Student Formula Team Is Charged Up for EV Racing Debut

06.12.2025

The UT Dallas student organization’s — Dallas Formula Racing’s — first electric vehicle is heading to the Formula SAE Electric international competition June 17-21 at the Michigan International Speedway. Students designed and built the car.

Since it was formed in 2014, The University of Texas at Dallas student organization Dallas Formula Racing (DFR) has designed and built six formula-style internal combustion engine cars for collegiate competition racing.

This month, the team will debut its first electric vehicle (EV) at the Formula SAE Electric international competition June 17-21 at the Michigan International Speedway.

“We’re very excited to make it to the EV competition this year,” said Safaa Siddiqui, a mechanical engineering sophomore in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science and DFR president. “It took a lot of hard work to get here.”

Designing and building an EV is the latest accomplishment of DFR, which is the UTD chapter of SAE International, an association of engineers and technical experts in aerospace, automotive and commercial-vehicle industries. Last year, DFR’s internal combustion car placed 29th out of 108 teams at the Formula SAE competition and finished second for overall best visual design.

The UTD team is one of 86 teams, including five others from Texas, heading to SAE International’s EV competition. The students unveiled the car at a May 8 campus event. The EV is about 10-feet long, has a single seat, an open cockpit and open, or exposed, wheels. The vehicle is painted black and features UT Dallas and the names of sponsors in white letters.

The car accelerates from zero to 60 mph in 5.5 seconds, said Shereef Kamel, mechanical engineering junior and DFR’s EV chief engineer. He said students overcame challenges such as testing the validity of its designs, making sure the battery and safety systems worked properly, getting the motor to spin, and integrating donated parts into the design.

Members of Dallas Formula Racing, a UT Dallas student organization, spent an estimated 16,000 hours designing and building the team’s first electric vehicle.

Kamel estimated that students spent a combined 16,000 hours designing and building the vehicle. Students work on vehicles in DFR’s shop at the Engineering and Computer Science West building.

“It’s a lot of work building a complete car from scratch,” he said.

DFR members, who come from a range of academic majors, work on projects from design and fabrication to marketing, event planning and fundraising. DFR must raise about $200,000 a year for parts, testing, competition fees and travel. The organization has received support from sponsors.

Rithvik Kaniganti, a business analytics junior in the Naveen Jindal School of Management and DFR’s marketing director, said he got involved because he is a “huge, huge” Formula One fan.

“I went to one of the kickoff meetings, and then I got hooked,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what experience you have, as long as you’re willing to work and help the team grow, we’ll show you everything you need to know.”

Designing, building and testing cars gives students hands-on experience that has led to full-time jobs for some participants, Siddiqui said.

“The time you put into the team, you’ll get it back,” said Cristobal Santamaria, an undergraduate majoring in accounting and marketing who serves as DFR’s director of creative media.

Most of all, students said they love being part of the organization.

“You can’t not have fun while working on a race car,” Kaniganti said.

–Kim Horner