DS Automobiles, how the journey from the circuit to the road continues

A year later, again on the occasion of the Roman stage of the Formula E, we met Eugenio Franzetti, director of DS Performance, to make a point one stop (London) from the end of the ninth season ofABB FIA Formula E World Championship.A championship that saw the third generation of the DS E-TENSE FE car on the track, recognizable by its black and gold livery.We took the opportunity to understand how the cars have evolved Gen3, the fastest ever seen in the Formula E world championship, with a top speed of 280 km/h, lighter than 60 kilos compared to the Gen2, more efficient with over 40 percent of the energy used in the race coming from regenerative braking.

DS Performance has always been one of the great protagonists of the Formula E World Championship, the point one stage away from the final in London

The Roman stage of Formula E was also an opportunity not only to take stock of the 2023 season, one stage from the English final, but also on the innovations introduced by the new generation of cars, Gen 3.On the growing role of lightness in Motorsport, miniaturization, optimization, in short, all those aspects which then have a greater impact on electric cars intended for the general public.

Because Formula E can have a "pedagogical" role for electric mobility

But a few minutes are not enough to delve into so many topics related to electric mobility.So our interview with Eugenio Franzetti continued further, a long chat on aspects related to DS's participation in Formula E, but also more general.Here's what emerged.

How do you become the most successful manufacturer brand in Formula E?
To explain our commitment to Formula E I would start from the great strategic coherence of the DS brand.Suffice it to say that the brand was born in 2014 and only a few months later, a department dedicated to Motosport, DS Performance, was born with the aim of supporting technological acceleration for the benefit of progressive electrification.A positioning, that of the DS brand within the group (Stellantis, ed), immediately projected into the forefront with the aim of exploiting Motosport and Formula E as research and development tools.DS has been participating in these races since 2015, in fact from the moment car manufacturers became involved.From there it was essentially a crescendo of experiences acquired and then passed down, transferring many innovations onto production cars, taking advantage of the numerous successes;in 8 seasons we are the brand among the manufacturers that has won the most in Formula E, with 4 titles, 2 manufacturers and 2 drivers.Thanks to their sporting commitment, the electrified DS models live on the experiences gained with past generations of cars, starting from generation 1, passing through generation 2, up to the current 3, whose developments and innovations will impact on future models.

In addition to the high innovation content, what else drove you to participate in Formula E?
Motosport is also a great communication tool, which we have chosen to accelerate the image and awareness of the brand.Other marketing tools could have been chosen, but instead Motosport was chosen because the racing experience combined with research and development becomes an ideal tool for communicating a young brand like DS, which was thus able to benefit from all the visibility of a championship world championship like that of Formula E, also in terms of image following the great successes achieved in the various seasons.

How can Formula E help the spread of electric mobility?
In this sense formula E has almost a pedagogical role, that is, to talk about electric mobility.Although mobility is taken to the extreme as in Motorsport, Formula E allows a large audience to understand first of all how high-performance electric cars can be, how much they have progressed from a technical point of view in such a short time.If you think that in the Generation 1 car, which means only 9 years ago, it was necessary to replace the cars to do an entire race, because thebattery autonomy it wasn't enough, today our cars have a significantly smaller battery but which allows you to tackle an entire race, with very high performance;think they can accelerate in just over 2 seconds from zero to 100 kilometers per hour, with maximum speeds around 280 km/h.In this way, Formula E also transmits a message of very strong technological development, rapid, constant development, which concerns aspects such as autonomy but also driving pleasure.Almost a message of closeness for electric mobility conceived in its early stages as primarily urban mobility.This is also why Formula E is raced in cities, on urban routes, to remain close to people, but without noise or environmental pollution.Formula E is an extremely modern championship, already projected towards what the motor racing competitions of the future could be.