Robert Llewellyn's Fully Charged

[physicsfita]

I love racing, but just cant get excited about this series. With identical cars and changing cars instead of batteries or charging, they just killed all the excitement about all the various strategies of car design and driving.

I was glad to hear that the teams will be constructing their own cars for the second season. I can see having spec cars for the first season -- I imagine the learning curve for how to manage energy for the race will be quite steep, and will keep the teams busy for a season, and give them good experience to feed in to their car designs. I suspect it will help reduce the chance of some team dominating to the point that everyone else falls to the 107% rule when they do start racing their own cars.

I'm not a fan of car swaps either, but I suspect it's the best they could do in an era where the FIA have banned refueling for safety, and still have a long enough race to be enjoyable. I just hope they're very vigorous about making sure the drivers are properly harnessed before they take off after the swap. That said, a car swap would certainly be unique in terms of pit action.

 

[Mayhemm]

I was glad to hear that the teams will be constructing their own cars for the second season. I can see having spec cars for the first season -- I imagine the learning curve for how to manage energy for the race will be quite steep, and will keep the teams busy for a season, and give them good experience to feed in to their car designs. I suspect it will help reduce the chance of some team dominating to the point that everyone else falls to the 107% rule when they do start racing their own cars.

Yes, the second season will be the one to watch. The first one seems more like a preliminary contest or test run than a true racing season.

I'm not a fan of car swaps either, but I suspect it's the best they could do in an era where the FIA have banned refueling for safety, and still have a long enough race to be enjoyable. I just hope they're very vigorous about making sure the drivers are properly harnessed before they take off after the swap. That said, a car swap would certainly be unique in terms of pit action.

Since there are currently no batteries in existence that can recharge in a few seconds, the only way to achieve the desired result would be to swap out the batteries, which is not easy to do either. Would you find this more acceptable than swapping cars?

 

[alexeiw123]

Since there are currently no batteries in existence that can recharge in a few seconds, the only way to achieve the desired result would be to swap out the batteries, which is not easy to do either. Would you find this more acceptable than swapping cars?

I would find it more exciting. One of the pivotal race dramas in F1 is how a team manages any drive/electrical mechanical/aero issues that develop in a car over a race weekend. Having a second car takes a lot of that excitement away. As an example, a mid race contact that would normally affect the rest of your race would now have negligible impact once you hop in to your other car.

Also, a racing driver gets a real connection with how their car feels around a circuit, switching a car, no matter how similar must be a jarring experience mid race! Although I guess that could add some excitement.

Very interested to watch formula E in any case! I hope Australia gets some broadcast rights.

 

[woof]

I love racing, but just cant get excited about this series. With identical cars and changing cars instead of batteries or charging, they just killed all the excitement about all the various strategies of car design and driving.

I know nothing about racing, but after seeing this vid where the driver mentioned all the work she did to balance the regen, I kept thinking "get rid of the driver, let the geeks race their autonomous algorithms". I wonder if there's a new sport here...google car demolition derby!

 

[physicsfita]

Since there are currently no batteries in existence that can recharge in a few seconds, the only way to achieve the desired result would be to swap out the batteries, which is not easy to do either. Would you find this more acceptable than swapping cars?

Ideally, yes, but I think it's going to be quite a few years before we get there. You'd just about have to have automated swap stations like Tesla demonstrated, except they'd have to be made portable to go from race to race, and safe even under severe weather. That's an enormous expense that a fledgling series can't afford. I think what will be more likely is that energy density and efficiency improvements will eventually remove the need for the swap, and the cars will be able to go the race distance on a single charge. Then you can do the same trick that F1 did when they banned refueling -- mandate a change of tire compound to force a pit stop.

 

[JRP3]

How about an inductive charging lane on the inside of the track? It would be a balance between slowing down enough to get enough charge while going fast enough to stay in the game. I think battery swapping could work as well, if the packs were broken up into maybe 100lb quick plug modules. A crew of guys could each grab a module and swap it out pretty quickly.

 

[Pilot_51]

How about an inductive charging lane on the inside of the track? It would be a balance between slowing down enough to get enough charge while going fast enough to stay in the game.

That sounds a lot like F-Zero. Though, the recharge strip in F-Zero was short like pit lane and would not be effective for a real race with current tech.

 

[Calvin.K]

 

[Mayhemm]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this seem a bit underwhelming for a GTx car? Even the diesel outperforms it.

 

[William13]

Good to see a VW that under performs and out costs the Volt/Ampera.

 

[GSP]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this seem a bit underwhelming for a GTx car? Even the diesel outperforms it.

0-62 mph in 7.6 sec is not bad for a GTI. I had an '86 GTI, and it took about 9.0 seconds, and was very fun to drive. The GTE as almost double the horsepower of my GTI.

Not a bad effort from VW, but not as good as my 2011 Volt in many respects (but, better in others that are not that important to me, like seating for five).

GSP

 

[alexeiw123]

BMW i8 | Fully Charged: BMW i8 | Fully Charged - YouTube

 

[rsquared99]

Wow! The false sound of gasoline explosions added to make us feel nostalgic. Why not add a holigram of a horse's arse in front of the driver to remind us of that old technology too?

 

[ecarfan]

Agreed, and Robert did not seem to realize that the engine sound he was making admiring comments about was fake. And the BMW person riding with him did not accurately explain to him what was making that sound.

In the history of EVs the i8 will barely rate a footnote.

Of course it's not really an EV it's a hybrid with a rather small battery

 

[alexeiw123]

Agreed, and Robert did not seem to realize that the engine sound he was making admiring comments about was fake. And the BMW person riding with him did not accurately explain to him what was making that sound.

In the history of EVs the i8 will barely rate a footnote.

Wow! The false sound of gasoline explosions added to make us feel nostalgic. Why not add a holigram of a horse's arse in front of the driver to remind us of that old technology too?

OK wow, I need to research this car more. I didn't realise that it made fake engine sounds!

 

[ZsoZso]

Wow! The false sound of gasoline explosions added to make us feel nostalgic. Why not add a holigram of a horse's arse in front of the driver to remind us of that old technology too?

LOL, that's a good one! To achieve complete realism, also add the smell of horse-fart to it :wink:

 

[Calvin.K]

 

[moollar]

One of the problems I see with the Outlander PHEV in Australia is that they did not include the quick charge port. I can understand why though, there is an utter dearth of quick chargers in Australia. It's also about AUD$5k more expensive than the equivalent diesel model here, but that's not too bad considering the Volt costs more than AUD$15k(!) more than the top of the range Outlander PHEV for (IMO) a lot less car. Seriously considering it as something for our family until the Tesla Model 3 arrives....

 

[Gavars Gints]

 

[glhs272]

Robert mentions the KIA soul's battery uses cell technology with a higher energy density than even Tesla's. Is that accurate? I assume it utilizes prismatic cells because only Tesla uses the small cylindrical cell, I believe. This would mean that the prismatic cell technology has already caught up and surpassed the 18650 format. I am a bit skeptical. Does anyone else know more about this?