Extreme E unveils new-for-2025 hydrogen-powered Extreme H car

“So (I’m) quite confident that we've got the caliber of team that will work on this and will reduce those times or match, and be inside that 45 second window for sure. It's a little bit more of a stretch, but there's not much restriction. So we're very comfortable that the 45 second window will be adequate.”

The testing which Grain refers to has taken place in France, home country of the car’s manufacturer Spark, with around 1,100 miles of running already being completed so far this year.

“We’ve run something in the region of 10 test events, predominantly in the south west of France at Château de Lastours and Fontjoncouse,” said Grain. “Another location north of Lyon and another north west of Paris, as well. It’s an equivalent of three seasons of Extreme E racing that we’ve covered off between January and June.

“The tracks that we've used in France have been very demanding -- huge compressions, jumps, long straights, all the combination of corners, predominantly on dirt (and) some gravel surfaces. All different combinations and very, very demanding test locations indeed.”

The extensive testing program coupled with four years of near-constant development of the Extreme E platform means that Extreme H is already “way ahead” of where its predecessor was at the same stage of its gestation.

“I think that everybody that was involved in the championship at the time, which excludes me, did a sterling job, because they they put together a racing championship in a global pandemic,” Grain said, “so the amount of testing that that car did was actually very, very limited, and it's nowhere near the amount of kilometers that we've got under our belt in Extreme H. So we're in a completely different set of circumstances, and I'm very confident that we can go into that first race in 2025 with this big number under our belt.

“Like every new race car, we've experienced some reliability problems, but they've been quickly fixed. They've been fixed trackside. It's not like we've had to go back and do a big redesign and manufacture new parts and come back again. So it's a great effort by all involved at Spark, Fortescue (WAE, the car’s battery supplier), and (hydrogen fuel cell provider) Symbio, and I’m very confident that we're going to see out this testing phase, get into the race production, run and deliver some good racing cars ahead of 2025.

Following its unveiling in London today, the car will have its first public running at the Hydro X Prix in Scotland in two weeks time, with further testing planned for the two Island X Prix events in Sardinia in September, as well as more test in between. From then, production is slated to begin at the end of that month or early October, with deliveries to teams commencing in November.

The first details of next year's championship calendar were also announced alongside the car. The first Extreme H season will carry on from Extreme E by starting in Saudi Arabia, before races in the UK, Germany, and Italy, before concluding in the U.S.