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Formula E heads to Mexico for the fourth round of the season with Bird and Virgin leading the championships, a new driver in the field. We preview what to look out for in Mexico.
FE has the potential to attract a wider market than F1, simply because people like mums and dads can understand that a battery is driving that race car - and mine at home. Sell the series by showing the everyday savings this tech can have on teh average punters life. Also, finally, manufacturers can compete on a level playing field and transfer race tech into car tech - race on Sunday, sell on Monday. That actually works, although it's been lost up the coit of politics and greed.Di Montezemolo is unhappy with technological changes in F1 which have shifted the emphasis away from traditional car and engine research and design to areas such as aerodynamics. "If Formula 1 is not any more an extreme technology competition, where the technology can be transferred to the road car, maybe we can see Formula 1 without Ferrari," he told CNN in a wide-ranging interview.
Regardless of what some fans think, road relevance is the key to having a sustainable race series into the future. Splashing copious amounts of cash around to develop a wing, that gets banned the next year - is pointless, on every level.Todt on F1: "And maybe I'll manage to convince several engine manufacturers who are now in endurance racing or elsewhere into building engines for F1 too: Audi, Toyota, Porsche, the Koreans..."
even though its not up for argument. Unless they try to mandate it this will not happen until energy storage transportation and distribution can come even close current tech. Its not there yet formula E had a perfect chance to develop it. Instead we got switch the cars at the half way point. This is even less road relevant to real life than F1 is. No one is going to switch cars when one runs out of energy. At least in F1 they put enough fuel into the car to make it to the end of the race or they do fuel stops.autogyro wrote: Not sensible when governments continue to state that road vehicles will be well over 50 percent electric by 2050.
The above is a statement of fact, not a 'green' issue open for argument.
http://vimeo.com/50129899
You are wrong Flyn, the level of electric technology is good enough right now for meaningful racing in the correct environment. This has been proven for over five years with electric motorcycles.flynfrog wrote:even though its not up for argument. Unless they try to mandate it this will not happen until energy storage transportation and distribution can come even close current tech. Its not there yet formula E had a perfect chance to develop it. Instead we got switch the cars at the half way point. This is even less road relevant to real life than F1 is. No one is going to switch cars when one runs out of energy. At least in F1 they put enough fuel into the car to make it to the end of the race or they do fuel stops.autogyro wrote: Not sensible when governments continue to state that road vehicles will be well over 50 percent electric by 2050.
The above is a statement of fact, not a 'green' issue open for argument.
http://vimeo.com/50129899
I think this series is interesting I look forward to the developments that come out of it but lets face no one is going to line up to watch it. The reason F1 has a large marketing budget is because it has a ROI. Dumping $ into a series nobody really cares about is going to increase its viewership or make it better.
I look forward to having a true technical discussion. Not a political one. Does anybody have any info on what motor technology they are using I am assuming most will be using Lipo or LiFe battery tech.
The regulations for FE are presently structured on data from the formulec prototype built by Mercedes and the current batteries available for this car.even though its not up for argument. Unless they try to mandate it this will not happen until energy storage transportation and distribution can come even close current tech. Its not there yet formula E had a perfect chance to develop it. Instead we got switch the cars at the half way point. This is even less road relevant to real life than F1 is. No one is going to switch cars when one runs out of energy. At least in F1 they put enough fuel into the car to make it to the end of the race or they do fuel stops.
I think this series is interesting I look forward to the developments that come out of it but lets face no one is going to line up to watch it. The reason F1 has a large marketing budget is because it has a ROI. Dumping $ into a series nobody really cares about is going to increase its viewership or make it better.
I look forward to having a true technical discussion. Not a political one. Does anybody have any info on what motor technology they are using I am assuming most will be using Lipo or LiFe battery tech.
You’re entirely right. But then batteries will never replace hydrocarbons on that criterium either. The truth is that green racing is pretty much green wash with no net fuel savings or break throughs, just hype.WhiteBlue wrote:Supercaps are good if you simply want to convert energies but not so good if you want to store large quantities. Some teams use a combination of both in KERS but for a formula E application supercaps will not replace chemical batteries.
