The world’s first electric car racing series is planning to add a driverless championship in 2016-17 as part of its support package.

Formula E, now in its second season, said in a statement yesterday that the new ‘Roborace’ series would be developed in partnership with investment company Kinetik.

The aim was to “provide a competitive platform for the autonomous driving solutions that are now being developed by many large industrial automotive and technology players as well as top tech universities.”

Formula E’s current championship started in October and runs to July next year, meaning any new series would be part of their third season.

The plan would be for Roborace to take place before each Formula E round, using the same circuits in major cities worldwide with 10 teams each fielding two driverless cars.

Races would last for one hour and all teams will have the same cars, competing “using real-time computing algorithms and AI (artificial intelligence) technologies.”

One of the teams will be organised as a crowd-sourced community team which organisers said would be open to software and technology experts and enthusiasts.

Formula E chief executive Alejandro Agag said Roborace would be “one of the most cutting-edge sporting events in history.”

Traditional automakers, es-pecially premium brands such as Mercedes-Benz and Audi who are winners in conventional series like Formula One and sportscars, are already implementing advanced driver assistance systems on their cars.