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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."
Also it's way more interesting technology-development-wise than old and busted formula ones..
and a lot less noisy, also a big plus. Racing circuits are notorious noise polluters.
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Also it's way more interesting technology-development-wise than old and busted formula ones..
How do you figure Formula 1 is old and busted? The current engine formula for F1 is V6 turbo hybrids which use 100kg of fuel for a race distance (typically ~305km, except for Monaco) versus the previous V8 engine formula which used 150kg. It's a significant step forward in fuel efficiency.
I'm afraid this won't save much nature at all, after all it's just the same wasting-a-lot-of-resources-just-for-the-fun-of-some-rich-people.
And no I am not a greenpeace activist, I watch formula-e events and some formula one events. Formula-e is much more fun, as a race actually takes place, and you can hear the tires working.
Formula 1 is the high point of automotive racing technology. Electric cars? No way. What does the NBA have to do with the story? Odd.
OK, fine, we'll just avoid improving anything at all until we have the perfect solution.
Unless you have something that will make those rich people give up both traditional racing and e-racing in favor of something more environmental friendly.
And all use the same model of battery pack? Jesus Fucking Christ, they made Formula E the as little appealing to nerds as the possibly could. And let's be honest, nerds/tech-heads would have been their PRIMARY audience!
Methinks a product/marketing manager got paid for a shitty job.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Have they come up with an alternate method of doing pit stops without getting out of the car completely and changing cars mid-race? If not, I'm not interested.
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
The street circuits are mainly used because they raise greater awareness that a race is being held than if they went to an existing race track and relied on traditional marketing for the races.
Also, how about you take your undue criticism and stick it - how about you come up with a better formula and make it work? The entire point of starting it now is because the technologies aren't mature enough - getting manufacturers to push development in order to win races is what drives the technologies here (see how much stuff has come out of F1).
This post did. You know, the one at the top of the very thread to which you're replying.
Is that so odd? Many many sporting activities have facilities designed especially for them.
I do think the future of cars/racing is electric, but for me there is something spine tinglingly impressive about this (V8 F1 cars running up eau rouge):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
But since the FIA is currently doing its best to ruin F1, these electric cars will probably compare pretty good in a few more years. Oh well, at least we have the memories.
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. 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. How does it feel to be running 30 year old technology, grandpa?
Everyone knows electric cars are the future (which F1 even begrudgingly admits by requiring hybrids), and instead of meeting that future head on like Formula E, F1 totters along, and will contribute nothing to the future of racing.
That, sir, is old and busted.
As others have said, its so hamstrung by endless idiotic technical rules than any innovation packed its bags and walked a decade ago.
The whole point of electric motors is max torque from zero rpm so what the hell does it need a 5 speed for? Ok, its rpm isn't unlimited so eventually you'll have to changed the ratio to get a good top speed , but 2 ratios should be enough for this. Whats going on?
I'm hoping large corporations get interested. Right now, I understand all cars are basically made by Renault. It would be nice if other companies jump onto this train too, with a serious interest to showcase their knowledge about batteries and electric cars. (Or just an interest to burn some marketing dollars).
It's a great idea to start off with the same car, but am happy that the teams can design their own cars in the next seasons. In all fairness, the cars still need a lot of improvement: the speed of the cars is too low.
this proves it. i'm playing the race card, here.
> 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.
All the Formula E cars are charged using a single generator that uses glycerol as fuel.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Ground effects cars were crazy though. I kinda think it is a good thing that the best driver in F1 doesn't simply correspond to who is the most suicidal. And something like the Williams FW15C was going to render the skill of the driver almost redundant if that seam of development had been allowed to continue.
On the other hand those cars and others (like bernie's fan car, and even the blow diffuser and f-duct) are part of the interesting narrative that is F1 and I do think the FIA has become so concerned with preventing another Lotus 79 or Williams FW15C that they are pre-emptively killing any chance for real technical innovation.
But they're just a bunch of businessmen now. Once Bernie goes I think it will sadly fall apart. The management, rights holders and teams will end up spending more time in court than out on the track. As much as I think Bernie is a dick, like an dodgy book keeper, I also think he maintains a careful balance of handouts and ego massaging that allows the various interests involved to generally get some cars out on track every weekend.
All sound and fury, and signifying squat, as the reason ground effects were banned was because Ferrari couldn't figure out how to make them work and lobbied to make it so. Nothing like being completely dominated by less money for "safety concerns" to become a trope.
