The rise of Formula E, perhaps not... the death of the internal combustion engine, yes for sure. Why do you think manufacturers wanted to go hybrid in the first place with minuscule v6's in the first place? They want to push the product, by establishing some imaginary connection between the car you see on TV and on track, and the car you see in the dealer's lot. It is about pushing sales. In the market of road cars, v12s are dead, v10s are dead... and v8s are dead. We are not going to see them in the future, except on niche type cars that going to be very expensive. It is only a matter of time before the current v6 1.6L is dead too, and in the not so distant future, the internal combustion engine altogether.
So where does this go, if F1 is defined as the technological pinnacle of motorsports AND road car relevant. Well for one thing, to engines that have no internal combustion at all. Electric is probably where it is gonna go, barring some unforeseen breakthrough in some other technological field. Which means Formula E. Maybe not the current Formula E, but something along the line of that technical regulation for the propulsion of the cars.
As for road car relevance, I don't think people really understand just how close we are to a present day, where NOBODY is going to be driving their own cars. We see these examples of AI cars making poor choices and doing silly mistakes. And sometimes people even get hurt. But the framework for the AI decision making on the stance of danger to humans and choice in difficult situations, has been laid down in philosophy and ethics decades ago. Most of these problems are handled by Trolley examples and this a field that has received enormous amount of attention before anyone really thought of AI cars. AI cars might make silly mistakes, and they might get people hurt, but that is actually irrelevant to the case.
Private motoring is the 9th leading cause of death globally. People driving cars kill 3,287 a day 1.3 million globally, and additionally 20-50 million are injured or disabled. AI doesn't have to be perfect to drive cars. It just has to be statistically BETTER than humans before it begins to save lives. And once that happen, things will move FAST.
An F1 franchise with technological pinnacle of motorsports AND road car relevancy as it's self-definition, self-identity and self-explanation to the world will find itself in the puzzling paradox, that it will be forced to either EJECT these values, or accept that F1 will no longer be piloted by humans. It will be a contest of AIs. Perhaps standard AIs and the contest is on the car hardware... perhaps a combination of car hardware and manufacturer AI. I don't know what it will be. But keeping this self-identity and defending humans as pilots of the cars will be impossible.
As to the image of being wasteful and polluting, I understand the point, but it is utterly ridiculous. And mind you, I am totally on the boat of having serious concerns that we may be on the brink or even past the brink of having fukced the planet for good. The thing is, 20-22 cars doing 1000 kilometers for 25 weekends (so we include testing) doesn't make any serious impact on anything. It is a tiny droplet in the ocean of pollution and energy mismanagement on this planet. What really matters is the 10 factories with massive computational power, extreme usage of rare and precious materials, massive energy bills, and the stupid amount of transport and logistics that comes along with the F1 show. What the actual cars are doing is nothing compared to the industry and transport that feeds the sport itself.
And for heaven's sake, it is entertainment. I promise you, every single medium sized stadium with grass turf has large machines that saturate worn spots of grass with UV lighting. Pretty much every season the entire turf of grass is cut up and removed, and then replaced with fresh turf grown somewhere else. And this speaks nothing of the massive bills for watering and the usage of fertilzer and chemicals to keep the pitch nice, fresh and green. And exactly how many people in the world of soccer do we see lament about this extreme waste of energy and water that goes on all over the world in every city that has a decent sized soccer team? Nobody... none at all.
The "green" image of F1 is not about being scared of the crowds not showing up to see the cars, or them not wanting to see it on TV. It is about SELLING the crowd a PRODUCT. There is absolutely zero environmental concern involved, only mass marketing to the fans... and looking at how the fans have received hybrid cars... they don't seem to like it.
It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.