Will Smith’s racing team adds Electra AI to assess batteries and guide race strategy

Will Smith-led Westbrook Racing by Visit Angola is adding AI battery analysis to help its crew prepare race strategy from post-race data. Electra AI announced on October 13, 2026, that the electric powerboat team selected it as Official Battery Intelligence Partner under a three-year agreement beginning with the 2026 season.

The deployment includes Electra’s AI Brain for Batteries platform and its Race Boost Optimizer module. Westbrook competes in the UIM E1 World Championship, an electric marine racing series. The software’s assignment is specific: assess how the battery is holding up over time and help engineers review how the team used its boost on each course.

Turning a completed race into the next strategy

Electra says the system works from post-race telemetry—the recorded measurements from the boat and battery. Those inputs include speed, position and power demand, alongside battery voltage, current and temperature. The company describes this as the same post-race data available to all teams, rather than a new stream of exclusive measurements.

Race Boost Optimizer combines those measurements with the team’s race inputs, including course layout, weather, regulations and historical race data. Its engine takes in and checks the data, processes it, runs battery analytics and passes the results to an AI insights engine. The crew receives the resulting analysis through the platform interface for strategy development and session review.

The battery estimates combine physics-based methods with machine learning and AI, according to Electra. The platform is designed to give engineers four related views of the pack:

• State of health: an estimate of battery condition that supports tracking degradation over the racing calendar.
• State of charge: an estimate of the battery’s charge level.
• State of power: an estimate of the battery’s power capability.
• Remaining useful life: an estimate intended to inform the team’s understanding of longer-term battery performance.

For race preparation, the intended use is to examine boost deployment against the characteristics of a particular course. Each session also enters the historical dataset. Electra says that growing record will sharpen insights and recommendations across the season, while giving the crew a longer view of battery aging and performance trends.

We race at the edge of what the boat can do. Understanding how our battery is aging and how we actually used our boost after each race changes how we prepare for the next course. ELECTRA AI puts more data behind our decisions without touching our pack.

Westbrook Racing by Visit Angola team, in the partnership announcement

An engineering tool, not a boat controller

The partnership leaves the boat’s approved battery pack and battery management system unchanged, Electra says. The company also says its platform complies with E1 technical regulations. This is a software addition to the engineering toolkit, not a modification to the equipment that manages the battery or to the pack approved for competition.

Drivers and engineers retain control of boost and energy decisions. Electra describes the platform as supporting their judgment through strategy development and post-session review, rather than replacing them. Its stated role is to show where boost counts most and add battery-condition and energy information to the decisions the crew already makes.

Electra plans to join Westbrook trackside at the Miami races in November. The announcement establishes the agreement and intended workflow, but supplies no measured improvement in race results or battery-estimation accuracy. Yahoo Finance labels its copy a paid press release; the promised performance benefits remain company claims, not independently demonstrated outcomes.