Not to mention other racing series, like the apparently technologically superior IndyCar, use them without having mass carnage on the tarmac, and in fact requiring flat bottoms like F1 leads crashes that killed a spectator recently at Nürburgring.
For me, the lack of any "raw" engine noise is actually the only minus.
The high-pitches wheezing just doesn't sound enjoyable at all; it's bland and unrecognizable at this point.
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I have been around racing a long time and find your noise polluter comment funny. I have seen many tracks built in the middle of nowhere and then houses pop up around it . Then they start complaining about the noise knowing it was there when they moved in.
>Williams FW15C was going to render the skill of the driver almost redundant
Completely disagree, as the same argument has been made about any deviation from the front engine RWD layout in racing would diminish driver skill as a factor. Nope, it just means a different set of skills are also in play, and how well a car corresponds to the driver (as it has always been) is more varied.
Especially with electronic nannies, it may elevate the capabilities of mediocre drivers, but at the extremes, it is difficult to qualify. Are you really going to argue that your average driver with electronic assist is quicker than a racing driver without?
It's just another technological advancement banished from racing for nothing more than "reasons".
"For me, the lack of any "raw" engine noise is actually the only minus."
That's just because you're a redneck, normal people embrace it.
I'm afraid this won't save much nature at all
In the gasoline era, a lot of engine innovation occurred because of racing. The same may occur in electric cars.
wasting-a-lot-of-resources-just-for-the-fun-of-some-rich-people.
Have you ever been to an auto race? I would not describe the typical crowd as "rich people". And what is wrong with having fun? Isn't that what life is all about?
"You know your product is crap when you have to create a market for it."
You mean like smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, HD TV and so on?
It seems to work from where I watch.
"Formula E's largely a joke in the motorsport fraternity."
'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.'
Mahatma Gandhi
"How deadly are these cars in a crash?"
Nobody ever died. In the 'normal' F1, they had 50 fatal accidents 'til this day.
For me, the lack of any "raw" engine noise is actually the only minus.
Why? Seriously, why? What does that have to do with the outcome of the race? More noise != faster car. More noise != better engineering. More noise != better driving. Loud engines are a second order effect from trying to get horsepower from internal combustion engines but it isn't important to making a faster car. The noise serves no useful purpose at all and I simply do not comprehend the entertainment value in going deaf from needlessly loud engines.
The high-pitches wheezing just doesn't sound enjoyable at all; it's bland and unrecognizable at this point.
So basically you are telling me that you don't give a rip about the actual auto racing or the engineering involved. You just want a bunch of guys revving their engines loudly with no actual purpose which they could do in a parking lot. [sarcasm] Boy that sounds really exciting... [/sarcasm]
Whilst I'm sure examples of this exist, it goes the other way too. I used to live somewhere that F1 teams started testing on a disused air strip. It was used occasionally for some motor sport previously but was inaudible outside of its immediate environs. When F1 teams moved in, areas that had been peaceful for decades (since the site strip was last used in WW2) were suddenly subject to a lot of noise - villages and urban areas miles and miles away from the site. It's not just the immediate surroundings of a race track for just the duration of the events that suffer at the hands of noise pollution caused by motor racing. This is an article I quickly googled, but it was going on for years- http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/new...
I am not quite sure what you're talking about. The tracks and their skylines are beautiful, and there is always some close, often wheel to wheel, racing for the lead right until the end. The drivers are very accomplished open wheel racers. You can't compare them to the F1 top five or so, but overall they're just as good or better than a median F1 racers. In fact, many of them had a considerable amount of F1 seat time, either as a race or test driver.
And I am sorry, and I personally don't know the product is crap because of blah blah blah. Sounds like you have created a strawman argument to defend your elitist viewpoint here.
Formula 1 jumped the shark when they disallowed ground effects.
Formula One has been boring for a loooong time, at least to me. It's basically an engineering arms race between 2-4 teams with little visibility into the actual engineering going on. Cost to field a team with a prayer of winning is between $1/5-1/2 Billion per year. If you aren't driving for one of the few blessed teams with outrageously large budgets, you have almost zero chance to win no matter how good the driver happens to be. Drivers at the back of the field are basically competing to move to one of the few teams with a hope of actually winning a race.
