Renesas Electronics official technology partner of Mahindra Racing

Supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, Renesas Electronics, congratulated Mahindra Racing on a great performance at the Moroccan track last Saturday for the second round of the 2018/19 ABB FIA Formula E Championship. Team driver Jerome D’Ambrosio took a win, after starting from tenth, and now leads the driver’s championship.

After qualifying in a strong seventh on his Formula E debut, fellow team driver Pascal Wehrlein was forced out of the race after being hit on the first lap.

For this season, Renesas has expanded its strategic technology partnership with Mahindra Racing, one of the ten founding teams competing in Formula E. Renesas took a module-level approach to the proof of concept design, developing an electronic control unit including PCB design, schematics, software, and modular-level testing. The upgrades now deliver significant processing power improvements and an improved safety system for the low-voltage battery.

The team continues to collaborate on system-level design upgrades featuring the Renesas RH850/E2x microcontroller (MCU), designed for the robust requirements of powertrain systems, and Renesas’ automotive battery management ICs.

“What a great and exciting start to season five,” said Shinichi Yoshioka, Senior Vice President and CTO of Automotive Solution Business Unit, Renesas Electronics Corporation. “We are also excited that our expanding strategic technology partnership with Mahindra Racing and shared system-level design insights are now helping the team and contributing to a strong 2018-19 season start.”

Dilbagh Gill, CEO and Team Principal, Mahindra Racing, added: “I am absolutely thrilled with the win in Marrakesh. The whole team had a fantastic day. With our Renesas collaboration over the past season and their expertise in developing production-ready systems for EV and automotive, as well as our winning race team, we will continue pushing the bar for electric racing.”

The ABB FIA Formula E Championship provides a design environment optimized for a race-to-road approach, where technology developments for racing can be tried and tested for deployment in mainstream production vehicles. These vehicle systems require an aggressive test environment to validate designs and provides a rapid response feedback loop that allows engineers to quickly identify, understand, and apply key learnings to speed the development and manufacturing curve for future EV design.

Since the technology partnership began in November 2017, Renesas has collaborated with Mahindra Racing to deploy advanced, production-ready EV technologies for its race cars. As a leading global automotive semiconductor supplier, Renesas will continue to deliver robust EV solutions for the markets.