Mercedes-Benz today announced that it will conclude its ABB FIA Formula E success story as a team entrant and manufacturer at the end of Season 8, in August 2022.
Since HWA Racelab first took to the track in Season 5, laying the foundations for Mercedes’ Formula E entry, the goal has been to create a benchmark team at every level. A first Mercedes win for Stoffel Vandoorne in the final round of Season 6 was followed by a strong start to Season 7, setting up the team’s championship challenge in only its second season.
This culminated last weekend in Berlin when Nyck de Vries and the Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team became the first ever all-electric motorsport world champions, by winning the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship Drivers’ and Teams’ titles.
In parallel, Mercedes-Benz made the strategic announcement in late July that the brand will be ready to go all-electric at the end of the decade, where market conditions allow.
As part of the new strategic direction, the brand has deliberately chosen to shift resources for this accelerated ramp-up of electrification, including the development of three electric-only architectures to be launched in 2025. Therefore, Mercedes will reallocate resource away from its ABB FIA Formula E World Championship programme and towards applying the lessons learned in competition to product development in series.
Moving forward, the company will concentrate its works motorsport activities on Formula 1, reinforcing the sport’s status as the fastest laboratory for developing and proving sustainable and scalable future performance technologies.
This learning will be brought to life through future product architectures like the AMG.EA platform, the dedicated performance vehicle electric platform that will be launched in 2025, and projects such as the Vision EQXX.
While Mercedes-Benz will depart Formula E at the end of Season 8, the team’s leadership group has begun exploring options for the team to continue competing in the series during the Gen 3 era, including a potential sale to new owners.
