Alongside DHL, smartphone chipmaker Qualcomm has signed up to a sponsorship deal with the forthcoming Formula E championship.
The FIA international motorsports body plans to launch the electric-car competition next year as an alternative to Formula 1.
Qualcomm will provide wireless-charging and augmented-reality technology to help the teams taking part and the public watching the races.
Both organisations said the intention of the championship was to both provide entertainment and to spur on electric-vehicle technologies.
Among the products Qualcomm plans to offer is its wireless vehicle-charging tech, Halo.
Qualcomm has previously tested its Halo technology in London, promising it can use existing street furniture and transmit energy even in bad weather conditions.
The technology – which is being developed by the company’s London-based lab – creates an electromagnetic field using a copper pad buried in the ground. This can be picked up by a coil built into a vehicle, which converts it into electricity to power-up a battery.
British Formula E team Drayson Racing Technologies has already tested a customised version of Halo as a way of charging its vehicles when they are stationary.
However, the intention is to use the tech to recharge only the competition’s safety vehicle during the first year of the championship before extending it to the competitors’ cars in either year two or three.
In time, Qualcomm said, several pads could be built into the city centre roads used by the races to provide "dynamic charging" – the ability for the cars to top up their power on the go, helping them complete the race in quicker time.
South Korea has already pioneered something similar, using a locally developed variant of mobile recharging tech called OLEV to power buses on a set route.
However, such schemes are costly and the FIA said it recognised the competition would need to prove popular if it was to raise the sums necessary to pay for the installation of the many pads required.
As formula E’s founding technology partner, Qualcomm will also advise the championship on how to implement new and sustainable technology into the series, which hopes to provide a platform for research and development, and to promote awarenesss of electric vehicles.
