Podium position
How an Italian engineering start up grew to become capable of winning a prestigious FIA world championship tender
Eyebrows were raised in early December when Podium Advanced Technologies was announced as the chosen battery supplier for the fourth generation Formula E car in 2026-27. The Italian engineering firm was a relative unknown compared to the likes of McLaren Applied and WAE Technologies, which had previously held the post, so its selection came as a surprise to some. For the people working at Podium’s expanding headquarters in north west Italy, it was a just reward for their hard work behind the scenes.
Podium is an very busy company, with its hands in many pies, from motorsport to marine. It was founded as Podium Engineering in 2011 and has grown since then to become capable of winning a major FIA tender just over a decade into its journey.
With that rate of progress, the company is on a trajectory that could see it mature into an engineering powerhouse with the size, resources and reputation to challenge those of much longer established concerns, such as esteemed Italian racecar constructor, Dallara.
Right place, right time
Podium is based in Pont-Saint-Martin, a small town close to the mouth of the steep sided Aosta Valley that winds up to Mont Blanc. It’s on the outermost fringes of Italy’s colloquial Motor Valley region, the bulk of which is located further east towards Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna. However, this geographical positioning on the outskirts played a part in getting Podium started in the early 2010s.
‘We are located in north west Italy, which is historically well known for coachbuilders and designers like Pininfarina, Giugiaro and Bertone,’ says Luca Ciancetti, head of automotive and motorsport at Podium, and one of its three co-founders. ‘These companies are great names in the area of design, but the [geographic] area was not so attractive for mechanical engineering, powertrain and electrification. So we decided that there was some space for a company like ours.
‘If we were positioned in a different area of northern Italy, like Emilia-Romagna further east, it would have been a different story.’
Ciancetti co-founded Podium Engineering alongside fellow Turin-based engineering graduates, Igor Zanetti (now the principal control engineer and IT manager) and
Mario Chiera di Vasco. It was a trio of 30 somethings full of ideas and ambition.
As those ideas turned into the reality of building and testing batteries, the company was re-named Podium Advanced Technologies in 2018 to better reflect its commitment to e-mobility projects.
One of the company’s first major assignments was a commission from American film producer, financier and petrolhead, Jim Glickenhaus, to engineer his P4/5 Competizione racecar with a kinetic energy recovery system with a 400V battery.
The hybrid-powered Glickenhaus finished an encouraging 12th at the Nürburgring 24 Hours in 2012 and the two parties continued to work together. Their partnership blossomed as Podium helped to develop two subsequent non-hybrid Glickenhaus racers, the 003C and the 004C, and ran the American automaker’s factory team at the Nordschleife.
In 2017, a Glickenhaus SCG 003C, driven by Jeff Westphal, claimed a shock overall pole position for the gruelling 24-hour race, beating FIA-homologated GT3 machinery.
‘We started work with Glickenhaus in 2011 on the P4/5 Competizione, then the 003C,’ confirms Ciancetti. ‘This started the growth as we then began to work with suppliers.’
When 24 Hours of Le Mans organiser, the ACO, announced in 2018 that it would replace LMP1 with a new Hypercar class, Glickenhaus set about working with Podium to build a car for the LMH regulations. The development and operation of the nonhybrid Glickenhaus 007 soon thrust Podium into a world championship where it could compete against the factory might of Toyota.
Podium finish
The overall podium finish at Le Mans in
2022 stands out as the programme’s finest achievement, although it probably would have taken a race win at Monza that season had a freak turbocharger failure not occurred.
Glickenhaus is not returning to the FIA World Endurance Championship this year
(see p40), but its Hypercar effort helped raise Podium’s profile and was a definite fan favourite, gaining a reputation as a plucky but mostly reliable machine that didn’t quite have the resources behind it to provide a lasting threat to the oncoming manufacturers.