Formula One cars are absolutely amazing pieces of engineering but there is so much secrecy surrounding the engineering that it's hard to enjoy any of it if you are a geek. And the engineering is the actually interesting part of F1. The races are something close to a parade with the order mostly shuffled by mechanical breakdowns. Passes are so damned rare that people get super excited when one actually occurs for a reason other than car performance. The actual Formula One racing is unbelievably boring to watch. Don't get me wrong, I think it is more interesting than NASCAR's demolition derby but I'm damning with faint praise here.
Personally the most interesting driving to watch from my perspective is Rally car racing, specifically stage rallies. The engineering arms race issue is still alive and well but at least the driving is interesting to watch and the cars have some vague resemblance to something I might drive.
Have you ever been to an auto race? I would not describe the typical crowd as "rich people".
Then you have clearly not been to a Formula One race. With NASCAR you are quite correct.
But that is just the spectators. If you want to actually race at anything more than your local junker car level, auto racing is hugely expensive. There is an old joke that the best way to make a small fortune in auto racing is to start with a large one.
Formula 1 is the high point of automotive racing technology.
Drive a Formula One car on anything other than an exquisitely paved road and let me know how that works out for you. Fancy a wager on how a F1 car would do against a Rally car on an unpaved road? Let's see a F1 car race a 24 hour race. How about a drag race? Peak of technology? Only for a subset of auto racing conditions.
But do you drive at +240 kph, make rapid acceleration to get you to 96 kph in two seconds, all while trying to stay ahead of the guy who's trying to pass you?
Yeah, thought not.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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.
My car needs less than 10 kg for 300km and it's not even a hybrid.
Is your car's engine 760HP?
And your car gets 22 km per liter (52MPG)?
=Smidge=
I would like to see a "no holds barred" race, where you could enter anything from a teenager on a skateboard with a jet pack, to the Mammoth Car.
No you really wouldn't. Trust me. Then it becomes a contest based on the size of the wallet. F1 is boring for precisely this reason. There are a small handful of teams at the top with huge budgets that have a prayer of winning and the rest are basically competing to try to get on one of those teams. Furthermore you run into some very serious safety problems. The goal is to race and win and maybe do some good engineering along the way, not to design the most elaborate way to earn a Darwin Award.
Comparing the safety of a formula that is weeks old and one that is over 90 years old by comparing total fatalities is laughable.
No driver has died in an actual F1 race/qualifying since 1994. Cars have changed, circuits have been taken off the calendar for safety reasons. Accidents still happen, but it's nonsense to compare the safety of today with how F1 was in the time of Senna or Lauda.
Shh. When you pop their little cognitive dissonance bubbles these folks can turn feral. This guy is obviously one of those folks who think anything new or innovative or intended to push greener technology is bad because the radio told them so
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Then perhaps they're not really a fan of racing as such, but a fan of noise and foul odors.
For those people, there's always going to be monster truck rallies.
=Smidge=
What does the outcome of the race have to do with the enjoyment?
Ask any fan of their local NFL team what the outcome of the game has to do with the enjoyment of said game. The answer will be the same. If the outcome is a foregone conclusion and nobody cares who actually wins then what is the point of a contest?
You're not racing. What do you care who wins?
If no one cares who wins then nobody will bother coming to watch and there will be no race and certainly no business surrounding the race. Racing is a competitive sport and whether you comprehend it or not, people cheering for their favorite team/player(s) matters for the economics of the whole thing to work.
Same for sports. That's not your team. You just bought some of their marketing crap.
So you truly have no comprehension of what makes sports popular do you? It's PRECISELY the fact that people think of these teams as "their team". It's why they say "we" when referring to their team even if they do not actually work for the team. People WANT to be a part of a team, even if they are just fans. Professional sports ignore this at their peril.
It has to do with enjoying the sport. The noise servers no purpose other than that it's enjoyable to hear.
Again, WHY? I get that people like it, I just cannot comprehend why. I've been to plenty of auto races and have to bring earplugs when I do. The sound does NOT enhance the experience for me and engine noises are not beautiful, not matter what Jeremy Clarkston claims. For the same reason I fail to understand the appeal of Harley Davidson motorcycles that are pointlessly loud and obnoxious. If there is no actual useful primary purpose to the noise (like music), then it is nothing but pollution.
There is no purpose to racing, or any sporting event, at all. Attacking this single part of inane.
