Mercedes to join BMW and Audi in Formula E

Mercedes has announced it will join rivals Audi and BMW in the all-electric, single-seater Formula E racing series.

The German car giant will withdraw from the popular DTM German touring car series at the end of the 2018 season, after competing for decades, to move to the electric-only tournament for the 2019/20 season.

Jens Thiemer, Mercedes marketing chief, said: "Formula E is a significant step in order to demonstrate the performance of our attractive battery powered electric vehicles."

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The series has become an increasingly popular for car manufacturers, serving as a platform to position electric vehicles "in a far more interesting environment than before", reports Alphr.

While the bodywork of Formula E cars cannot be developed, it adds, next year's set of regulations will allow "teams to further develop their batteries and powertrains". The extensive amount of research and development needed could "help Mercedes build better batteries for their road cars".

Mercedes joins German car giants and rivals Audi and BMW, both of which are set to run teams in the 2018/19 season. Other manufacturers in the sport include Jaguar, Faraday Future, Renault and Citroen's luxury brand DS.

The move to Formula E will not affect the company's efforts in F1 as the highly-successful team has recently announced an extensions to its "long-standing title sponsorship agreement" with the Malaysian oil firm Petronas, says Motorsport.