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New third-generation Formula E car is fastest ever electric racer
- bragr 4y agoDon't get me wrong, I like Formula E but "fastest ever electric racer" isn't saying much at this point. These things are still pretty slow compared to F1 which is why I think they rarely show exhibitions of them up against each other.
- themitigating 4y agohttps://m.facebook.com/TheStig/videos/drag-race-formula-e-vs-wrc-vs-formula-one-in-the-wet-top-gear-christmas-special-/281229823990843/ https://m.facebook.com/TheStig/videos/drag-race-formula-e-vs... And F1 compared to McMurtry Spéirling EV at GoodWood https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_-Q7a0hfp-A https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_-Q7a0hfp-A
- PaulKeeble 4y agoIts definitely not a speed issue, we can make very fast electric cars and the torque and horsepower delivery is vastly superior to a hydrocarbon engine. The problem is energy density. Petrol stores a lot more energy in a smaller space and weight than a battery currently and that accounts for a large amount of the deficit between them for race distances. Still Formula E is improving and it has a future in a net zero world where as the hydrocarbon super cars of F1 likely do not.
- jacquesm 4y agoThat second link is just insane, the way that thing gets going and maintains speed through the corners is out of this world. I wonder what the disturbance in the air behind the middle of the car is, probably dust but it looks a bit strange for that. Or is it sucking itself to the ground (if so then that makes the run a lot less impressive, F1 outlawed that long ago).
- jackmott 4y agoIt is all electric rear wheel drive with two fans that suck it to the ground, and the skirt lasts a long time!
- jacquesm 4y agoAh ok, then this is an apples to oranges comparison. Thank you!
- ctchocula 4y agoThey actually brought back ground effect this year with the newest regulation change. The argument was that if cars relied on ground effect for downforce and less on front and rear wings, cars could have an easier time following the car ahead because the turbulent air becomes less of a factor (due to ground effect not being as susceptible as the front wing to turbulent air) and being able to follow more closely makes for better racing. As a fan, I certainly can't complain. The commentators certainly never miss a chance to remind us how good the new regulations are.
- jacquesm 4y agoYes, but that's not using fans, or is it?
- ctchocula 4y agoNot fans exactly, but the Bernoulli principle, which is sufficient to keep the car sucked to the track if the floor is designed in a specific way [0][1] [0] https://motorsport-magazine.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/19172031/Underneath-view-of-2021-F1-car.jpg https://motorsport-magazine.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/wp-co... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_(cars) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_(cars)
- jacquesm 4y agoYes, but that only works above a minimum speed, fans work all the time so that is why that electric car in the video moves like it is on rails. If that F1 car had had fans it would likely be just as fast, the difference is minimal as it is.
- justin66 4y ago> And F1 compared to McMurtry Spéirling EV at GoodWood A 23-year old F1 car - for whatever reason, the FIA doesn't let the teams do timed runs at Goodwood anymore. It'd be neat if they took their car for a test at a track where F1 races.
- themitigating 4y agoDue to FIA regulations you can't assume newer F1 cars are always faster.
- InitialLastName 4y agoThat car got pole at Brazil with a 76.568-second lap. Last year, the pole lap was 67.934 seconds; I think it's safe to say a modern F1 car would be substantially faster at Goodwood too (almost certainly fast enough to make up the difference in lap times.
- justin66 4y agoDue to recorded lap times on race tracks, you very certainly can. They're not in the same league. There's always the argument that some obvious engine power restrictions in the rules could be worked around to make any given race car faster (Porsche with the 919 recently showed how spectacular the results of that tinkering can be), but the number of extreme improvements to F1 cars over the last 23 years in every area (aero, tires, brakes, engine, electronics, whatever) is something to contemplate. There is some very low hanging fruit you could grab involving use of the battery and DRS if you wanted to ignore the rules and make a 2022 F1 car faster over one lap for the purposes of this comparison, so there's also that...
- epolanski 4y agoICEs are lighter than electric ones, formula 1 will always be faster than anything. I really have a hard time liking formula e, the lack of engine sound takes away lots of excitement.
- elcomet 4y agoOn the contrary, I think it's really amazing to have silent racing cars!
- nomel 4y agoI wonder if they could tweak the PWM to give some louder, pleasing, sound.
