Electric racing cars are catching up fast with petrol-driven ones

FANS OF “STAR WARS”E will never, in reality, be able to watch the Boonta Eve Classic Podrace on Tatooine. But they might find a pretty good substitute on the streets of Monaco, Berlin and New York over the next few months. The fifth Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile Formula Championship, a class of motorsport that admits only electric-powered cars, has a lot of the hallmarks of podracing—and not only because the cars, with their high-pitched, almost insect-like drones, sound eerily similar to the intergalactic racers portrayed in “The Phantom Menace”. Blade-like points at the front and a huge wing at the back give them speed. Add sufficient power to these aerodynamics and you have something capable of reaching 280kph. That is pretty nifty, even by the standards of established Formula 1 racing.The most recent ePrix of the season took place at the end of April, in a hailstorm. The circuit was the streets around Les Invalides, Louis XIV’s monumental home for retired and injured soldiers in Paris. There were, as with fictional podracing, a fair few crashes and smashes before Robin Frijns, of the Envision Virgin Racing team, took his place on the winner’s podium.