Motorsports fans get first look at ABB NASCAR EV Prototype as electric car features in new video | Watch

Motorsports fans may have noticed the inclusion of the ABB NASCAR EV Prototype in a commercial ahead of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship in Miami. The vehicle featured as part of a crossover advertisement showcasing the engineering innovations that are taking place in the two racing series.

Last year, the prototype vehicle caught the attention of enthusiasts at the Chicago Street Course. At the time, the battery electric car represented the first of its kind in NASCAR history. The vehicle is the result of a collaboration between Ford, Chevrolet and Toyota and NASCAR engineers.

The new video

This time, the vehicle was shown on the track against a ABB Formula E Gen3 EVO car in a commercial shared on YouTube by ABB. The video is titled “Electrifying Miami - ABB Formula E vs ABB EV NASCAR”. The clip features actors Sung Kang and Emelia Hartford. Drivers Jake Dennis and Dan Ticktum took part in the filming too, according to the Daily Express U.S.

NASCAR's senior vice president and chief racing development officer, John Probst, previously opened up about the development of the EV. "If you look out across the landscape, one thing that’s for certain is that change is accelerating all around us. We, from a NASCAR perspective, want to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to where our future is going,” he reportedly said.

He added, "We certainly don’t want to be in the passenger seat and then someday get to the future and go, ‘Oh, where do we need to be?’ It’s not fair to the collaboration that we have with our OEM partners if we go down a particular route that they’re not interested in or is honestly not relevant to them."

Riley Nelson, NASCAR's head of sustainability, said she saw the innovation as a symbol of the firm's commitment towards ensuring a sustainable future. "Sustainability means a lot of different things. And for our team right now, it’s environmental sustainability,” she said. "And so that really starts with education and getting people to understand that this is what our role is. That what our team is doing is we’re trying to reduce NASCAR’s carbon footprint. And that happens in a variety of different ways.”

Nelson continued, "But the bulk of it is it’s not going to be just the NASCAR IMPACT team or the sustainability team that’s doing it. It’s the entire company and the entire industry that needs to think differently and think about some of these solutions and problem-solving ways to reduce carbon as a sport.”

"And that’s why the education piece is so important because I’m not a car engineer or a car designer, CJ is. John is. So it’s important that they’re also thinking about the way that we’re thinking about sustainability and implementing that into their individual organizations and lines of business, and that’s slowly how then change happens across multiple departments and teams, which then affects across the industry,” she added.