电动汽车方程式比赛要来了，你会看吗？

    很多人总觉得电动汽车只是糊弄理工宅男的玩意儿，但是你听说过电动汽车方程式锦标赛吗，它可能将在今年九月彻底改变你的老观念。

    FIA电动汽车方程式锦标赛是一项新兴的全球赛事，只接受电动汽车参赛。它将于今年9月13日在北京拉开战幕，然后转战马来西亚的布城、巴西的里约热内卢、乌拉圭的埃斯特角城、阿根廷的布宜诺斯艾利斯、美国的洛杉矶与迈阿密、摩洛哥的蒙特卡洛、德国柏林和英国伦敦九站。其中大多数赛程将安排在城市道路上，而不是封闭的赛车赛道。

    本次赛事采用的赛车都是裸露式驾驶舱及轮胎的欧式赛车，而不是NASCAR的美式赛车。目前所有选手都将驾驶同一款车型，也就是上个月刚刚在拉斯维加斯的消费电子展上亮相的Spark-Renault SRT_01E型电动赛车。它的最高时速能达到150英里（约为241公里），虽然还远远不如NASCAR赛车的200多英里，但也绝对不算慢。驾驶时发出的高分贝的轰鸣声，使它看起来和听起来都像一辆实车大小的玩具车。虽然它有可能是理工宅男的梦想神车，但传统的热血赛车粉到底会不会对它感兴趣呢？

    市场分析机构Networked Insights的首席执行官丹•尼利认为：“首先他们要克服人们的成见。人们一提到电动汽车，脑海里就会想到‘经济性’。但是对于喜欢赛车的人来说，经济性是他们最不关心的问题。另外人们总觉得电动车就是慢的，但是如果你看看特斯拉，就知道那不是一台慢车。但是消费者首先想到的是普锐斯那种电动汽车，而不是特斯拉。”

    这项赛事背后除了雄厚的财力支持，也少不了名人效应。除了创办赛事的两个合伙人亚历杭德罗•阿加格和恩里克•巴纽埃洛斯的投资之外，波士顿凯尔特人队和旧金山49人队的股东Causeway Partners公司也为赛事投资了2000万美元。影星莱昂纳多【他也是混合动力汽车厂商菲斯克（Fisker）的投资人之一，可惜这家公司已破产】还与文图瑞汽车公司（Venturi Automobiles）组建了一支车队参赛。莱昂纳多表示，这些赛车的环保性能是吸引他参赛的原因。

    电动汽车的短板还会在赛事中不时显现出来。首先是速度相对较低（并不是说像“你现在正用电炒锅做菜”那样）。赛车电池最高可以持续25分钟——在某些情况下可能更短，取决于车手的车速。这意味着车手中途进站的时候，要干的事情不是加油、换轮胎，而是要换另一台备用车，而且中间要换两次车。电动汽车方程式的赛制是50分钟，那么为什么要换两次车而不是一次呢？电动汽车方程式的CEO阿甲格说：“通过这种做法，各车队的策略就会丰富多样起来。如果中间只有一次进站机会，大家都会跑25分钟，然后同时换车，这一点也不激动人心。”因此，目前的计划是，每个车手出发时都有两台充满电的备用车，而且他可以自行决定两次换车的间隔。（另外阿甲格表示，规则还可能有变动。）不过对于电视转播来说还有一个担忧，那就是如果车手换备用车的时间太长了，或者太多车手同时换车的话，观众看起来也会觉得很无聊。

    而这是福克斯电视台（Fox）最不想看到的事情。福克斯体育台（Fox Sports）购买了电动汽车方程式前三个赛季在88个国家的电视转播权。电视转播本身也在影响着赛制。阿甲格指出，赛程之所以是50分钟，是因为“电视转播要求一个小时内总共只能有50分钟的纯内容时间。没人想看一场超过一小时的赛车。我认为，现在所有赛车比赛的赛程都太长了。现在人们的注意力持续时间越来越短，尤其是年轻一代。”

