Push for Adelaide to host world leg of Formula E championships gathers pace
THE FIGHT to bring Formula E racing to Adelaide has gone up a gear — and we explain why.
Read analysis below: Focus on future and we’ll make history
THE fight to get Formula E racing to Adelaide has gone up a gear.
The industry has fuelled the argument for an electric car race in South Australia, saying it would help put the state at the centre of the emerging technology.
Public hearings of the Senate Select Committee on Electric Vehicles start on Friday in the Mitsubishi Administration Building at Tonsley.
The Australian Electric Vehicle Association has made a submission to the committee arguing that electric motor sports are booming, and hosting a round of the global Formula E Championship in Adelaide would boost the sector and spawn innovation.
“It would build on Adelaide’s rich history of staging major motor sports events and see Adelaide become the focal point for electric vehicles within the region,” the association wrote in its submission.
Independent SA Senator Tim Storer, who is chairing the committee, has written to Premier Steven Marshall asking for his support to bring a leg of the Formula E Championship to Adelaide.
“Bringing Formula E to Adelaide would boost our state’s international standing as a future mobility and advanced manufacturing hub, helping to attract business, investment and innovation, as well as tourism,” Senator Storer wrote.
“With the electric vehicle revolution upon us, now is the time to embrace what is sure to become a marquee competition for the electric vehicle industry.”
The Formula E Championship season includes 10 races in cities such as New York, Hong Kong, Paris and Rome. As well as the entertainment factor, it allows companies to test and develop technology for use in everyday electric vehicles.
Billionaire Sanjeev Gupta is already on the case and is looking to build electric vehicles in Adelaide.
The man credited with saving the Whyalla steelworks is also discussing plans for Formula E racing in SA with the Adelaide City Council.
Uniti Australia is planning to build electric vehicles in Adelaide, under a contract with a leading vehicle design and assembly company.
In its submission to the select committee, it said it planned to launch a model late this year or in early 2019.
Flinders University’s Australian Industrial Transformation Institute has outlined its plans to make Tonsley an electric vehicle hub.
At Tonsley yesterday, reception students from Glen Osmond Primary had the chance to ride in a driverless shuttle bus as a demonstration of the technology’s safety.
The Australian and New Zealand Driverless Vehicle Initiative carried out a survey that found more than eight in 10 people worried about letting their kids ride in a driverless car. About 25 students had the chance to see what the future school bus might be like on the Flinders Express electric driverless shuttle trial.
Analysis
FOCUS ON FUTURE AND WE’LL MAKE HISTORY
By Tory Shepherd
SOUTH Australia has been looking to the future for a while now.
We’re talking about Future Submarines, Future Frigates.
We had futurist entrepreneur Elon Musk here to launch his futuristic plans to colonise Mars.
With the National Space Agency getting into swing, the space industry is talking about future issues around launching rockets and satellites and clearing space debris.
Both the defence and space industries are starting to ramp up, but they will take a long time to peak.
The electric vehicle industry’s wheels are already spinning.
Uniti says it can launch a car here — maybe by the end of the year. And when you have a billionaire with a solid track record like Sanjeev Gupta talking about a Formula E race, you know it’s not pie in the sky.
Adelaide has the infrastructure, the skills and the will to quickly jump on the advanced manufacturing electrically driven bandwagon.
This will be a market-driven revolution — the time for subsidising car manufacturing has likely passed.
Government’s only role is to roll out the red carpet, and roll back red tape, and there is every indication it will do both.
South Australia has every chance to be a first mover in this sector; just as it has been a first mover on renewables.
That may mean we face hurdles that others have not jumped before us, but it also means that we can be streets ahead before the others even start their engines.
If we keep pushing forward as we have been, on several fronts all at once, the state’s doldrums will soon be a thing of the past.
tory.shepherd@news.com.au