What Nissan's commitment to Gen3 reveals about Formula E's future

Formula E's Gen3 era grid continues to take shape, after Nissan opted to commit to the series for another four years. Nissan's global chief operating officer explains why it has thrown its lot in with FE while other high-profile marques have decided to call it quits

Published Mar 24, 2021, 9:01 AM

That Nissan has renewed its vows with Formula E by signing up to the series for another four years - announced today, exclusively with Autosport - was entirely expected. The Japanese manufacturer has pledged to offer an all-electric road car line up by the “early 2030s”. But even just where Formula E is concerned, Nissan has been making all the right noises over the past few months that it was ready to stick around for the long-term.

As any high-profile championship must, Formula E provides its competitors with a tangible reason to enter and then re-enter. What’s less well-defined is whether that reason is because the championship is a development testbed, or a marketing platform first and foremost.

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Author Matt Kew

Matt Kew is Autosport’s F1 Editor, a role he has held since March 2022 following stints covering Formula E, Extreme E and the British Touring Car Championship.

Matt joined Autosport in 2018 to work predominantly on the magazine, but his relentless quoting of Alan Partridge meant office colleagues soon thought he would be better-suited to increased field work.

Needless to say, Matt had the last laugh when he won the Motorsport UK Young Journalist of the Year Award in 2019.

His interest in motorsport was sparked by regular trips to watch ASCAR crash around Rockingham’s banked oval.

Matt read politics and philosophy at the University of Sheffield - receiving first-class honours for his dissertation assessing the lack of female participation in top-tier motor racing.

He covered a wide variety of national race and rally meetings for Autosport as a freelancer before joining full-time. His best efforts to argue the merits of historic racing are undone by a questionable taste in music and James Bond actors.