    这的确是事实——现场直播体育活动现在不得不与越来越多的其它娱乐方式竞争人们的眼球。因此，赛事营销总监阿里•拉塞尔说：“社交媒体必须成为这项赛事的一个核心战略，而不能只是个添头。我们的目标受众是15到25岁的年轻人，比一般的赛车迷要年轻很多。”为了迎合这个群体，拉塞尔和他的团队已经在探讨实时博彩的可能性。另外，他们还在规划一个可能在青少年中引起广泛反响的社交媒体战略，但它也几乎肯定会吸引诸多老车手的注意：那就是，根据车手们在社交媒体的人气提供奖励。

    The notion that electric cars are just for crunchy hippies might get squashed flat in September -- by an electric race car.

    The FIA Formula E Championship, a new global racing series with only electric cars, will launch Sept. 13 in Beijing. From there it will head to nine cities: Putrajaya, Malaysia; Rio de Janeiro; Punta del Este, Uruguay; Buenos Aires; Los Angeles; Miami; Monte Carlo; Berlin; and London. Most of the races will happen on city streets, not in closed circuits.

    The cars are open-cockpit, open-wheel, like European race cars, not like the autos in NASCAR. For now, each driver will be in the same exact model: the Spark-Renault SRT_01E, which was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month. It can hit a maximum speed of 150 mph -- far below NASCAR's top speeds of over 200 mph, but hardly slow. It emits a high-pitched whine (you can watch a test drive here), making it look and sound like a life-sized toy car. That may be a tech nerd's dream, but will it appeal to red-blooded racing fans?

    "The big stigma they have to get over is that when people think electric, they think 'eco,' and people who care about racing, that's the last thing they care about," says Dan Neely, CEO of marketing analysis firm Networked Insights. "There's still that perception that electric is slow. Shoot, if you go look at a Tesla, that's not a slow car, but [consumers] think of electric as Prius, not Tesla."

    Still, the series has funding and celebrity firepower. In addition to the $100 million that founding partners Alejandro Agag and Enrique Banuelos have committed to invest, Boston/Silicon Valley-based Causeway Partners, which has ownership stakes in the Boston Celtics and San Francisco 49ers, invested $20 million in the series. The actor Leonardo DiCaprio (who was also an investor in bankrupt hybrid-maker Fisker) partnered with Venturi Automobiles to enter a team in the series, and has said that the eco-friendliness of the cars is what appealed to him.

    The electric car perception problem will rear its head in a number of ways. Speeds are relatively low. (The phrase isn't, "Now you're cooking with electricity!") The battery charge lasts for a maximum of 25 minutes -- in some cases even less, since the speed of depletion will depend on how fast the driver goes. That means when drivers pull in to the pit, it won't be for fuel and new tires, it will be to physically change cars -- and they'll do it twice. Formula E races will last 50 minutes, so why twice, instead of just once? "What we gain by that is that the strategies will vary," says Agag, who is CEO of Formula E. "If there was only one pit stop, everyone would run 25 minutes and change cars at the same time. And it is not so exciting." The current plan: Each driver will begin each race with two fully charged cars and can make the two switches at whatever intervals he chooses. (Agag cautions that the rules could still change.) A potential TV concern: If drivers take too long to hop into the spare car, or if too many are switching at the same time, it could look boring to viewers.

    Boring is the last thing that Fox wants. Fox Sports purchased the rights to broadcast Formula E's first three seasons on TV in 88 different countries. And TV has played a role in shaping the event itself: Races will be 50 minutes because, Agag says, "TV is asking us for a total content time of 50 minutes to an hour; no one wants more than an hour of a light sport. We think all the races now are taking too long. The attention span is getting shorter, especially with the younger generation."

    That's certainly true -- live sports are competing with more forms of entertainment than ever for young eyeballs. And so, "social media needs to be a core strategy to what we do, not just an add-on," says CMO Ali Russell. "Our target audience is really a 15- t0 25-year-old, far younger than the usual motorsport fan." To cater to that group, Russell and team have discussed real-time gaming possibilities. They're also planning a social media strategy that may work with teens, but will almost certainly elicit eye-rolls from seasoned car guys: rewarding drivers for social media popularity.