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At the Track With Formula E, the First e-Racing Series
An anonymous reader writes Ars is running a story about the new all-electric racing car series and its first visit to the U.S.. "The pit lane we're standing in is unusual, and not only because it's a temporary setup placed in the shadow of American Airlines Arena (home of the NBA's Miami Heat). Garages are set up on both sides rather than being limited to one. A few things also appear to be missing. To start, a familiar smell from the usual mix of burning hydrocarbons is absent. And it's remarkably quiet. The occasional impact wrench bursts out in a mechanical staccato, generators drone here and there, but there are no V8s burbling, no V6s screaming....Welcome to Formula E, the world's first fully electric racing series. Miami is playing host to the first of two US rounds—the next being held in Long Beach, CA, on April 4—and it's the fifth race in this ePrix's inaugural season. Given we've got a bit of a thing about racing at Cars Technica, as well as an obvious interest in electric vehicles, we had to be on the ground in Miami to experience this for ourselves."
The cars are stock for the first season for cost reasons, for the second season there are several chassis builders and several power unit suppliers signed up, so there will be a better spread of performance amongst the pack.
Formula 1 is the high point of automotive racing technology.
Not really. You can very easily build a better car than a Formula 1 car. F1 is the high point of automotive racing technology under the regulations imposed on the cars. F1 regulations ban a lot of car design for reasons of cost control, safety, promotion of good racing and emphasis on driver skill.
to put 8 kW/kg into perspective, all commercial brushless dc motors are at 4 kW/kg and it is a limitation of the materials used.
Commercial internal combustion engines range from 1 kW/kg to *maybe* 3 kW/kg if it is turbocharged to the point of sacrificing engine longevity and formula 1 engines are at around 5 kW/kg
although i suspect they saved weight by using the vehicle frame as (part of?) the stator, a perk of making a motor for a very specific purpose.
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
> Formula 1 jumped the shark when they disallowed ground effects.
Ground effects whilst technologically interesting suffer from safety problems.
As soon as a car deviates from the optimum ride height for the undertray effects to work the downforce varies significantly. This is a problem when apex speeds are significantly higher due to the extra downforce created by ground effects.
Hit a bump the wrong way and lose downforce == shoot off the corner at much higher speeds into the barrier.
Because the power output of an electric motor is torque * rotation speed. The electric motor can produce max torque across the speed range (roughly for most types anyway), but the power output still increase with the RPM. So if you want to get max power at any wheel speed you want to keep the motor revs up.
Hence the gearbox.
When THE most significant car ever produced for F1 (the Lotus 79) is illegal, you've made it more about money instead of innovation, which has defined F1 from the 80s on.
Hrm, let's review the Lotus 79's qualifying performances at some tracks versus the 2014 formula. There only seem to be two tracks where we can meaningfully compare lap times. A lot of the 1978 F1 circuits aren't used in F1 anymore and some circuits (like Canada) have had the lap shortened. But we can compare Monza and Monaco. So let's see:
1. In 1978 at Monaco the best qualifying Lotus was 1:29.100. In 2014 the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg was on pole with 1:15.989.
2. In 1978 at Monza the best qualifying Lotus got pole with a lap of 1:37.520. In 2014 Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes was on pole with a lap time of 1:24.109.
I don't get it. Why are the qualifying lap times worse in 1978 if the Lotus 79 is the most significant car ever produced for F1? The 2014 cars were a bit slower than the 2013 V8s, which was due to a loss of downforce due to changes in aero regulations and the introduction of the new engine formula, but the 2014 cars were light years ahead of the Lotus 79.
No idea why you got modded up for that comment. If you want to keep the motor rpm *up* then a gearbox is the last thing you want - just let the motor spin as fast as it can until back emf stops it or it flys apart. Gearboxes (on cars) are designed to keep the engine rpm *down*
Yup, there has been absolutely no advancement in tires since 1979.
Also- 79 Lotus 480hp
2014 Mercedes 750hp
So yes, a turboed Mercedes with current tires and over 30% more horsepower can run a whole 15 seconds faster than a NA Lotus on bias ply tires.
Any other mysteries of the universe I can illuminate for you?