Leonardo DiCaprio founds electric racing car team

The Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio has co-founded a racing team that will enter the Formula E Championships – a new race series for electric cars.

DiCaprio has long been an owner and vocal fan of both the Toyota Prius hybrid and Tesla Roadster, the world’s first high-performance production electric sports car and a vehicle he described as: “…an unbelievable drive…it all happens with the flip of a switch, unlike a piston-driven engine that needs to build up momentum.”

Of his involvement in the new battery-powered race series, the actor said: “The future of our planet depends on our ability to embrace fuel-efficient, clean-energy vehicles.”

Formula E

The Formula E races will be held on street courses through the city centres of London, Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro at speeds of up to 135 mph.

Unlike Formula One, the Formula E cars will not be permitted to make pit stops. However, the car’s batteries will last only 25 minutes so drivers will have to swap cars rather than stop to refuel.

The move to electric cars

Electric cars have existed for over 100 years, but continue to sell in tiny numbers relative to petrol and diesel-powered vehicles. The purchase price of electric cars and concerns about their range mean sales remain sluggish. Psychological barriers also hinder a greater uptake of electric cars. For example, range anxiety is often cited as a reason for not buying an electric car that can travel 100 miles before needing to be refuelled and yet the average motorist drives about 25 miles a day.

The Government has introduced grants to make electric cars more tempting, but there are other ways more subtle ways that may yet cajole motorists to go electric. Edward Bernays was a nephew of Sigmund Freud and one of the earliest proponents of PR. He believed that psychology and sociology could be used to manage and manipulate the behaviour of an irrational and ‘herd-like’ public. Certainly, the practice of using Hollywood stars to promote products in the 1940s and 1950s was so successful that it continues to this day.

Nobody can know if, or when, there will be a wholesale switch to electric cars, but in the meantime, the public support of high-profile figures like Leonardo DiCaprio can only help.