Mahindra will put its Gen4 powertrain on track for the first time in May, roughly six months after rival Formula E teams began testing for the series’ next era.
The Indian manufacturer did not officially commit to the Gen4 era until November last year, well after the original registration deadline had passed.
However, behind the scenes it had already been conducting early development work, with progress accelerating once final approval was granted by the company’s board in Mumbai.
A first full-car test, featuring the complete Gen4 package rather than a mule or hybrid powertrain, is now scheduled for late spring.
“We are targeting May right now. We could have done it in April, but we prefer to keep on evaluating a few options before,” Mahindra team principal Frederic Bertrand told Motorsport.com.
“We will progressively run the car on benches part by part, and then we will run the car fully by May.”
Formula E’s other five manufacturers – Jaguar, Stellantis, Porsche, Lola-Yamaha and Nissan – have already completed two tests with their Gen4 powertrains so far. The first running took place at Monteblanco in November, with manufacturers accumulating further mileage at Almeria.
However, it’s worth pointing out that not all manufacturers had been able to test the full 2026-27 package, with many instead relying on a hybrid version of the Gen3 Evo and Gen4.
Edoardo Mortara, Mahindra Racing
Photo by: Jed Leicester / LAT Images via Getty Images
Bertrand admitted that the compressed development timeline leaves Mahindra little margin for error with its design choices.
“We officially pressed the button a bit late, but we were still working on this project at the back. Now definitely we are at full throttle.
“The challenge is definitely timing because the others have started a bit earlier than us and have a bit more data than us. But I think we have recovered on that side.
“The big challenge now is making sure that we make the right choices. We put the money at the right place to get the maximum performance out of the budget we have. And the final one is to make sure that we deliver right at the first time. So it means that we have no real right to make a big mistake on one development or one concept.
“We prefer to run a more conceptual phase right now before going into production of parts, so that we can properly evaluate different concepts. When those concepts are really properly evaluated we choose one and that one has to be the right one.
“The challenge is to make sure that we do it right the first time. We managed it properly on Gen3.5. So we have a good level of confidence.”
Frederic Bertrand, CEO of Mahindra Racing
Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images
Mahindra had begun lining up suppliers, contractors and technical partners to ensure it could move quickly once the green light arrived.
“All those guys liked the way we approached the 3.5 [era] and they are happy with the results,” Bertrand explained. So they started to have trust in the way we want to work and the philosophy behind.
“Everybody accepted their own part of the risk without necessarily having the immediate return on investment in mind.
“We didn’t have so much budget, but we had some people there, and we were able to put the brains [together], which cost nothing. That’s why we started late, [but] we are not late.”
Formula E’s Gen4 era is scheduled to begin in December 2026.
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