With A Whirr, Not A Roar, Auto Racing Drives Toward An Electric Future

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Earlier this month, two dozen low-slung, open-cockpit race cars sped around the streets of Red Hook in Brooklyn.

A distinct high-pitched whizzing sound pierced the air, instead of the usual growl of revved-up race car engines. That's because these cars were powered entirely by batteries rather than gasoline.

Welcome to Formula E. It's like Formula 1, but it's all-electric.

"Combustion engines are over," Alberto Longo, the co-founder of Formula E, said in early July. "End of story."

Formula E has declared itself the future of racing. At a time when virtually the entire auto industry is embracing the electric vehicle, it's not considered quite as wild of an assertion, though it was seen as a bit of an oddity when the motorsport first launched in 2014.