F1 goes electric (partially anyway)

[NigelM]

Interesting for all F1 fans...

F1 set for electric only in the pit lane? : James Allen on F1 The official website

 

[mpt]

Heading in the right direction; it's going to stretch the tech in race conditions. It's all good.

 

[doug]

Honestly from the description it sounds overly complicated.

“It will have one fan generating electricity to super-charge the engine, another fan to recover energy from the exhausts which will recharge a battery and then be usable,” he said.

Seems it would be simpler pure EV and without all those conversion losses, but I guess ICE in general is complicated and lossy. A step in the right direction.

 

[dpeilow]

I was wondering how much the battery weighs that supplies the 6.6 seconds of KERS energy at the moment. 1kg? That whole 6.6 second thing is total arbitrary. It should just run like a normal hybrid with no restrictions on bhp. Then the teams could decide whether they wanted to make serious investment into new chemistries or higher bhp motors, etc.

 

[NigelM]

The KERS system on an F1 car currently runs to between 65-70lbs or approximately 30kg; that's a big deal on an F1 race car. There's a good technical explanation here: Formula One KERS explained

The FIA is discussing an all electric Grands Prix series, but I'm not sure that there are EV's which can maintain top speeds for a serious distance race lasting a couple of hours. Would be interesting if there could be pitstops where batteries are replaced rather than refueling.

 

[mpt]

I was wondering how much the battery weighs that supplies the 6.6 seconds of KERS energy at the moment. 1kg? That whole 6.6 second thing is total arbitrary. It should just run like a normal hybrid with no restrictions on bhp. Then the teams could decide whether they wanted to make serious investment into new chemistries or higher bhp motors, etc.

Absolutely!

 

[dpeilow]

Yes, I know the whole system weighs that much but supplying 50 kW for 6 seconds, the battery is a tiny part of it.

 

[elirentz]

The FIA is discussing an all electric Grands Prix series, but I'm not sure that there are EV's which can maintain top speeds for a serious distance race lasting a couple of hours. Would be interesting if there could be pitstops where batteries are replaced rather than refueling.

Or quick charged if they could develop it. I'm hoping the FIA follows through with the EV Grands prix but I think they may unfortunately have to allow for another gimmick in the regulations to get a large interest (e.g. Chaparral 2j like designs). Otherwise it will take a few years of development to get EV racing interesting enough for the masses IMO. EV technology is a long shot away from being able to compete on the F1 scale for both speed and endurance.

 

[Banzai]

Not yet F1 but a step in the right direction

www.formulec.org > The Car

 

[elirentz]

Not yet F1 but a step in the right direction

www.formulec.org > The Car

Wow interesting. I wish they had some more info 20-25 mins of run time for 1-1.5 hrs of charge isn't bad.

 

[NigelM]

Not yet F1 but a step in the right direction

www.formulec.org > The Car

"It equals the performance of its prestigious cousin, the Formula 3, and its combustion engine." Achieving a competitive race car in Formula 3, GP2 and eventually Formula 1 starts to look realistic within a reasonable timeframe... Cool!

 

[dpeilow]

Express.co.uk - Home of the Daily and Sunday Express | UK News :: ‘Tin can’ engines row hits F1 races

 

[doug]

Express.co.uk - Home of the Daily and Sunday Express | UK News :: ‘Tin can’ engines row hits F1 races

I guess these guys really like their engine noise.

Walker says that powerful, noisy engines are a key part of the appeal of F1. He says the sound of the smaller engine “would be like a tin can rattling”.
“We are not going to have our customer base destroyed. I told them that the circuits would not run it. The sound is part of the brand,” he said.

Maybe they could just play really loud music during the races like Top Gear did to compensate for the sound of their MR2 based fake Ferraris.

 

[dpeilow]

It's the death throws of the dinosaurs. F1 had 1.5l turbos in the early 80s. Didn't see empty grandstands then.

 

[doug]

FIA mandates electric-only propulsion for F1 grand prix pit lanes - Autoblog