CHENNAI: The hard work of a team of 45 students of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) for a year seems to have paid off with the launch of the institute’s first electric formula racing car here on Monday. Now, the team is gearing up to prove the machine’s mettle at a race that is scheduled to be held in January.

Built completely by students from various disciplines who came together to form Team Raftar, the formula car codenamed ‘RF23’ is the result of a year-long process, during which they worked on the design, manufacturing, and testing. According to them, their racing car is expected to record significant improvements in speed and lap times compared to the traditional internal combustion engine model due to the higher power delivered by the electric drive. IIT-M director V Kamakoti said the shift from combustion engine to electric vehicle was just as drastic as it was necessary, keeping in line with the global trend of moving towards sustainable transportation.

“With the global electric vehicle industry still in its nascent state, the potential for growth and technological advancement in this arena is huge,” he said, adding that the team would participate in the Formula Bharat event that is scheduled to be held in January 2023 at the Kari Motor Speedway in Coimbatore.

As a Formula Student Team, Raftar specialises in designing and building a high-performance race car, and aims to field one every year to compete in formula student competitions against top engineering institutions from across the world and become the best team among them, the IIT-M said in a statement.

The institution added it intended to promote formula student culture in India with continuous innovation and sustainable technological advancement at its core. This would also foster industry-standard engineering practices and nurture real-world technical expertise among engineering students, it added. Team Raftar is one of the competition teams of the Centre for Innovation (CFI) at the institute.