The 100% electric race car championship Formula E will see wireless charging implemented for all cars thanks to Qualcomm's Halo technology.
Formula E, which has a similar race set up to Forumla 1, sees its first season commence next year with 10 cities all confirming street races for the championship.
Initially the Halo technology, which allows cars to be charged wirelessly from pads installed on the floor, will be used in the chase/safety car from season start next year.
Qualcomm has revealed that it plans to have its Halo Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging installed in all race cars by the second or third season of Formula E, plus it's also working on a solution which should allow the cars to be charged as they whiz round the track - currently a car has to be stationary over the charging pad.
Wider purpose
The development won't be making it into race cars from the start due to various safety concerns which must be overcome first.
While it's all very nice to see the technology adopted by Formula E, Qualcomm reckons the use of Halo will help consumer car manufacturers get behind electric cars.
With Halo making it easier to charge electric vehicles it potentially provides an answer to how to increase adoption rates of non-petrol fueled cars.
The charging pads used for the Halo technology will be left installed in the cities which hold races, providing a legacy from the sport which can then be used by consumers to charge their own Halo-enabled vehicles.
One for the fans
As well as providing charging solutions plus system analysis and architecture support to the race cars and teams, Qualcomm is also looking to enhance the fan experience at Formula E races.
It's looking to incorporate it augmented reality technology Vuforia into a race day app which fans can use to see a visualisation of the track, with all the cars on it, as well as pulling through various telemetry data from each racer such as speed and lap times.
The app itself hasn't been built yet, but Qualcomm also hopes users will be able to hold their devices up to cars as they pass and the app will use image recognition to bring up other augmented reality information on screen.
- Like the sound of this future tech? Then check out what's available in connected cars today
