Mercedes pulls out of Formula E to focus on electrification of brand

German luxury automaker Mercedes-Benz  will end its involvement with the Mercedes-EQ Formula E team at the end of the next racing season in an effort to refocus its attention towards electric vehicle development.

Conceived in 2011 and hosting its first season in 2014-15, the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship is a single-seater motorsport championship designed exclusively for electric cars.

Mercedes-Benz, which only joined the Championship in its sixth season back in 2018-19 through an unofficial affiliation with HWA, and then with their own official debut in the 2019-20 season as Mercedes-Benz HQ, in which they achieved a maiden victory in the final race of the season at the sixth Berlin E-Prix at the Tempelhof Airport.

Things went better in the 2020-21 season, with the team winning three races, as well as team driver Nyck de Vries take home the first Formula E Drivers’ World Championship while the Mercedes-EQ team secured the Teams’ World Championship.

The decision to end their involvement in the Formula E Championship comes after Mercedes-Benz announced in July a wholesale commitment to electric vehicles, committing to offer an electric car in all its segments, an all-electric alternative for every model by 2025, and ending the production of new ICE models from 2025.

This will mean that, by 2030, Mercedes-Benz will only sell electric vehicles.

As part of this commitment, Mercedes-Benz is deliberately shifting its resources to help scale-up the electrification of its models, which includes the development of three electric-only architectures set to be launched in 2025.

Mercedes-Benz will nevertheless remain involved in Formula 1, describing the competition as “the fastest laboratory for developing and proving sustainable and scalable future performance technologies.”