- gen3 4y agoI went to the New York race a couple weeks ago. When they pass by you as a group, they really sound like a TV spaceship taking off
- somerandomqaguy 4y agoFWIW the Mugen TT Electric Motorcycles sounds pretty sweet up close: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7-O5c9NM0w&t=120s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7-O5c9NM0w&t=120s Like a small cruise missile powered by a turbofan mounted on two wheels.
- jackmott 4y ago
- joshu 4y agoVolkswagen ID.R on Pike's Peak?
- nomel 4y agoFormula 1 is designed under very very strict, often year specific, rules, from aerodynamics, suspension, to max power capability. I'm not sure it's fair to compare them, since the context is so different. In that video (6:13), they even admit that's the main advantage: the unregulated freedom of the design. A better comparison would be a Volkswagen ID.R with an ICE compared to an electric Volkswagen ID.R. At this point in the tech, the ICE will almost certainly win.
- cco 4y agoI think the ID.R holds the overall record at Pike's Peak, ICE or otherwise.
- nomel 4y agoYeap, beating the previous record by 16 seconds, 7:57.148 vs 8:13.378 [1]. The previous record holder being a Peugeot 208 [2], with the aerodynamics of a brick, but with 875hp and weighing 325kg less than the ID.R. ID.R has 671hp at ~1200kg. It's also the second fastest at Nurburgring, behind by 45 seconds, 6:05.336 vs 5:19.546 [3]. It's an incredible car! 1. https://www.thedrive.com/accelerator/21731/volkswagen-i-d-r-smashes-loebs-pikes-peak-record-by-16-seconds https://www.thedrive.com/accelerator/21731/volkswagen-i-d-r-... 2. https://www.supercars.net/blog/2013-peugeot-208-t16-pikes-peak/ https://www.supercars.net/blog/2013-peugeot-208-t16-pikes-pe... 3. https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a2140371/volkswagen-idr-drops-605-ring-making-it-fastest-electric-car-ever/ https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a2140371/volkswagen...
- bob29 4y agohaha suck it, internal combustion engine cars.
- jacquesm 4y ago
- pmontra 4y agoF1 and F3 have been racing on the very same track at Montecarlo since last year. FE is more or less a Formula 3 car there. Then FE has some silly tracks like London last weekend. To be fair, F1 on a non oval circuit is much faster than anything else. Check the times of F1 and Indycar at COTA.
- InitialLastName 4y agoGoing deeper on this comparison because I only just remembered it was a comparison we could make: In the 2022 Monaco E-Prix (FE), the best qualifying lap time was 89.839s [0]. For the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix (F1), the pole was 71.376s [1]. It's worth noting that this is with slower cars than have recently been the case; the same times last year were > 1 second faster. The top level Formula 3 series (currently FIA International F3, formerly GP3/European F3) doesn't race at Monaco; the last time a top tier F3 championship did race there was GP3 in 2012 (88.008s) [2]. Note that these are 10-year-old cars; current top-tier F3 cars are ~15% faster [3] (at modern Silverstone, which is the only circuit configuration used both years) than they were in 2012. While GP3/F3 weren't present, Formula Regional European, a Tier 4 series that races in Formula 3 cars did race there; pole was 89.802s [4]. However, these are a lower tier of driver and team; last year, they were 7% slower at Barcelona [5] than FIA F3. As such, one could argue that current FIA F3 would be a bit (10%?) faster than Formula E cars at Monaco. On the other hand, this comparison is not quite fair to the electric cars! The chemically-fueled cars do qualifying with as little fuel as possible (to reduce their weight to the minimum), where electric cars have to take the full weight hit of their total energy store during qualifying. The F1 cars can't come anywhere near their qualifying pace until the very end of the race; in theory, a Formula E car would be capable of a qualifying-paced lap at any point during the race. As such, we should also compare Formula 1 cars' paces at the start of the race. Unfortunately for the comparison this year, the F1 race started off wet; the fastest laps around Lap 3 (after the start had cleared) were ~101s [6]. The 2021 Monaco Grand Prix, which was dry, is an easier example: the fastest laps on lap 3 were about 77s [7] , still substantially faster than the FE cars ever get. To make the Indycar comparison we need to look all the way back to 2019, since Indycar has scrupulously avoided racing at F1 tracks whenever possible, up to and including conspicuously not marketing the Indianapolis road course to F1 (despite its qualifications