All-wheel drive EVs at 210 mph? Formula E’s next car gets massive upgrade.

The governing body for world motorsport met in Macau yesterday. Among the jobs for the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile was to sign off on various calendars for next season, which is why there's now a clash between the F1 Monaco Grand Prix and the 24 Hours of Le Mans and also between the Indy 500 and F1's annual visit to Canada. The Formula E calendar was also announced, although with a pair of blank TBCs in the middle, I'll hold off calling it finalized.

The US round will now take place in late January, and it's moving venues yet again. No longer will you need to drive an hour south of Miami; instead, the northern outskirts of the city will suffice. The infield at Homestead is no more, and the sport has negotiated a race at the Hard Rock Stadium, albeit on a different layout than the one used by F1. It seems that Formula E's recent "Evo Sessions" race between influencers, which was held at the stadium, proved convincing.

The really interesting Formula E news from Macau won't take effect until the 2026–2027 season, and that's the arrival of the Gen4 car.

The current machine is no slouch, not since they took some constraints off the Gen3 car this season. The addition of part-time all-wheel drive has improved what was already a very racey series, but for now, it's only available for the final part of qualifying, the start of the race, and when using the mandatory Attack Mode that has added some interesting new strategy to the sport.

New tires, more aero, and way more power

From the start of the 2026–2027 season, all-wheel drive will finally be permanent for the single-seater EVs. It is long past time, given that virtually every high-performance EV on the road powers both its axles, and it marks the first time the FIA has approved a permanent AWD single-seater since the technology was outlawed from F1 decades ago.

Power gets a massive increase, from the current 470 hp (350 kW) to 804 hp (600 kW). That's not far shy of next year's F1 machines, which will generate 1,006 hp (750 kW), but only when their hybrid batteries are fully charged—run out of electrons and the F1 car has to make do with just 536 hp (400 kW).

Energy efficiency is a core tenet of Formula E racing, and that's not being lost despite the big bump in output. We can still expect the cars to start the race with less energy than needed to get to the finish line, and the Gen4 car will be able to regenerate 700 kW under braking, up from the current 600 kW.

The chassis will still be made by Spark, but Williams Advanced Engineering will no longer provide batteries, which will instead come from the Italian supplier Podium Advanced Technologies. And Bridgestone will replace Hankook as the tire supplier. For the first time, there will even be high- and low-downforce configurations for the wings.

All of that should make for a car that lands somewhere between F1 and F2 or IndyCar in performance. The Formula E Gen4 car will still weigh as much as 20 percent more than an F1 car, and Bridgestone's tires will still need to be durable enough to survive a race weekend, so F1's ultimate cornering ability should be untouched. But more than 800 hp and AWD means the Gen4 car will be very quick out of slow corners—probably a lot faster than F1 even. I just hope they don't get too big for Monaco in the process.

We're yet to see any official images of the car, but it reportedly reached 210 mph (338 km/h) in testing last month in Spain. So far, Nissan, Jaguar, Porsche, Maserati, and Lola have committed to staying in the sport through Gen4.