsche.

Since ABB joined the series as title sponsor in January 2018, the ABB FIA Formula E Championship has continued to grow. Last season, it drew more than 400,000 spectators to the city-street races and saw its cumulative television audience increase by 24 percent to 411 million, showcasing the increasing interest in renewable energy and electric mobility. Some 72% of Formula E social media fans being under 35 is a testament of the sport capturing a young demographic.

The ABB FIA Formula E Championship is continuing to expand in season 6, with two new teams joining the grid from premium German car manufacturers, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche. Alongside returning host city London, Seoul and Jakarta will debut in the series’ calendar, extending the championship’s presence in Asia, one of the world’s fastest emerging markets for electric vehicles.

This global focus on electrification and digitalization makes the world’s first all-electric international single-seater championship such a fitting partner and platform for ABB.

“I see ABB Formula E as our test-bed for innovative technologies, which we can apply to daily life in order for all of us to contribute to lowering our carbon footprint and contribute to a better world in the future,” said Peter Voser, ABB’s CEO and Chairman. “In the upcoming season, we will bring more of our technology, on both the electric and e-mobility sides, to the sport.”

Jamie Reigle, the Formula E organization’s new CEO added: “This started as a title sponsorship but clearly we have a long relationship and are talking about bringing the best of both worlds, especially the technology and engineering capability that ABB has, to bear on the championship but also more broadly for the automotive industry.”

ABB Product Portfolio

The metropolitan settings for races around the world offer the ideal platform to highlight ABB’s technologies for e-mobility, smart cities, sustainability and energy solutions, amplified by the appeal of the championship.

ABB already provides a broad range of solutions to manage the energy efficiency of buildings through various systems that control the energy storage, distribution and management via its free@home offering. ABB has around 5 million components of smart home solutions, such as control panels, sensors and software, installed in more than 40 countries worldwide.

In the field of transportation, ABB offers solutions from grid distribution to charging points for cars, busses and trucks, as well as for the electrification of ships, railways, trams and cable cars. Above all, ABB is a global leader in fast charging technology, with 11,500 ABB DC fast chargers installed across 77 countries. ABB has partnered with Electrify America, IONITY, Fastned and Porsche in Japan to roll out its Terra HP chargers, which are able to deliver enough energy for 100 km of range in just 4 minutes.

Saudi Arabia

With four plants, five offices and about 1,600 employees, Saudi Arabia is a key market for ABB. The company has a strong presence in power generation and industrial automation in the country, especially in the domestic chemical industry and the oil & gas sector.

ABB is the main automation contractor (MAC) for the Sadara Chemical Company and the integrated chemical complex in the Jubail Industrial City on the Persian Gulf coast to the east of the country, notable as the largest plastics and chemicals production complex ever built in a single phase. ABB also works with the Saudi conglomerate, Almari, one of the largest fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies in the Middle East, supplying robots for its manufacturing facilities.

In addition, ABB has improved the power supply of the kingdom’s rail network, reducing travel time between Mecca and Medina, the holy cities for Hajj pilgrims, from six hours to just two. ABB has delivered robust traction transformers for the world`s very first high-speed train to operate mostly in sand desert. In the past the only available option was to travel by road, either by private vehicle, taxi or onboard one of the many buses, or by air.

The contribution to the Saudi rail network is a clear example of how the company is driving the e-mobility revolution, not just through rail but through its presence in the entire value chain. Supported by digital energy management systems, this chain ranges from robots on automotive assembly line to the distribution of power from renewable resources as well as battery storage systems across the world.

ABB (ABBN: SIX Swiss Ex) is a technology leader that is driving the digital transformation of industries. With a history of innovation spanning more than 130 years, ABB has four customer-focused, globally leading businesses: Electrification, Industrial Automation, Motion, and Robotics & Discrete Automation, supported by the ABB Ability™ digital platform. ABB’s Power Grids business will be divested to Hitachi in 2020. ABB operates in more than 100 countries with about 147,000 employees. www.abb.com

2019/2020 ABB FIA Formula E Championship - Calendar