Champion Kiwi driver Hayden Paddon wants the motorsport world to speed up a switch to alternative energy in rallying, while he takes his electric race car to the next level.
The clock is ticking for Hayden Paddon.
New Zealand’s most successful rally driver – who earlier this year became the first driver outside Europe to win the 70-year-old European Rally Championship – reckons he’s getting old. He’s just turned 36.
But where time is running out, he fears, is for motorsport to adopt an alternative energy source for rally cars, in a world needing to move away from a reliance on fossil fuels.
“For the future of the sport, for me, it has to be soon – within two years,” the seven-time New Zealand Rally champion says.
“We have to do something because it’s our sport’s responsibility to be the technology leaders for the automotive industry. If we carry on with the combustion cars – yeah, they sound cool and we love them because that’s the DNA of motorsport – there will be no future in motorsport. We have to adapt.
“Combustion rally cars are never going to disappear and it’s not about replacing them. It’s about the top end of the sport being relevant to what’s being sold on the showroom floor.”
Paddon is somewhat of a lone crusader, at this end of the world at least, developing his flagship Hyundai Kona EV rally car with his full-time team of eight at their base in Central Otago. He’s on a mission to prove electric cars are fast, safe and, with further battery R&D, have the range to compete on rallying’s world stage.
Where rally race regulations have allowed Paddon to drive the Kona EV, he has an impressive track record – five wins from six starts. And while time and budget allow, the former World Rally Championship driver will continue to fly the flag for alternative energy.
“I still want to drive while I’ve still got something in the tank; I’m getting old now,” Paddon laughs. “We alone can’t change the sport and we can’t make the rules. But what we can do is prove the concept.
“We’re trying to make a statement to the sport globally. If we can make this work and prove it would work over a rally, we can go to the FIA [the governing body for world motorsport] and teams in the sport around the world and say, ‘Hey we don’t have to make excuses anymore; we’ve just shown that it does work. Let’s get on with making it happen for the sport’.
“At the end of the day, this sport is my life, so I want to make sure it’s still here in 30 or 40 years. It’s pretty crucial at the moment to make sure we adapt.”
The FIA are keeping a close eye on Paddon’s progress in the Hyundai EV, as he and his engineers and technicians work out of the Highland Motorsport Park in Cromwell to make the electric car even more competitive.
Right now, there are only two EV rally cars in the world – the other is the Opel Corsa Rally Electric, designed as an entry-level car for rallying.
“We have a blank sheet of paper to work on, in terms of rules and regulations and how we work with the governing bodies of our sport,” Paddon says. “We just don’t have a blank cheque, unfortunately.”
There’s still “massive” work to do to convince the global motorsport community and car manufacturers that change must be made soon.
“I’m not sitting here banging a drum that it has to be electric. There simply has to be alternative energy – whether it’s hydrogen or electric or a hybrid of both,” Paddon says.
Prototype hydrogen combustion rally cars are already in development in the Northern Hemisphere, but Paddon questions whether they will provide the “pure performance” that comes from an electric motor.
“I’ve always identified hydrogen as a good diesel replacement, great for long distances and battery electric a good petrol replacement. Combining the two would be a good solution, giving you the performance and the range,” he says. “So that’s something we’re looking into.”
And Paddon and his team, who first came together in 2018, continue working on mimicking the throaty engine roar that petrol-powered rally cars produce.
“If you remove the whole argument of sound, which is what most people talk about, everything else ticks the box. The Kona EV is fast, it’s spectacular, it goes sideways, there’s a lot of under-drive,” Paddon says. “The noise is the only element that’s missing – which we still need because we’re in the business of entertainment. But that will come as we keep working on it.
“But I love this car. It’s the best car I’ve driven; better than a World Rally car. The centre of gravity is low, so the handling of the car is phenomenal.”
Paddon stresses this electric rally car is very much an ongoing R&D project. It still runs with the prototype 23kWh battery they’ve been waiting three years to replace – stymied by supplier issues.
“That’s had to go on the backburner now. So we’re re-engineering a different solution,” he says. “The big challenge is getting the range from the battery system. Within the next 12 months, we want to get the car in a position where it can do a full-length rally.
“We’re always developing the chassis, the setup of the car, and the aerodynamics. They’re little things, but we’re a small team with a small budget.”
In the meantime, Paddon continues to put the Kona EV where it can be seen. It was recently on show in Auckland at the Next-Gen Motorsport Day; its next race is the Coronet Peak Hill Climb later this month. “We need to get it out as much as we can. It showcases what our team and our engineers are capable of,” he says.
The Kona EV has ventured offshore just once, to Australia for a demonstration event – “everyone thought it had an engine under the bonnet and were a little taken aback” – but Paddon would like to build a second version of the car to take to iconic rally events like the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado and the Goodwood Festival of Speed in England.
He’s unsure whether he and co-driver John Kennard will return to Europe next year in their Hyundai i20 Rally 2 car to defend their historic rally championship title.
“We had a really good season, we couldn’t have asked for more,” says Paddon, who led the championship from go to whoa, after becoming the first Hyundai driver to win an FIA European Rally Championship round at the opener in Portugal. “They were all new rallies for us, and they were the most competitive fields I’ve ever raced in. It was a good challenge; I’d like to go back.”
Paddon is grateful for his partnership with Hyundai, which has spanned nine years.
“Hyundai New Zealand have always had our back; they’ve got behind us like a family,” he says. “I’ve just got to keep winning, that’s what we’re in the game for.”
* Hyundai is a partner of Newsroom
I can appreciate that Hayden is facing some challenges from the motorsport regulatory bodies. I understand from chatting with a senior speedway participant that the inclusion of competition vehicles has as one of the primary hurdles that of fairly relegating them against ICE competitors.
There is no doubt that EVs possess power and performance advantages over ICEs but the difficulty is quantifying that difference when vehicles of both types are competing together. EV technology is also advancing rapidly so any categorisation must be able to retain relevance as EV technology moves ahead, and of course in the same way that incumbent manufacturers potentially run the risk of EV additions to their lineups making their ICE models look a little anaemic so too will EVs potentially cast shade over the ICEs in competitive environments.
Hayden stands out for his forward thinking but his excellent leadership will be next to impossible for the bulk of motorsport enthusiasts to follow, given how emotionally we are tied to our ICEs. The EV option is feasible just, but safety and charging difficulties will require a major change in rally event design to effect. Motorsport NZ will pay lip service to the impossible dream of hydrogen (the physics of hydrogen storage will make it impossible in a rally car) while synfuel is possible BUT very difficult to upscale and impossibly expensive. My fear is adopting the ostrich position will inhibit the rally species from adapting to the new world order that climate change is bringing until it is too late.
Big Respect to Hayden Paddon for showing the world that electric cars are fast, safe and fun 🙂
Come on Motorsport, it’s time to wake up and smell the carbon !!