There are numerous purposes to racing and sporting events. Entertainment and money not the least among them. Sports (auto and otherwise) are hugely popular and are big business. They are substantial parts of our economy and of people's lives. The purpose is to be entertained and for some to make a living doing it.
Attacking pointless noise is "inane"? We're going to disagree on that. I'm well aware that many people like it but lots of people like all sorts of things that probably should go away. People like big hits in football but the side effect is concussions and permanent brain damage. People (inexplicably) like noisy cars but it's needlessly obnoxious and polluting.
And when the Williams FW15C basically created a new sub-category within F1 and then was banned the following season, everyone immediately knew that F1 racing was no longer about advancing technology to make better street cars, but it was all about lining Bernie's pockets.
Seriously, count the tech items in that car that eventually made it to street cars.
> because Ferrari couldn't figure out how to make them work
That's nonsense. Though Lotus won the drivers' and constructors' championships in '78 thanks to their innovation, Ferrari won both in '79 with the 312T4, which was a ground effect version of the previous season's car. They won the constructors' title again in '82 and '83 (after which the last elements of ground effect were banned), so I think it's safe to say they had figured it out.
Are you really going to argue that your average driver with electronic assist is quicker than a racing driver without?
Which "average" are you comparing against? If you are comparing me (an average non-racing driver) to an F-1 driver then no, the electronic assist won't matter. If you are comparing and average F1 driver to the best F1 drivers then chances are it will very much make a difference because the differences in their skill levels are quite small. Even an average F1 driver is astonishingly talented and the gap between middle of the pack and the front in driving skill is easily overwhelmed by technology.
It's just another technological advancement banished from racing for nothing more than "reasons".
I suspect they've put a tad more thought into it than that. The reasons may or may not be good ones but they didn't just do it for grins and giggles.
You know your product is crap when you have to create a market for it.
That's why I only buy products that serve markets that god created on the 6th day right after he hid all those dinosaur bones!
If the racing guys can't figure out how to give electric cars a reasonable range with their budgets and top-end engineering skills, then no, electric cars are NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME.
Besides, WTF is this:
"...Although power is limited to 150 kW during the race, three drivers are actually able to use 180 kW for up to five seconds. This is called the FanBoost, as fans vote online for their favorite drivers in the hours before the race. This extra slug of energy can come in handy to overtake or defend against a rival, although obviously it will drain the battery even faster than normal...."
This is absolutely idiotic. It would be like fans voting which batter can take an extra strike, or if a team gets an extra down in (American) football. Who comes up with this crap?
-Styopa
I get HOW (like IROC) and I get WHAT (spectator interest + industry money) but the BLASTED THINGS SOUND LIKE MY OLD SLOT CARS!
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
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?
Am I the only one who thinks this is the right thing done the wrong way? All cars the same? Swap cars at pit-stop time? There is an opportunity here for competition through racing to push the envelope on what is possible in electric cars; why is it effectively being wasted? It was racing that helped perfect the gasoline car; heck Lois Chevrolet was a racer and Henry Ford did his fair share of racing.
Looking at the SRT_01E stats I think a stock Tesla P85D *family sedan* would actually have a chance against it!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-Renault_SRT_01E
If recharge time were part of the race a P85D would likely murder a SRT_01E with a battery swap.
This is the type of innovation that should be encouraged in races; not discouraged by using only one make and model of vehicle and creating silly rules to make up for its inadequacy!
Manure?
Turbo engines were complex machines whose layout limited the ground effect 'tunnels' under the car. They were an emerging technology and so they were difficult and expensive to develop and build and make reliable. It was mostly manufacturer-supported teams, such as Renault, Ferrari and Alfa Romeo which took that route. In contrast, the cheap, reliable and narrow Ford-Cosworth DFV engine, still used by most teams more than a decade after its introduction, lent itself well to highly efficient ground effect aerodynamics.
So which of the two technologies is found in more production cars today?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Where did you get that notion that electric cars aren't fast ?
They are short ranged, but not slow. La Jamais Contente was even the fastest car 2 centuries ago !
As for pricing, well, just take a look at the tickets for the Silverstone GP on the official F1 site (I didn't check the other races) :
General Admission - (Sunday) 231,35 €
Not exactly cheap by my (european) standards. As a comparison, this is more than twice the price of a ticket for the next AC/DC show in Paris.
Auto racing causes almost 0.0% of pollution in the world.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
http://fiaformulae.com/en/live...
You're welcome.
=Smidge=