Mercedes quit DTM Frocuses on F1 and new Formula E entry

Eh...Not a good parallel Bas... Get a track or parts of a track where a F1 cannot go over 140km/h and an KZ or OK (KF3 were phased out on CIK/FIA championships) kart will beat a F1 easily. For example, at Interlagos a F1 does ~85km/h at Bico de Pato and a go-kart does 100km/h.

I do not like electric engines but RACING IS RACING, whether it's scooters, VW Beetles, etc. F-E has a ton of very talented drivers who could be potential F1 champions, in my humble opinion. What I dislike about it are those very narrow street tracks like that of London.

 

Well said, just don't agree on the hydrogen thing.

 

This amount of water will be irrelevant.

 

I agree.

Your comment about Kart is interesting.
I remember years ago they banned go-karts from participating in hillclimbs in Europe, on safety ground, they said...
The excuse used was that they didn't have rollover bar, bodywork and suspension.
On some twisty hills, they were faster than F2s!!

As for Formula E, I think it's badly presented.
The power output is regulated, they run on street circuits rather than proper tracks, and the technical rules are too restrictive.
Open the rules, and allow them to race outside town, within 5 years Formula E will become attractive.

 

UK just announced a ban on gasoline and diesel cars by 2040.

 

A lot can and will happen in that time.

 

I know of a nation that increasingly plans on a hydrogen economy. Hydrogen is a challenge to economically generate but then it can be stored and transported nicely.

No, when you combust fuel you generate signifcant water from h2 that was previously bound underground. Hydrogen is generated from splitting water in the first place that you collect from the environment. So you have a pretty sustainable water cycle. So your argument should go the opposite way.

You can produce hydrogen until the oceans are dry. Doing that economically and carbon neutral is the challenge.

Strong indication where things are heading for densely populated, wealthy nations.

Bas, I think you discard a technology prematurely based on comparing something that has evolved over 130 years to a new technology pushing into the market. The UK example shows pretty well where things are going. And as you say, a lot of development will take place in the meantime. As with all energy related matters, technologies using fossil fuels will die out, will get more expensive, will get ever more complex.

No one suggests Li-ION batteries are the answer. They are the best that there is now as a commercial products. The billions going into battery electric development are mind-blowing.

 

FE uses the same track as the kart track when that was ran.

Fe 2017, sunny conditions: Pole lap 53.313
KF3 (up to 15 year olds) 2009 (dry) 48.000 (by Carlos Sainz Jr)
KZ2 (adults) also in 2009 and in dry 46.162

That's a massive difference in speed. As far as I know that's the only identical track they race on,
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Maulaf

Correct me if I am wrong, but you need electricity to extract hydrogen from water.

So, what's the point, when you Can use that electricity to power vehicle, without going through the expense of another transformation stage?

I am just curious.

Beside, storing and transporting hydrogen is not without risk.

As an example, storing or transporting gaz would be more costly than the liquid fuels we want to do away with.

I was told a gaz tanker is 10 times the cost of a petrol tanker.

 

Well, it better not.

Millions of buyers have already been mislead with governments telling them that Diesel engines produced less CO2 than petrol ones.
Now we are told diesels produce too much NOX and should be phased out.

It's good to tell us governments intentions 2 decades in advance; but it better not be yet anothe red herring!!!

If governments don't want to kill their car industry, they should work in getting the public to trust them. So, no more false news, no more U-turn and no more false promises.

 

Loving this

 

Now that's just sad. Let's make Formula E a mixed series like other races with different classes of cars. We'll have the Formula E cars and a bunch of kids in go-karts whipping their a$$. We could add some bicyclists in the mix to make it look more fair.

 

Formula E is far from being representative of what electric power can offer.

It looks to me that the FIA and the organisers present it under the less favourable light.

I said it already several times.

Category Zero at the TT shows what electric bike can achieve, but it seems that Formula E has been introduced as some sort of caricature of electric power, only highlighting all the drawbacks.

 

FE can be fast, if they turn up the juice all the way. And then can only do one lap. Not much of a race.

FIA pushes it constantly, why would they intentionally put the series THEY INVENTED into a less favourable light?! What ****ing idiot would do that. FIA is all about the green, both kinds.

 

+1. And I'm sure a go kart is cleaner to run than a Formula E car in the end!

