LOS ANGELES — Bosch Motorsports and Dragon/Penske Autosport are partnering in long-term technology and engineering collaboration for the team’s cars in the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.
The partnership will extend to both Dragon/Penske Autosports team headquarters in Los Angeles and the United Kingdom. As part of the program, Bosch will develop an electronic vehicle management system specially tailored to the requirements of the Formula E vehicle along with the corresponding hardware and software components required.
The system core is represented by the central MS 50.4P vehicle control unit. Apart from the motor functions and central energy management, the MS 50.4P also controls other vehicle functions such as brake energy recovery and the display in the driver cockpit.
“Collaboration with Dragon enhances our successful involvement as a series sponsor of Formula E,” said Dr. Markus Heyn, member of the board of management at Robert Bosch GmbH. “With this partnership, Bosch underscores its claim as a leading supplier of powertrain management solutions, both in electromobility for production vehicles and in electrified motorsports.”
Plans entail deploying the innovative vehicle management system in a race for the first time this Spring. Preparations are already underway. Bosch is also planning to develop an entire electric powertrain for Formula E season 9.
“We are very excited to embark on this journey with Bosch in Formula E,” said Jay Penske, owner and team principal of Dragon/Penske Autosport. “We are grateful for the support of Bosch Engineering and the entire Bosch Global board. Through our work together, we will provide Bosch with a platform to both showcase its capabilities as it develops Formula E specific technologies, while also using the team’s story-telling abilities to illustrate the role Bosch is playing as a leader in the electrification of the mobility industry. This long-term technical partnership marks a significant turning point for the team, and I look forward to seeing the fruits of our alliance on track this season when we introduce our new Penske Autosport package later this year.”
The central VCU, offered by Bosch, represents the heart of the vehicle electronics for the electric race cars of the team. Bosch has developed a bespoke vehicle wiring harness to provide optimum integration within the cars. Bosch also equips the development car with data loggers to improve the team’s research and testing capabilities. In order to optimally adapt the new vehicle electronics to the overall vehicle, Bosch provides its RaceConnect LTE cloud solution during development and test driving for transferring telemetric data and data analysis. This provides the race team engineers with all the important parameters and data on the vehicle, powertrain, and tires, enabling them to be analyzed and optimized swiftly and efficiently.