Start your engines!: new 'Formula E' racing league to showcase electric cars

[shenmue]

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130131-electric-cars-enter-the-fast-lane

The FIA has approved a new league which will feature electric-powered cars. It aims to not only draw fans, but to serve as a proving ground for effective and environmentally friendly automotive technology.

[tk2kewl]

1. k&r

[Blue_Tires]

2. Good to see someone moving forward with this

I remember seeing the proposals for something like this 15(!) years ago...The wheels of change can churn slowly...

[TheMadMonk]

3. Nah the wheels of (small) change turn not at all.

It's only now that e-cars are a production reality that there's any profit to be had in waggling that e-peen.

[TheMadMonk]

4. One hopes that there will be classes.

But then one wonders, who will be competing against who?

Jaguar C-X75 vs Prius is no competition at all. Not on ANY level. And certainly not on any leveled playing field. And the Tesla's out of any race in 20 laps or less.

Prius is a Rube Goldberg contraption which attempts to retain as much of the investment in old infernal combustion engine technology as possible.

C-X75 (at least in it's original turbine driven incarnation) mates the most efficient possible primary power source with the most practically efficient drive motor, with an absolute minimum of unnecessary complexity between them, and between them and the road.

[jmowreader]

6. The article has a picture

The car is an open wheel racing car - it looks like an F/1 car.

[TheMadMonk]

8. So it's a technology showcase, not an e-car showcase.

Straight up willy waggling. Now I'm liking it even less. To be realistic and fire up the public's imagination to MAKE THEM WANT TO BUY an e-car, it should be production vehicle vs. production vehicle, not some impossibly expensive tech which might make it onto public roads in 5 years time. Nothing sells better than a product which makes us scream: "Shut up and take my money!"

Don't know if you are familiar with the Bathurst "production" car race we have here in Australia. Once upon a time it really was a production car (minimum 20 vehicles sold "retail" IIRC) race, utilising parts (after market performance maybe) available to the general public. And it's purpose was to showcase Australian built vehicles. 4s, 6s and 8s competed in the same endurance race, but each in their own class.

As a result when it was opened up to international teams, the classes had to be expanded to encompass performance vehicles designed for a completely different market.

Then when they threw out the "must be a real car" requirement, and simply allowed the competitors to cram whatever engine and undercarriage they could afford into a production car shell, most of the international competitors, and certainly any edge they had, disappeared. F1 et al. sufficed to showcase tech that would never make its way into a production vehicle.

[jmowreader]

10. The series has a purpose

Remember who is running the show here: FIA, whose business is race promotion not car sales.

Their biggest problem in expanding their series is the nature of a race car, specifically noise and exhaust. If they have a form of racing with no exhaust and little noise, towns that have rejected races will reconsider and families that don't want deaf kids will attend.

In America we used to have races like Oz's production car races - NASCAR Grand National races were run in cars from dealerships.(They started out as Sunday relaxation for moonshine runners and became A Sport when people started coming to watch.)

[jmowreader]

5. Pit stops will be the best part

According to the article, the cars can't run the race on one charge. They can't charge the car in 15 seconds and can't change batteries, so the drivers will change cars. It'll be a little like Le Mans starts of old.

[1-Old-Man]

7. Electric cars have run at LeMans for the last two years

[TheMadMonk]

9. Electric, or petrol/deisel electric hybrids? /nt

[Demo_Chris]

11. Racing is often the driver of production car progress and technology