E1 CEO teases where inaugural electric boat racing season will compete this year
As the UIM E1 World Championship Series gears up to kick off its first-ever electric boat racing season later this year, it has offered a Q&A with its cofounder and CEO Rodi Basso, who shares several progress updates. With at least eight teams expected to compete in season one, we are certain to see the series grow soon and now have a better idea of what continents the electric boats will be racing on in 2023.
If you haven’t heard of it yet, the UIM E1 World Championship is a nascent electric boat racing league created by Formula E and Extreme E founder, Alejandro Agag, and Rodi Basso – a former director of Motorsport at McLaren with a background in Formula 1 engineering.
We’ve been following this upcoming league’s progress since early last year when it began testing of the all-electric foiling boats its teams will be racing in, called RaceBirds. The E1 team has explained that its inaugural season will consist of 8 to 12 teams representing various cities and countries around the world, competing across 10 different marine tracks in various climates.
So far, we have three official E1 teams in place – Team Venice, Team Mexico owned by Formula 1 driver Sergio Perez, and the latest team to join – Team Spain, owned by Tennis legend Rafael Nadal. These big names bring attention to the budding racing league, but E1 is still five teams short of having an actual series.
According to E1’s cofounder, there are plenty of talks with big names going on and in order to remain sustainable, the electric boat racing league won’t travel around as much in its first season.
Inaugural E1 season will be racing in Europe and Middle East
In the league’s latest blog post, CEO Rodi Basso participates in an extensive interview, discussing everything from Rafa and Perez signing on, to the progress of the RaceBird electric boats, and plans for this coming season.
When speaking to the need for at least eight teams, Basso elaborated on the number of inquiries from potential owners, including names from sports, entertainment, motorsports, and even entrepreneurs – all looking to establish a team that represents a particular area or city. He went on:
Of course there’s a strategy behind the decision who to partner with, however, it’s our vision and mission first and foremost that is enabling us to attract high-profile sports personalities like Nadal and Perez. Having a clear purpose matters to people and our purpose is to accelerate electrification in the marine industry. Just like our electric cousins at Formula E and Extreme E have done in the automotive industry, we’re trying to do the same with recreation and leisure boats. Taking this approach with having recognisable team owners, it allows us to dramatically expand our reach and grow E1’s fanbase.
When asked about the progress of RaceBird development, Basso explained that everything remains on track for the start of the first E1 racing season. He went on to say that the boats themselves have already broken a top speed of 50 knots (57.5 mph), which was its original target.
That said, Basso said E1 is only planning to have one group of RaceBirds for season 1 and a second group of electric racing boats ready to join for season 2. Due to this fact, plus the league’s goal to limit its carbon footprint, E1 plans to compete across just two continents this year before expanding in its second season. Basso explains:
Given we’ll be shipping the RaceBirds and freight around the world to reduce our footprint, it restricts us to racing in two regions of the world in Season 1. The focus for the first season will be to host races in the Middle East and Europe, and then expanding out further to North America and Asia in Season 2. E1 is a World Championship and we’re getting a lot of interest from a number of cities. Some conversations are well advanced and we should be ready to publish the provisional calendar soon.
Another method of combating freight emissions is to establish hubs around the globe where the RaceBirds and their respective equipment can be stored. E1’s CEO says that’s the plan for future racing seasons, and hub conversations are already underway in Venice, Florida, and Asia – hinting to where we may see electric boat competitions in the future, at least in North America.
Lastly, Basso spoke to E1’s racing format, which is still expected to be a knockout competition in its first season. He explained that the championship series is also targeting a unique time of day to compete to attract as many spectators as possible:
We’re still keen on pursuing the knockout style format. Not only is it exciting, I think it naturally lends itself to the characteristics of racing on water. Head-to-head races and multiple sprint races will offer a continuous dose of adrenaline for fans locally or those following the action on TV. We’re also taking a similar path to Extreme E with teams having mixed gender pilots. This format means each pilot has plenty of time behind the wheel and each can contribute to the success of the team. Races will be in the late-afternoon and there will be more activities happening around the event into the evening. This will allow E1 to become more of a ‘city event’ that appeals to as many people as possible.
While we’ve gotten plenty of exciting updates about the first-ever E1 racing season, we still do not know when it will begin. Basso once again said “later this year,” adding that the series is targeting one race per month through to autumn next year. Ten races, ten months, well into 2024 – we’d wager the UIM E1 World Championship will begin season 1 pretty late into 2023.
Before then however, E1 has already inked a deal to race multiple electric boats as a launch event to season 1 during World Port Days in Rotterdam, Netherlands sometime this fall. Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, check out supermodel Cara Delevingne experiencing a RaceBird up-close in Venice.
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Tesla (TSLA) is no longer confidently stating growth in its automotive business for 2025, and it has delayed updating its guidance until the next quarter after a disappointing performance in the first three months of the year.
2024 was Tesla’s first year in a decade where its vehicle deliveries went down year-over-year.
Just a few months ago, in January, Tesla was confident in predicting that it would return to growth in 2025:
“With the advancements in vehicle autonomy and the introduction of new products, we expect the vehicle business to return to growth in 2025.”
Today, Tesla released its Q1 2025 financial results, confirming that it had its worst quarter in years to start 2025.
The automaker is now clearly not as confident about returning to growth in its automotive business this year.
