WHO ARE WE?
The EPFL Racing Team is a Formula Student team founded by students in autumn 2017. Each year, our team designs and develops an electric racing car. We take part in various competitions across Europe, in which we compete against other universities.
Our Committee
Aerodynamics
The EPFL Racing Team’s “Aero” division is in charge of designing and manufacturing the car’s aerodynamic kit. Its goal is to optimize airflow to generate sufficient downforce for high-speed stability and ensure efficient cooling for peak performance.
To achieve this, aerodynamicists undergo an intense design phase, cycling between CAD modeling and CFD simulations. Each part is iteratively designed, tested, and refined based on simulation results. Since there’s always room for improvement in aerodynamics, the team sets a strict design freeze deadline before moving to production.
The final components, made entirely of carbon fiber, strike the ideal balance between lightness and structural strength. Additionally, working alongside the chassis, the aero kit contributes to the car’s sleek and elegant silhouette.
Battery Energy Storage System
The BESS division is responsible for designing the car’s high-voltage battery, the primary energy source that powers the vehicle through inverters and motors—essentially, the heart of the car.
This year, we are making a brand-new battery, incorporating new cells, an optimized packaging system, and an advanced cooling solution to enhance efficiency for the 2024-2025 season.
Chassis
The Chassis and Cockpit Division is responsible for optimizing the structure of the vehicle and its cockpit. The main objective is to efficiently optimize the mechanical integration of electronic components into the car. In this way, the composite monocoque can be designed to be as compact as possible. The cockpit is designed to be ergonomic, lightweight and adaptable to individual preferences. Our components are characterized by a balance between lightweight construction, rigidity and ergonomics to ensure safety and comfort.
SPONSORING
The sponsorship team is made up of passionate and dedicated students who work every day to build strong and successful partnerships. Their mission is to develop and maintain long-lasting relationships with our partners while ensuring that each collaboration aligns with our values and vision. Our team therefore plays a key role in the development of our future projects. Always on the lookout for new opportunities, our members make sure that every party fully benefits from the commitment, ensuring a win-win partnership for both our sponsors and our association.
Communication & Logistics
The Logistics division is at the heart of the association’s organization. It coordinates resources, plans trips, and manages the supply of materials for our activities and competitions. By overseeing every organizational detail, it ensures that everything runs smoothly, allowing the team to focus entirely on technical performance.
The Communication division is dedicated to promoting the association’s image and enhancing its visibility. Through social media management, content creation, and campaign organization, it shares our progress, engages our community, and draws the attention of sponsors and partners. Its goal is to convey our passion and build a strong identity that inspires and unites.
Driverless software
The Driverless Software division implements algorithms to replace the driver’s brain and thus make the car 100% autonomous. First, the vision and localization algorithms detect the circuit and find their way around it. Secondly, the control algorithm calculates how to turn the steering wheel and press the pedals. We’ll be taking part in our first autonomous competition in the summer of 2023.
Vehicle Dynamics & Control
This division focuses on maximizing car performance to achieve the lowest possible lap
Performance starts at the contact patch. The team selects the optimal tire compound and builds a mathematical model to characterize its behavior—grip levels, slip curves, temperature effects—making it usable for design and control.
Using tire data, the suspension geometry is optimized to ensure ideal tire orientation in all dynamic conditions. Suspension points are placed through iterative simulations, balancing performance, stability, and mechanical constraints.
A custom simulator (built in MATLAB/Simulink) combines car parameters and track data to predict minimum lap times. It allows the team to compare design choices based on real performance potential, integrating both physics and control theory.
On-track tests, equipped with multiple sensors, collect data on dynamics, tire behavior, and driver inputs. This data is used to refine the car setup and validate models. Driver feedback is also used to align performance with drivability.
Using inputs from tire models, state estimators, and sensor data, control algorithms adjust engine torque and other actuators in real-time to keep the car at the edge of grip, extracting maximum performance.
This division works across simulation, mechanical design, control, and testing—chasing every tenth of a second toward the podium.
Business Plan
The Business Plan division is dedicated to designing a fictional entrepreneurial project around our race car. By combining strategy, innovation, and persuasion, we explore market opportunities, develop an innovative idea, and refine a compelling value proposition.Our équipe, bringing together students with diverse skills, unites their expertise to bring an idea to life and turn it into a credible and structured project. Together, we blend analysis, creativity, and technical expertise to build a strong and convincing concept.Our goal ? Pitch our project to judges, capture their attention, and convince them that our idea deserves the pole position !
power Electronics & Low Voltage
Power Electronics is the division that deals with engines, inverters and everything else that goes with them. This year, the division’s main objective is to optimize the systems implemented on last season’s car, Ariane, which was our first 4-wheel-drive car. The division is therefore working on a new inverter cooling design, a test bench to learn more about the engines, and the development of in-house SiC inverters.
The low-voltage system is the equivalent of the car’s nervous system.
The division’s roles are to design the data transfer networks throughout the vehicle, the high-voltage battery management system, the electrical safety systems, and to manufacture the low-voltage battery powering all these elements.
To fulfill these tasks, its members design the majority of the car’s PCBs (printed circuit boards) and program the software that will orchestrate them, such as the touch-sensitive dashboard and the battery management system.
It is also their role to design and assemble a large part of the vehicle’s cable harness.
Mechanical Systems
The EPFL Racing Team’s Mechanical Systems division designs, develops, and integrates the car’s key mechanical components. Its goals are efficient power transmission, drivetrain reliability, and optimal subsystem performance.
Engineers follow an iterative process of CAD modeling, simulations, and testing to balance weight, strength, and performance. From gearbox optimization to suspension tuning and cooling, every detail impacts final performance.
The team also ensures structural integrity and proper mounting of all parts. Once designs are finalized, production begins, with many components precision-machined from lightweight materials.
Software & Sensors
The Software & Sensors division manages the car’s data systems, sensor integration, and IT tools to optimize performance and connectivity.
It selects and integrates sensors, develops real-time telemetry for live data visualization during tests and races, and programs logic on the central SbRio controller—while ensuring reliable debugging.
The team also implements key control sensors like the Inertial Navigation System (INS) and RTK GNSS, a precise satellite positioning system providing high-frequency data on speed, acceleration, and position for the control algorithms.
Acting as a link between all divisions, this team ensures the car remains intelligent, connected, and data-driven.
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How can you become our partner
Send us an email at epfl-racing-team@epfl.ch or call us at +41 77 489 99 07.
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