GEN4: Has Formula E Just Built Its Closest Rival to F1 Yet?

In recent news of Disney+ becoming the official streaming service for Formula E we decided to look at what lies in the future for Formula E.

Formula E has just released its GEN4 car, and it might be the most technically advanced motorsport machine we’ve ever seen from the series. This isn’t a mild update — it’s a full reinvention of what an electric race car can do.

Every generation of Formula E has chased the same goal: close the gap between electric racing and the traditional motorsport establishment. GEN1 proved the concept could work at all. GEN2 made the cars fast enough to be taken seriously. GEN3 pushed efficiency and regeneration further than most fans thought possible. GEN4 feels different, though — less like an incremental step and more like a statement.

The power figures, the acceleration, the engineering behind the aero modes and the AWD system all point toward a car built not just to modernise the series, but to force a genuine conversation about where it now sits relative to Formula 1 itself. That conversation is exactly where this article is heading.

A New Kind of Power

At the heart of the GEN4 is a 55kWh battery, working alongside a completely redesigned chassis built to harness speeds beyond 200 mph. Peak power now sits at 600kW (815bhp), and that number alone represents a 71% jump over the previous GEN3.

Image source – www.fiaformulae.com

But the raw numbers only tell half the story. The new chassis introduces two aerodynamic modes, switching between high-downforce and low-drag setups depending on the moment in the race. Paired with permanent all-wheel drive, the GEN4 finally has the traction to put all that power down.

Previous Formula E generations flirted with front-axle deployment but never gave drivers power to all four wheels for the entire race. GEN4 changes that outright. Combined with an active differential, the car is designed to put down its power far more consistently than its predecessors could, especially in the low-grip conditions typical of a street circuit, where Formula E has always raced, rather than on purpose-built tracks.

Braking That Becomes Attacking

Perhaps the most futuristic part of the car is what happens when the driver isn’t accelerating at all. The dual-motor system is capable of 700kW of regenerative braking, a figure that’s actually higher than the car’s peak power output, and it can recover a substantial share of the energy used across a race.

That recovered energy doesn’t just go to waste either. It gets funnelled straight back into overtaking moves, giving drivers extra ammunition exactly when they need it most. The knock-on effect should be races that are simply more competitive, with more genuine fights for position rather than processions.

GEN4 vs. the 2026 Formula 1 Car

Naturally, people are already lining GEN4 up against the 2026 Formula 1 car, and on paper it’s a genuinely close comparison.

Start with acceleration. The GEN4 hits 0-100km/h in just 1.8 seconds. The 2026 F1 car, for all its pedigree, is almost a full second behind at 2.6 seconds. That single stat is going to do a lot of heavy lifting in making Formula E races feel more explosive, more overtakes, tighter fields, closer finishes.

Image source – www.fiaformulae.com

Weight tells a different story, though. The GEN4 carries considerably more mass than its F1 rival, a gap driven largely by the sheer size of the battery pack needed to deliver that kind of power. It’s worth remembering how far the series has already come on this front: minimum weight has climbed steadily with each generation as batteries and drivetrains have grown more capable. That trade-off is really the defining tension of electric racing, every extra kilowatt of power tends to demand a heavier, denser battery, and there’s no getting around that physics no matter how clever the chassis engineering gets. F1 doesn’t face that same constraint, since a fuel tank empties as the race goes on while a battery pack’s weight stays fixed from lights to flag.

Power has followed a similar trajectory. GEN3’s maximum output topped out at 350kW (470bhp), so GEN4’s 600kW (815bhp) ceiling represents close to a doubling in peak power in a single generational leap. It’s a big enough jump that it’s easy to see why people are talking about it.

The Biggest Leap the Sport Has Seen

Formula E has reinvented itself before. Going from needing two cars per driver in a single race during GEN1, down to just one car in GEN2, was a landmark shift for the series. But nothing compares to the scale of this power increase. Racing driver Ticktum has called the jump “stratospheric”, and it’s hard to argue with him.

It’s a useful reminder of just how young this championship still is. Formula E only began racing in 2014, meaning it has gone from a fledgling proof-of-concept series to fielding a car that trades blows with Formula 1 on acceleration in barely over a decade. Few motorsport categories have compressed that much technical evolution into so short a timeframe.

Image source – www.fiaformulae.com

So, Does GEN4 Actually Match Up to F1?

This is the question everyone keeps circling back to. On paper, the GEN4 has slightly less power and noticeably more weight than a 2026 F1 car. It also lacks slick tyres and doesn’t generate anywhere near the downforce of an F1 machine.

The counterargument is traction. All-wheel drive and that ferocious 1.8-second sprint to 100km/h go a long way toward compensating for a worse power-to-weight ratio.

Driver opinions and racing sim data both point to a similar conclusion: GEN4 can comfortably outpace an F2 car, but it still falls short of a full F1 car in dry, ideal conditions. Where things get interesting is in the wet. GEN4’s all-wheel-drive traction advantage could genuinely close that gap when the track turns slippery, an environment where raw power matters less and mechanical grip matters more.

Whether that theory holds up on track is something we’ll only really know once GEN4 is racing wheel-to-wheel through its first full season. Early signs are promising, the development mule car, an early test version of GEN4 used to trial the new components before the finished race car is handed to teams, has already run overtake laps against GEN1, GEN2, and GEN3 on the same circuit, and it was reportedly several seconds a lap faster than GEN3 Evo. That gap is likely to grow once each manufacturer finishes tuning its own powertrain on top of the shared platform.

Our Final Thoughts

However, the F1 comparisons ultimately settle, GEN4 already looks like the moment Formula E stopped asking to be taken seriously and started making the case on pure performance. A near-doubling of peak power, sub-two-second acceleration, permanent all-wheel drive, and a regen system that turns braking into a weapon, this is a car built to be judged on its own terms, not just against its predecessor.

The real test starts now. Specification sheets can only say so much; what happens when six manufacturers start extracting everything this platform has to offer, under real race conditions, on real street circuits, is where GEN4’s story gets written. If the mule car’s early pace against GEN1 through GEN3 is anything to go by, this next era of Formula E could end up being the closest electric racing has ever come to the sport it’s long been chasing.

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