and history as an F1 track, and the soaring demand for US-based F1 races). In that event, the fastest qualifying lap was 105.454s [8]. For F1, the pole lap of the 2019 US GP was 93.750 [9]. There is a reason Indycar avoids comparisons. [0] https://formulaspy.com/formula-e/qualifying-results-2022-monaco-e-prix-78884 https://formulaspy.com/formula-e/qualifying-results-2022-mon... [1] https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1112/monaco/qualifying.html https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1112/mon... [2] https://motorsportstats.com/results/gp3-series/2012/monaco/classification/2nd-qualifying https://motorsportstats.com/results/gp3-series/2012/monaco/c... [3] https://www.fiaformula3.com/Results?raceid=1032 https://www.fiaformula3.com/Results?raceid=1032 [4] https://formularegionaleubyalpine.com/corsa/monaco-2022/ https://formularegionaleubyalpine.com/corsa/monaco-2022/ [5] https://formularegionaleubyalpine.com/corsa/barcelona-2021/ https://formularegionaleubyalpine.com/corsa/barcelona-2021/ [6] https://www.racefans.net/2022/05/29/2022-monaco-grand-prix-interactive-data-lap-charts-times-and-tyres/ https://www.racefans.net/2022/05/29/2022-monaco-grand-prix-i... [7] https://www.racefans.net/2021/05/23/2021-monaco-grand-prix-interactive-data-lap-charts-times-and-tyres/ https://www.racefans.net/2021/05/23/2021-monaco-grand-prix-i... [8] https://www.indycar.com/results/ntt-indycar-series/2019/indycar-classic/qualifications---round-2 https://www.indycar.com/results/ntt-indycar-series/2019/indy...
- namecheapTA 4y agoRacecars are only really slowed down by two things.. budget and rules. Every year the cars get faster as teams budgets optimize the rule sets more and more. Often rules are created to slow the cars down, and to limit spending. If you let people spend unlimited money and have totally open rules, very quickly you'd have cars so fast they are completely unsafe on the tracks they are designated to race on. MotogGP for example has tightened rules basically every few years to lower the gap between the top tier teams and the low budget teams, and to slow the bikes down. Even with that, the bikes top speeds are still rising and talk of unsafe speeds at certain corners grows every year. If you just allowed 20% larger engine sizes and custom traction control, and variable aero, bike speeds would rise so high people would die every few races instead of every few years.
- sojournerc 4y agoThe other thing that slows them down is the need for a meaty human in the cockpit. A fan car (creating downforce by pulling the car to the ground) can go faster than a human driver could reasonably sustain without passing out in the corners
- namecheapTA 4y agoThat would be a heck of a suction to help a car produce several Gs. 'Fan cars' give more traction for sure.. I'm not so sure about pass out levels of traction.
- Gwypaas 4y agoThe cars already produce 4-5 G when braking and in higher speed corners.
- sph 4y agoThe Silverstone Esses are about 5.2G in a Formula 1 car, and they repeat that experience 50 times on a racing Sunday. I think Copse and Stowe are very intense G-wise as well. No wonder F1 drivers have necks as big as their head.
- rozap 4y agoI get that Formula E isn't a spec series, but it is weird that so much of it is homologated spec parts. Given that the racing isn't that great (maybe entertaining, clumsy, or wacky would be descriptors of FE), imo it'd really make sense to fully lean in on the technological progress goal. In 10 years they'd have one hell of a series. If you think about all the progress that was made during the group B and early formula 1 days and look at the regulations that were in play at the time, it seems like opening up the regulations in Formula E would make a lot of sense.
- ben-schaaf 4y agoI don't see how you could convince manufacturers to spend way more money on it, especially in the early days when it's not that popular.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoWouldn't the year over year advancement and chaotic competition make it a little more exciting and thus popular?
- bagels 4y agoWould it make it popular enough that the manufacturers would want to participate in an escalating war of money?
- KennyBlanken 4y ago> escalating war of money You mean like literally any other form of automotive racing? The advantage here is that all that R&D would push for more powerful, lightweight, efficient EV powertrains instead of going into a dead, and largely "solved", problem of ICEs.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoThen don't participate? I don't understand the crab-bucket mentality of setting limits in that context.
