FeaturedNews

A flying electric car racing series is on the horizon, and we can’t wait!

It’s hap­pen­ing. Plans to cre­ate the world’s first fly­ing elec­tric car rac­ing series, which could see dri­vers com­pet­ing against each oth­er at speeds of up to 200km/h, have tak­en a giant leap for­ward.

Known as Air­speed­er, the con­cept was intro­duced at the 2019 Good­wood Fes­ti­val of Speed by founder Matt Pear­son, who also intro­duced Alau­da Rac­ing, the Aus­tralian start-up behind Air­speed­er.

It has recent­ly com­plet­ed a seed invest­ment round, rep­re­sent­ing a sig­nif­i­cant step in its aim to accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment of fly­ing elec­tric cars through sport­ing com­pe­ti­tion.

And read­ing the fol­low­ing state­ment from Air­speed­er, it’s not hard for all of us to get excit­ed:

‘The Air­speed­er race series will tour the world with Grand Prix events held at both icon­ic Motor­sport venues and non tra­di­tion­al loca­tions, fea­tur­ing unique and exot­ic rac­ing back­drops. Ini­tial­ly, each Grand Prix will fea­ture head-to-head rac­ing between ten pilots com­pet­ing for five teams.

‘Races will take place under rules sim­i­lar to For­mu­la E, with fans being treat­ed to about 30 min­utes of flat-out action with and one pit-stop for a bat­tery swap.’

Sounds good, right? 

The Air­speed­er vision has been backed by two of Australia’s lead­ing tech­nol­o­gy ven­ture cap­i­tal firms, Salt­wa­ter Cap­i­tal and Jelix Ven­tures.

A tech­ni­cal base is in Ade­laide, and hous­es a grow­ing team of spe­cial­ists drawn from the lead­ing names in aero­space, engi­neer­ing and motor­sport — includ­ing Bab­cock Avi­a­tion and Rolls-Royce.

While Lon­don, Eng­land, has been estab­lished as a glob­al com­mer­cial facil­i­ty — cho­sen because of its close prox­im­i­ty to key tech­ni­cal exper­tise in avi­a­tion, motor sport, and the UK’s furtive and rapid­ly expand­ing elec­tric pow­er­train devel­op­ment indus­try.

Pear­son said: “Elec­tric fly­ing cars are a com­ing real­i­ty that will lib­er­ate our cities and answer the long-term mobil­i­ty chal­lenges we face. Noth­ing dri­ves tech­nol­o­gy as fast as com­pe­ti­tion.

“The F1 rac­ers of the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry pos­sessed a pio­neer­ing spir­it we are har­ness­ing today to rapid­ly accel­er­ate progress.  This seed invest­ment rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant leap for­ward in the next great mobil­i­ty rev­o­lu­tion.” 

So what do we know about the vehi­cles?

Known as ‘Speed­ers’ — they mea­sure just over four metres long and will be pro­pelled by the lat­est elec­tric pow­er­trains, co-devel­oped with tech­ni­cal part­ners drawn from the elite motor­sport world. This state-of-the-art form of propul­sion will accel­er­ate a zero-emis­sions future.

They will be pow­ered by an 500kw inter­changable bat­tery — equiv­a­lent to 80 wall sock­ets. And unlike trans­port or pho­tog­ra­phy drones, Air­speed­ers have been pur­pose­ly built to race, with a pilot in the vehi­cle. They even have the same pow­er to weight ratio as a fight­er jet.

Rapid elec­tric pit­stops and short, intense head-to-head com­pe­ti­tion will serve the require­ments of a gen­er­a­tion, native to Esports.

And what’s excit­ing is that these ‘Speed­ers’ are in the final stages of devel­op­ment. Manned ‘test flights’ were due to take place ear­li­er this year and the first head-to-head dual races are planned for late 2020, with exact loca­tions yet to be announced.

Pear­son and Air­speed­er COO Jack Whithanshaw are both active­ly engaged in open dia­logue with the wider pas­sen­ger fly­ing car indus­try (eVTOL), to open co-devel­op­ment chan­nels that address the key issues of safe­ty, reg­u­la­tion and aware­ness. 

Pear­son adds: “We believe in open inno­va­tion. Look­ing back to the devel­op­ment of both the car and aero­plane over a cen­tu­ry ago, it was sport­ing com­pe­ti­tion that drove progress. We are delight­ed to work in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with glob­al reg­u­la­tors and the wider eVTOL indus­try to bring clos­er a rev­o­lu­tion in air­borne mobil­i­ty.”

Look­ing at pic­tures of the Speed­ers instant­ly takes me back to my child­hood, when I was play­ing Wipe­out 2097 on the Playsta­tion. I did­n’t think we’d live in a world where fly­ing races would be pos­si­ble, which is why it’s so excit­ing to watch this con­cept take shape.

Like most peo­ple, we can­not wait to hear more about Air­speed­er. Vis­it www.airspeeder.com for more details and updates.

Avatar photo

Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

eVTOL Insights is part of the Industry Insights Group. Registered in the UK. Company No: 14395769