Tesla updated its “outlook” section this quarter to highlight the potential impact of trade policies and now no longer discusses automotive growth in isolation. Instead, it bundled automotive and energy businesses together and said that it will “revisit its 2025 guidance” next quarter:
It is difficult to measure the impacts of shifting global trade policy on the automotive and energy supply chains, our cost structure and demand for durable goods and related services. While we are making prudent investments that will set up both our vehicle and energy businesses for growth, the rate of growth this year will depend on a variety of factors, including the rate of acceleration of our autonomy efforts, production ramp at our factories and the broader macroeconomic environment. We will revisit our 2025 guidance in our Q2 update.
Tesla’s vehicle deliveries are already down about 50,000 units so far this year compared to last year.
It will be challenging to catch up in the current macroeconomic situation.
Tesla again guided the start of production of “new affordable models” in the first half of 2025, which could help the automaker to deliver more cars.
However, as we have previously reported, these new vehicles are expected to be stripped-down Model Y and Model 3, which will cannibalize Tesla’s current sales and limit its growth to those products.
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US DC fast charging is becoming more reliable, and charging stations are getting bigger and busier, according to a new Q1 2025 report from the EV data analysts at Paren.
DC fast charging station reliability is on the rise
Paren’s latest US Reliability Index – “Can I successfully charge at this charger?” – increased from 81.2 points in Q4 2024 to 82.6 points in Q1 2025, a notable jump of 1.7%. According to Bill Ferro, CTO at Paren, “This continues a quarterly trend across the US non-Tesla fast charging infrastructure, which suggests that the ongoing efforts to replace or sunset older hardware are having a positive impact on station uptime. In addition, newer entrants into the field are bringing time-tested hardware along with enhanced driver experiences.”
Utah, Alaska, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Nevada were the top-ranked states for DC fast charging reliability in Q1 2025.
Growth slows, but charging stations are getting larger
New DC fast charging ports grew to 55,580 at the end of Q1 2025, up 3,667 from last quarter, with total stations reaching 10,839, an increase of 794. This is fewer new additions compared to the surge seen at the end of 2024, reflecting typical seasonal slowdowns due to winter weather. However, there’s a bright spot: the average number of ports per station among non-Tesla networks rose to 3.9, compared to 2.7 year-over-year. The Tesla Supercharger network now averages 13 ports per station.
Utilization rates reflect the urban-rural divide
Average utilization – that’s the minutes of a charging session as a percentage of time a station is open each day – dropped slightly from 16.6% in Q4 2024 to 16.2% in Q1 2025, following typical holiday travel patterns. But overall, charging use is climbing, especially in dense urban areas with significant rideshare and apartment communities that rely heavily on public chargers.
Early days for NACS transition
The Combined Charging System (CCS) remains dominant, with 59% of new ports, and the shift toward Tesla’s NACS (J3400) standard is still in its very early stages. Only 104 non-Tesla NACS ports were added this quarter at non-Tesla networks, so drivers of new non-Tesla vehicles need to use their adapters if they want to use Superchargers.
Fixed pricing prevails
Charging operators primarily use fixed pricing (80%), with Time of Use (TOU) pricing making up 16%. Pay-by-time options are rare, used only 4.2% of the time.
California is the only major state where TOU pricing surpasses fixed pricing, while many states, such as Oklahoma, Vermont, and Arkansas, almost exclusively utilize fixed pricing models.
As for the most expensive places to fast charge your EV? The top four metropolitan statistical areas are all in California, with average rates at $0.60 or $0.61 per kWh.
Rural and low-income areas at risk
The Trump administration’s cancellation of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program poses a significant threat to rural and low-income communities. Loren McDonald, chief analyst at Paren, cautioned, “Our data is a harbinger of less expansion in rural and lower-income markets as CPOs will increasingly focus on urban markets, seeing high utilization, often north of 30%, versus markets with less than 5% utilization.”
‘Charging 2.0’ – a new industry phase
McDonald summed up the report by marking 2024 as a pivotal year, stating, “2024 was a year of mixed news in the US DC fast charging industry, but it will be remembered as a pivotal turn to a new era we are calling ‘Charging 2.0’. Charge-point operators and new players in the industry are increasingly focused on creating a great customer experience, improving reliability of chargers, and reaching profitability – a shift from chasing the availability of incentives, racing to get chargers in the ground, and then crossing your fingers that utilization will grow over time.”
Read more: Trump just canceled the federal NEVI EV charger program
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Tesla (TSLA) released its financial results and shareholders’ letter for the first quarter (Q1) and full-year 2025 after market close today.
We are updating this post with all the details from the financial results, shareholders’ letter, and the conference call later tonight. Refresh for the latest information.
Tesla Q1 2025 earnings expectations
As we reported in our Tesla Q1 2025 earnings preview yesterday, the Wall Street consensus for this quarter was $21.345 billion in revenue and earnings of $0.41 per share.
The expectations had been significantly downgraded over the last month, as analysts were surprised by Tesla’s announcement of much lower deliveries than expected in the first quarter.
Did Tesla meet them?`
Tesla Q1 2025 financial results
After the market closed today, Tesla released its financial results for the first quarter and confirmed that it missed expectations with earnings of $0.27 per share (non-GAAP), and it also missed revenue expectations with $19.335 billion during the last quarter.
This is a big miss for Tesla despite the company admitting to selling a lot more regulatory credits this quarter.
At $595 million in credit sales, Tesla would have lost money without it in Q1 2025:
In short, Tesla is on the verge of being a money-losing company.
We will be posting our follow-up posts here about the earnings and conference call to expand on the most important points (refresh the page to see the most recent posts):
Here’s Tesla’s Q1 2025 shareholder presentation in full:
Here’s Tesla’s conference call for the Q1 2025 results:
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