- joshu 4y agoRight before the pandemic hit I was invited to go drive some 1st gen Formula E cars. I really regret passing on that. (I'm told they can be made much more driveable for non-pros)
- owow123 4y agoGenuinely curious, what did you have in the diary that trumped testing early days FE cars? I would have ditched most everything to drive an FE car, even work, and I have no driving license / interest in F1 (and am 26+).
- joshu 4y agonothing, it just seemed like a long trip. i’m not a great driver but i am good enough that most classes and “experienced” are super tedious…
- themitigating 4y ago"Want to drive the fastest electric race car in the world?" "I'll have to pass, my friends and I are going to Outback Steakhouse"
- fortysixdegrees 4y agoI just wept a little
- jreese 4y agoHow do folks actually watch Formula E races, without a cable subscription? The Formula E Youtube channel only ever posts "highlights" through the season, and then waits to the end of the season to post full races to their channel. I'm a happy F1TV subscriber, and really enjoyed watching some FE races here and there in the past, but it feels like they're going out of their way to make it difficult or pointless to actively watch full races during the season. Is there an "FETV" type of deal similar to F1TV, or do I just have to give up hope of seeing them before the end of the season?
- SashaRuvin 4y agoIn the U.S. you have to watch it live on CBS/CBS Sports which means some sort of cable subscription. Paramount+ doesn't even give you access. Also there is no on demand replay, so you either catch it live or not at all. Outside of the U.S. you can watch it on YouTube but it's blocked state side. Broadcast rights deals ruining UX yet again..
- JshWright 4y agoThe US commentary team is so terrible... It has all the energy of a golf tournament. I really miss Jack and Dario on the world feed.
- LeoPanthera 4y ago> Also there is no on demand replay, so you either catch it live or not at all. You could record it... Like we always used to do.
- chrisseaton 4y agoAre DVRs still a thing? I thought they added copy-protection to video outputs (like Apple movies won't play on a non-protected display.)
- LeoPanthera 4y agoI have Comcast cable and watch it via an HDHomeRun with a cablecard. Only "premium" channels are encrypted and that's mostly just HBO. I use the "Channels"[1] software to record programs and save them directly onto my NAS. [1]:https://getchannels.com https://getchannels.com Of course, all cable providers also have their own DVRs. And surprisingly, Tivo still exists. https://www.tivo.com https://www.tivo.com
- robomartin 4y agoWe watch every single F1 race, qualifying and sometimes practice. I have not been able to develop interest in FE. Racing is a hobby for us, not just something we watch on TV. Every single one of my kids has gone through at least one SCCA driving course (multiple instructor-led days on track at Willow Springs Streets and Big Willow). We are into it, but FE just doesn’t click for some reason. Neither does NASCAR, BTW. At the risk of offending people, turning left for a million laps is just plain stupid. Sorry.
- routerl 4y agoA lot of what you've written resonates with how I used to think. While I don't find NASCAR very interesting, I no longer think of it as "turning left for a million laps", since track position (i.e. high, middle, low) is actually a subtle, tactical game. Also, as I'm sure you know, "turning", in any racing, is never as simple as just turning the wheel; race drivers also use the brakes and throttle to turn, and there's enormous subtlety in this. The skill in NASCAR (or IndyCar oval racing) is in carefully observing your opponents, and noticing the small mistakes they consistently make, which you can then, skillfully, convert into gaining positions. Having said that, I hate the way American broadcasters cover racing, and the biggest draw of NASCAR is absolutely the spectacular crashes, which I'm not a fan of either. So, it's not for me, but I do respect the drivers. Having said that, yes, FE has a long way to go before they are reliably producing exciting races. But they recently started racing on the same Monaco circuit layout as F1, and that race is reliably more exciting than F1's Monaco GP. If you watch no other FE races, ever, I'll nevertheless recommend watching the Monaco ePrix (dumb name), if only to see how good a race can be around those streets (something F1 will never demonstrate ever again).