That is not true. WE have already seen in LMP that the proper incentives can promote efficient technologies that give good racing and are useful for road cars. The same will happen in F1 when they switch to a fuel flow regulated formula. It is long overdue. And no amount of propaganda will stop that. The best way to save fossil fuels is developing more efficient engines and using the same approach in motor sport will accelerate the development. Electric turbo compounding will be a useful technology and a break through that will appear in road cars as soon as they have mastered it in F1.olefud wrote:WhiteBlue wrote:The truth is that green racing is pretty much green wash with no net fuel savings or break throughs, just hype.
WhiteBlue wrote:That is not true. WE have already seen in LMP that the proper incentives can promote efficient technologies that give good racing and are useful for road cars. The same will happen in F1 when they switch to a fuel flow regulated formula. It is long overdue. And no amount of propaganda will stop that. The best way to save fossil fuels is developing more efficient engines and using the same approach in motor sport will accelerate the development. Electric turbo compounding will be a useful technology and a break through that will appear in road cars as soon as they have mastered it in F1.olefud wrote:WhiteBlue wrote:The truth is that green racing is pretty much green wash with no net fuel savings or break throughs, just hype.
Electric racing also has its strong points. I do not agree that batteries have not made progress in the last decade. Quite contrary. We have seen amazing improvements. And electric vehicles will have strong growth in the cities.
F1 electric turbo compounding will recover about 70 free bhp from a 600 bhp sized exhaust stream IMOWhiteBlue wrote: Electric turbo compounding will be a useful technology and a break through that will appear in road cars as soon as they have mastered it in F1.
Electric racing also has its strong points. I do not agree that batteries have not made progress in the last decade. Quite contrary. We have seen amazing improvements. And electric vehicles will have strong growth in the cities.
Audi's turbodiesel technology was first developed in race winning LeMan race cars before it was sold million times on the road. At least in Europe we are aware of this. Same goes for the Williams KERS that was first used in sports cars and is likely to be employed in road cars and busses in the future. Variable geometry turbos were also developed in racing and will play a role in road cars. Naturally all these technologies come with a cost but that's why they are developed in racing and later adapted to mass production.olefud wrote:Our differences seem to be mostly in semantics. I see the LPM cars using optimized (and expensive) iterations of technology already deployed in road cars. Much he same is true of the F-1 greening to date. If I’m missing some breakthrough it’s pretty subtle.
Anybody can guess how the technology will develop and spread. Some efficiency inventions that were expensive made it into the last road car given enough time, like digital controlled fuel injection vs carburettors. There was a time when that was thought much too expensive.Somewhere in another thread you’ll find that I have expounded hopefully to Cookers on compounding citing the stillborn ICE aircraft engine efficiency after WWII. I think this may have been prior to the present rules. Compounding may or may not scale to smaller engines. Digital controls may or may not deal with rapidly changing energy needs. Either way, at least if it works out, it could be a worthwhile advance. But you seem to be counting this as a present fiat accompli.
If you think that supercaps will replace chemical batteries you are probably barking up the wrong tree. Capacitors have been around forever and they have never in their existence come near the capacity of a chemical batterie and probably never will.As to batteries, the lithium-ion appears to be the best at the moment. It has about 3X the energy density of a good lead battery and costs about 3X (at best) as much. This doesn’t amaze me. Relative to IC vehicles, electric vehicles have a long way to go to reach the ratio they enjoyed in 1900.
If you look at my position it should be clear that my purpose is to move the effort to more promising technologies rather than rehashing old, already-near-optimized stuff like batteries. If any of this is to work, critical rather than cheerleader review is necessary.
It was other way round. VNTs were selling in huge numbers, mainly in the commercial market, long before they appeared at Le Mans.WhiteBlue wrote:Variable geometry turbos were also developed in racing and will play a role in road cars.