Extreme E To Launch Electric Off-Road Championship With Odyssey 21 Racer

Extreme E has arrived as the off-road equivalent of the Formula E World Championship, and the Odyssey 21 is the racer that will compete in the inaugural season.

The new series is the brainchild of Formula E boss Alejandro Agag. The company premiered its race car at the Goodwood Festival of Speed over the weekend and released a number of juicy details about it.

Perhaps the first thing you’ll notice about the Odyssey 21 is its size. It is 14.4 feet long, 6.2-feet tall, and 7.5-feet wide and tips the scales at 3,600 lbs (1,632 kg), making it roughly as heavy as two Formula E cars.

Also Read: All-Electric ‘Extreme E’ SUV Series Will Race In The Himalayas And The Arctic From 2020

Up the hill we go! The Odyssey 21's first public outing at Goodwood Festival of Speed! pic.twitter.com/v3Dd1i3AvK

— Extreme E (@ExtremeELive) July 6, 2019

Work is still being done to finalize the championship details as well as the vehicle’s specs. The Odyssey 21 brought to Goodwood is only a show car built by Spark Racing Technologies. All teams competing in the racing series will use a common chassis and a battery pack built by Williams Advanced Engineering. Teams will develop their own electric motor and be given some leeway over sections of the off-roader’s bodywork.

Speaking about the vehicle, Spark Racing Technologies’ technical director Theopile Gouzin said the finished item will have more power than a WRC car – which are extremely fast, but also considerably lighter.

“Our challenge was to build a car that could face all the variations in surface and terrain that will be thrown its way, which will include gravel, rock, mud, ice, snow, water and sand, too,” Gouzin said. “Straight out-of-the-box in Season One, the Odyssey 21 and its performance is going to be very impressive, exceeding the power and torque of World Rally Championship and rally raid cars. The numbers are mind-blowing, really.”