In parallel, Podium continued to work on electrification. A key project has been its development of the spec battery for the fleet of Ducati motorbikes racing in the FIM MotoE World Championship. Its contribution is an
800V battery pack, consisting of 1152 cells, with a capacity of 18kWh, a maximum power output of 200kW and a weight of 110kg.
Last year marked the first season of the Ducati era in MotoE with a field of 18 bikes. ‘Based on knowledge [gained from the Glickenhaus P4/5], between 2013 and 2015 we have been able to supply batteries and energy storage for other racing series,’ says Podium CEO and head of battery systems, Francesco Monti. ‘Our customer at that time was Marelli and it was one of the first projects we delivered in that area. This is the foundation of our current capability in batteries. We are expanding, not only on motorsport projects like Formula E and MotoE, but in sectors like aviation and marine.’
Investing in research
Podium operates in a ‘self-financing capacity’, according to its website. This means that a chunk of its profits is reinvested to support research and development, amounting to around 10-15 per cent during its first decade.
The company’s structure is very straightforward. It has five shareholders, including the three co-founders. There is no mysterious overseas fund in the background pumping money in, with the hope of then taking money out again. Its growth has taken place over a carefully executed cycle of project obtention, delivery and reinvestment.
In the summer of 2022, Podium launched a three-year investment plan worth over €20 million called ‘Tech-Bat’, focusing on electrification and battery systems. It is partially financed by a regional government grant and is aimed at bringing Podium up to the point of assembling more than 1000 battery packs per year.
‘The main key is that we have invested in people and knowledge,’ continues Monti. ‘We always accept technical challenges. We have also been lucky enough to find programmes and customers that challenge us in doing that. For example, Mr Glickenhaus is a guy who trusted us, and allowed us to develop and deliver an LMH programme running three years consecutively at Le Mans.
‘We have also been partnering on
MotoE with Ducati, designing and producing all its batteries that last year raced in the championship. These kinds of things have been crucial. The other part is not being afraid to fail.’ Ciancetti adds that forging and maintaining close relationships with clients has also been crucial to Podium’s growth.
‘Our approach is to be involved with the customer. Their failure is our failure,’ he says. ‘We want our projects to be successful. When you have commercial discussions, there are many factors involved. But what we were able to establish in our relationship is that we are committed to their success. We have always tried to transform that feeling into reality.
‘We were able to create a track record of projects to start and deliver and most of them have been successful within all the constraints that a technical project can have.’
Room to expand
A clear physical sign of Podium’s expansion is the commissioning of a new headquarters adjacent to its current base. The 17,250m2 facility, established on a long-empty building, will house Podium’s two main divisions – battery and vehicle – with testing facilities and assembly lines included. It is a keystone of the company’s Tech-Bat investment plan.
‘It’s a brownfield site, so we are converting a former building,’ says Monti. ‘We are investing more than €10m (US$10.9m) in the new facility. Last September, we moved our first activities related to batteries there, and we plan to move all the people and operations this year. We are currently finalising the last few things, but it is already partially operative.’
Moving into a larger home will give Podium space to expand when it takes on more projects. It also accommodates the increasing number of full-time staff, which doubled to more than 80 between 2020 and the end of last year and includes auxiliary departments like human resources that grow in line with the engineering workforce.
‘The new facility will allow us to have new capabilities, new test and build facilities for batteries, to make proper R&D development and to build cars,’ adds Monti. ‘Some parts will not be so much different
[to the old facility], but some parts will be completely new, especially the part that is devoted to production.
‘We will have semi-automatic benches to assemble batteries, which will be completely different, and a new operation in terms of warehousing, traceability and quality.
‘We are also setting up new functions within our organisation to have the quality required to supply batteries for prototypes and automotive applications.’
The building Podium has now outgrown was established in 2016 and has received a series of upgrades since as the company took on new projects. For example, in 2018, Podium added a prototype workshop with nine assembly bays, while the following year it introduced an Industry 4.0 CNC machining workshop for the fabrication of custom parts.