- robomartin 4y agoI’ll look that up. Thanks. Having substantial on-track experience I think I understand. For example, I definitely use throttle steer to navigate something like the large sweeper at Big Willow while doing 140 mph. The wheel is not a good input for subtlety at speed. I don’t want to dump on NASCAR too much. I know there’s challenges and strategy. The culture of watching the races for the crashes is absolutely deplorable. Part of me can’t help but think that NASCAR reinforces the stereotype of the lazy American. Everyone sits around an oval stadium while consuming thousands of calories and watches the “race” for the carnage. I just don’t like it. Then again, I come here from a different culture. I don’t like what Americans call “football” (sorry, it isn’t). I played and I am into both rugby and real football. That is to say, there might be a cultural element to consider.
- __david__ 4y agoFormula E fascinates me by taking cues from video games and translating them into their races: (quoting their web site) Introduced for the 2018/19 season was ATTACK MODE, which lets every driver pick up an extra hit of power at their own risk. To fire up ATTACK MODE, drivers will need to arm their car, drive off the racing line, and through the Activation Zone. As a reward for taking a slower line through the corner, they’ll be able to collect an extra 30kW of power. Drivers that secure the extra speed, can use it for a few laps when they want to race harder, giving them the edge to keep ahead of the competition. On top of that, there's FANBOOST - your chance to impact the race. The five drivers who receive the highly-acclaimed FANBOOST – as voted for by you, the fans - are awarded a significant burst of power, which they can deploy in a five-second window during the second half of the race. You can vote to FANBOOST your favourite driver in the week prior to, and leading up to 15 minutes into, each race.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- routerl 4y agoAttack mode I find really interesting, from a racecraft (and yeah, also from a game design) perspective, since it actually presents a choice with real tradeoffs: the driver has to completely sacrifice a corner, choosing to take the longest/slowest line through that corner, in order to gain a temporary boost in engine wattage, which they can strategically deploy later on. Very cool. Fan boost is... uninteresting. It's bringing elements from game shows, not video games, and rewards the drivers who spend the most time and effort on influencer behavior. This is excusable, I suppose, for the sake of increasing the sport's profile. But it definitely doesn't help make the racing any better or more entertaining for people who are racing fans, rather than fans of a specific driver.
- mrcartmeneses 4y agoI’m probably being really negative but that is probably why I’ve never been interested in FE despite being a huge motorsport fan who also weirdly is very anti-car in my daily life. FE just seems so silly and contrived.
- elihu 4y agoI think a good way to do EV racing would be to use batteries with relatively small capacities, but very high power density. (Maybe supercaps?) There'd be a section of the track where the car can recharge without stopping by making physical contact with overhead lines or metal plates embedded in the road or something like that. The battery would have enough capacity to do maybe a couple laps. So, you could slow down in the "charging section" to fully charge, or you could go faster or pass the slow cars by bypassing the charging section altogether, but then you'd have to budget your energy more carefully and maybe have to spend longer charging next lap. It'd be interesting to set up a track like this for racing radio-controlled cars.
- etempleton 4y agoWould kind of be like FZero in this regard. I think this would be interesting. Interested to see where F1 goes with their power spec. I think they could do with more power, but they will probably stick with some kind of hybrid setup for at least the next decade or more.
- KennyBlanken 4y agoSupercapacitors have several orders of magnitude less energy density. What might make more sense is a modular battery.
- elihu 4y agoThat is true, but they also have several orders of magnitude higher power density. Maybe the battery technology to make this work just doesn't exist -- I'm imagining something that can absorb enough energy in, say, ten seconds or less, to make it around the track a couple times. Lithium ion can store huge amounts of energy, but charge times are slow. Capacitors can charge very quickly, but have very little capacity. I don't know if there's some technology that splits the difference. Lithium Titanate? Solid state batteries?
- Dylan16807 4y agoThe comment said power density, and supercapacitors have almost 10x the power density. The energy density hit is between 1 and 2 orders of magnitude, not several. You could run a lap on supercapacitors alone. Or make it so most of the power comes from supercaps so that there's a bit more endurance and running low is a bit less harsh.
- 1024core 4y agoWeirdly, the article links to all of the competitors _except_ one: Mahindra, the Indian automaker. For completeness, here's their site: https://www.mahindraracing.com/ https://www.mahindraracing.com/
- djmips 4y agoThey should go all in and make them self driving as well.
- Smoosh 4y agoThere was Roborace [https://roborace.com/ https://roborace.com/] which seemed to be closely aligned with FE once, but seems to have just been a bullshit promotional exercise.