????很多人總覺得電動汽車只是糊弄理工宅男的玩意兒，但是你聽說過電動汽車方程式錦標賽嗎，它可能將在今年九月徹底改變你的老觀念。

????FIA電動汽車方程式錦標賽是一項新興的全球賽事，只接受電動汽車參賽。它將于今年9月13日在北京拉開戰幕，然后轉戰馬來西亞的布城、巴西的里約熱內盧、烏拉圭的埃斯特角城、阿根廷的布宜諾斯艾利斯、美國的洛杉磯與邁阿密、摩洛哥的蒙特卡洛、德國柏林和英國倫敦九站。其中大多數賽程將安排在城市道路上，而不是封閉的賽車賽道。

????本次賽事采用的賽車都是裸露式駕駛艙及輪胎的歐式賽車，而不是NASCAR的美式賽車。目前所有選手都將駕駛同一款車型，也就是上個月剛剛在拉斯維加斯的消費電子展上亮相的Spark-Renault SRT_01E型電動賽車。它的最高時速能達到150英里（約為241公里），雖然還遠遠不如NASCAR賽車的200多英里，但也絕對不算慢。駕駛時發出的高分貝的轟鳴聲，使它看起來和聽起來都像一輛實車大小的玩具車。雖然它有可能是理工宅男的夢想神車，但傳統的熱血賽車粉到底會不會對它感興趣呢？

????市場分析機構Networked Insights的首席執行官丹?尼利認為：“首先他們要克服人們的成見。人們一提到電動汽車，腦海里就會想到‘經濟性’。但是對于喜歡賽車的人來說，經濟性是他們最不關心的問題。另外人們總覺得電動車就是慢的，但是如果你看看特斯拉，就知道那不是一臺慢車。但是消費者首先想到的是普銳斯那種電動汽車，而不是特斯拉。”

????這項賽事背后除了雄厚的財力支持，也少不了名人效應。除了創辦賽事的兩個合伙人亞歷杭德羅?阿加格和恩里克?巴紐埃洛斯的投資之外，波士頓凱爾特人隊和舊金山49人隊的股東Causeway Partners公司也為賽事投資了2000萬美元。影星萊昂納多【他也是混合動力汽車廠商菲斯克（Fisker）的投資人之一，可惜這家公司已破產】還與文圖瑞汽車公司（Venturi Automobiles）組建了一支車隊參賽。萊昂納多表示，這些賽車的環保性能是吸引他參賽的原因。

????電動汽車的短板還會在賽事中不時顯現出來。首先是速度相對較低（并不是說像“你現在正用電炒鍋做菜”那樣）。賽車電池最高可以持續25分鐘——在某些情況下可能更短，取決于車手的車速。這意味著車手中途進站的時候，要干的事情不是加油、換輪胎，而是要換另一臺備用車，而且中間要換兩次車。電動汽車方程式的賽制是50分鐘，那么為什么要換兩次車而不是一次呢？電動汽車方程式的CEO阿甲格說：“通過這種做法，各車隊的策略就會豐富多樣起來。如果中間只有一次進站機會，大家都會跑25分鐘，然后同時換車，這一點也不激動人心。”因此，目前的計劃是，每個車手出發時都有兩臺充滿電的備用車，而且他可以自行決定兩次換車的間隔。（另外阿甲格表示，規則還可能有變動。）不過對于電視轉播來說還有一個擔憂，那就是如果車手換備用車的時間太長了，或者太多車手同時換車的話，觀眾看起來也會覺得很無聊。

????而這是福克斯電視臺（Fox）最不想看到的事情。福克斯體育臺（Fox Sports）購買了電動汽車方程式前三個賽季在88個國家的電視轉播權。電視轉播本身也在影響著賽制。阿甲格指出，賽程之所以是50分鐘，是因為“電視轉播要求一個小時內總共只能有50分鐘的純內容時間。沒人想看一場超過一小時的賽車。我認為，現在所有賽車比賽的賽程都太長了。現在人們的注意力持續時間越來越短，尤其是年輕一代。”

????這的確是事實——現場直播體育活動現在不得不與越來越多的其它娛樂方式競爭人們的眼球。因此，賽事營銷總監阿里?拉塞爾說：“社交媒體必須成為這項賽事的一個核心戰略，而不能只是個添頭。我們的目標受眾是15到25歲的年輕人，比一般的賽車迷要年輕很多。”為了迎合這個群體，拉塞爾和他的團隊已經在探討實時博彩的可能性。另外，他們還在規劃一個可能在青少年中引起廣泛反響的社交媒體戰略，但它也幾乎肯定會吸引諸多老車手的注意：那就是，根據車手們在社交媒體的人氣提供獎勵。

????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.