Project commissions have been diverse and not fixed on racing, with examples from other sectors including the development of battery systems for the Riva El-Iseo motorboat and the Hitachi-built trams used in Florence.
It’s not all been plain sailing, though. An accident during a battery assembly caused a fire to break out in the prototype workshop in 2021, although no injuries were reported and work resumed after repairs and inspection.
A pleasant surprise
Despite winning the MotoE battery tender, the news that Podium would be entrusted as Formula E’s exclusive Gen 4 supplier came as a ‘big surprise’ to Monti, who was a hybrid powertrain engineer at McLaren Automotive before joining Podium in 2012.
Podium will create and assemble the
Gen 4 battery pack, using cells from an external supplier that is yet to be confirmed.
Commissions have been diverse and not fixed on racing, with examples from other sectors including the development of battery systems for the Riva El-Iseo motorboat and the Hitachi-built trams used in Florence
‘When we decided to apply last summer, honestly, we felt our chance was not so high,’ Monti candidly admits, ‘but we ultimately did a really great job in the technical and other aspects of the tender.
‘In the autumn, we started discussing with the FIA. We realised that our proposal was solid and, at the end of the year in December, when the final announcement was done, all the team was really happy.
‘We are very proud of this big achievement. It’s going to be another game changer for us, and another challenge in terms of project scope, but it matches our background. When batteries and motorsport join together at the highest level possible, it is something great. We are looking forward to making this project as successful as expected.’
For obvious reasons, Monti is limited in what he can say about the Gen 4 battery’s technical details, other than predicting that it will be ‘an improvement with respect to the current generation.’
The FIA tender proposed a maximum power output of 600kW, a capacity of 55kWh and a target battery pack weight of 340kg.
‘Technical-wise,’ Monti says, ‘the targets are always the same: weight reduction, energy, the capability to deliver high power, supplying energy to the powertrain, harvesting and recharging with a quick process. We are working closely with cell suppliers to have something capable of doing that. And also, battery manufacturing-wise, optimising aspects like cell joining, thermal management, safety and reliability with proper electronic and software development.’
This year is an important one for
Podium’s Formula E project as it gears up for integration into the Gen 4 prototype car in early 2025. The company’s foremost goal in the coming months is to produce the first prototype battery back that will be taken through the FIA’s homologation process.
Testing and maintenance of the batteries will then be carried out at Pont-Saint-Martin in Podium’s new headquarters.
‘We already have a testing facility for cells and modular battery packs in our current building,’ notes Monti, ‘and we have announced one in the new building as well. All the performance programmes will be run in-house, battery-wise.’
Hydrogen hunger
Podium’s growth as a battery supplier forms only part of its focus on sustainable technologies. The company has always been involved in electrification, with battery management systems and pack design being central activities, but it recently delved into the realm of hydrogen power when it developed and built the Blizz Primatist, a land speed record prototype that set eight FIA world records at the Nardò Ring last year.
Podium is now hoping to be involved in more hydrogen projects as the technology becomes more prevalent in racing.
‘We are investing in growing in other technologies and in software,’ says Monti. ‘Many of the new developments will also be software related, so this is what we are currently targeting in terms of establishing ourselves as a real international player.’
Podium has grown into a company with high potential in a short space of time.
Its performance as the Formula E battery supplier will now be crucial in cementing trust across the wider racing industry.
OEMs are also taking note of its growing reputation and one has assigned Podium to help develop a new FIA GT3 car for 2026. But what does the long-term future hold for the company? Does it want to emulate its compatriot Dallara, and become synonymous with prowess in motorsport engineering?
There are smiles when the name Dallara is brought up as it’s clearly a company that Podium’s lead figures have looked up to during their engineering careers.
‘Yeah, that is a dream,’ says Monti. ‘We are targeting being Dallara-like in these new technological fields.’
‘[winning the Formula E battery tender] is going to be another game changer for us, and another challenge in terms of project scope’
Francesco Monti