| Electric Stock Car World Championship | |
| 250px | |
| Abbreviation | SCE |
| Founded | February 13, 2018 |
| Headquarters | San Mateo, California |
| Director | Nicolas Martin |
The Electric Stock Car World Championship, also known as the Stock Car E-Series is an upcoming stock car racing series funded by the World Stock Car Association. The series was first announced in 2018, with additional details announced throughout 2019 and 2020. The series will exist as a support series for the World Stock Car Championship, holding limited standalone races and will primarily run road and street courses. The E-Series is the second top-level stock car racing championship to be designated as a world championship; it is the third such series overall, after the World Stock Car Championship and World Stock Car Lites.
History[edit | edit source]
The proposal for an electric stock car championship came from Chandra Parik, the CFO of the World Stock Car Association, and was presented to Vickie Harper in a meeting in late 2017. Harper brought in Frenchman Nicolas Martin, who was focused on aiding electrification efforts in the automotive industry, to help present the idea to the automotive industry. Pedro de Reyes, a politician and businessman, was brought in to help negotiate TV deals and sponsorship contracts soon after. Martin was named the director of the series in May 2018. The series headquarters was opened in San Mateo, California on October 8, 2018, with a branch office opened in London on January 21, 2019.
The first race was held at Road Atlanta in March 2021.
Championship[edit | edit source]
Specifications[edit | edit source]
The series will utilize a spec powertrain developed by Stock Car Technologies, Inc in conjunction with series organizers; teams and manufacturers will be responsible for the design of the cars and the chassis. The series has allowed both full-electric cars and PHEV models to be represented. Nicholas Martin later clarified that once electric vehicles become more prominent in automakers' lineups, the expectation will be to disallow the use of hybrid cars.
Porsche and Hyundai were the first manufacturers to announce that they would support the series with works teams; they were soon joined by BMW and Audi, with American manufacturer Tesla joining as a fifth works manufacturer late in 2019; a sixth, NIO, announced their participation in 2020. Several other manufacturers announced that they would license the use of their names and car designs, but would not provide engineering support to teams (in essence, creating independent efforts). These were BYD, MG Motor, Mercedes, Renault, and Volvo. Volvo later announced that it would join the series as a works supplier in the 2022 season using the all-electric Polestar brand. BYD would switch to funding a full works effort just before the start of the season.