UK currently uses 52Gigawatt of power, and is already struggling. Banning NEW cars will add 30GW of power alone. Where are they going to get that power from? Can't get it from other countries, they'll need it themselves.

As usual it's not been thought through, it's the greens forcing their opinions through without thinking of the consequences or a well thought out solution.

 

The idiot is apparently the FIA that licensed the rights of Formula E. Agg devised a specs series format, and town races to run the formula.
To me, that's the wrong way to go about it.
Power storage and power output is limited under the present rules, which do not represent the full possibilities of electric power. Some of the latest technology in retrieving energy are apparently banned at present. They should be allowed in future. The battery technology is imposed, etc...

Also instead of having one race with change of cars, they could have made 2 or even 3 heats, instead of highlighting the range deficiency at present. Many series have 2 or 3 races per meeting, like BTCC, Blancpain series, British GT, etc... and no one question them.

Motor racing with electric cars should never have been introduced the way it has been, and stupidly pitted against Formula One in the media. Instead, electric categories should have been created in rallycross, hillclimb, sprint, to run alongside ICE engines.

Formula E is in its infancy, as I have said many time, condemning it by comparing with other forms of motorsport that have 100 years+ of experience is just not helping.

 

There is, in fact, almost no limit to the quantity of electricity we can produce.

And please, please, stop thinking about electricity production as using fossil fuels, when we have hardly started to harness the renewable sources of energy all around us!! We have the solutions; it's big business, and the politicians in their pockets, who don't want to utilise them.

If the UK is not proactive enough to develop sufficient energy, yes it will have to buy it from other countries. But, wait for it, for a century we have already done that !!! Hardly a revolution to keep doing what we already practice, eh?

Well, if asking for a solution to carbon and Nox emissions we are suffering in town, that cause 44000 death per year in UK alone is making me green, then so be it. It's just being responsible, as far as I know.

In London, for example, like in many dense urban agglomeration,s the level of toxicity is on average already 40% above the tolerated limit. The pollution is killing us.

If we don't do anything, we condemn the future generations to be have respiratory problem.
Or maybe you don't think that's important enough to provoke some thoughts.

 

this country isn't set up to carry through these stupid plans William, regardless of what you say about buying our fuel. Buying it in isn't as easy as you say, and if we do, we are then at the mercy of other countries. If we try to supply ourselves, the green morons that want to get rid of cars will be telling us we can't build lovely clean nuclear stations, because that's an abomination, we will end up on horses if they have their way. This country is a joke

 

William, I have spent some time a long while ago in the field of fuel cell electric vehicles and hydrogen related research, but that over time has become rusty and stored in unaccesible places in my head. Bottom line of generating h2 is electricty, yes. Add thermal energy and you can reduce it but you'll need it. That is where the limitation comes in.

The benefit is you can generate h2 and place it somewhere where it waits to be used. Try tell and electron to sit tight. You need batteries. Electrochemical batteris on grid scale are not viable at the moment, no matter what Elon Musk tells you. So you'd obviously look at hydro pumped storage as battery but that is also mostly of limited scale. Hydrogen permits two not so bad opportunities. You can store it and you can fill tanks with it.

Wrt tank costs, I am out of it for too long. Typically when things go big production vollume costs come down and innovation picks up. wrt to risk, most of us drive around on a massive bomb, which is your fuel. Technology has managed to make that part pretty safe, I suppose. I prefer to drive diesel to not combust in case of an accident

The interesting part is that if you attend speeches by people that discuss energy planning, especially with regards to grid planning and a future with high renewable energy penetration, they get very excited about having battery electric cars to buffer. Now, we are certainly along shot from being there and with the batteries currently being nasty, expensive and not enjoying cycling you might raise a ton of policy issues but nontheless, it depends on perspective. You can see the concerns, shortcomings limitations or you can see the opportunities, chances and benefits.

Two things won't stop happening. Increases renewable energy, purely by economic reason. And the battery electric car.

 

Um ok.

That's you putting words in my mouth. I was asking a question how they'll generate all that power when the current power grid is struggling to cope, you immediately jump at conclusions as if I say they'll need to burn fossil fuels.

See that's my point. UK presumably won't be the only country going over on electric only, so other countries won't have any to sell. The solution of buying from others is not there.

I think it is important, that's why I'm an advocate of hydrogen. Let public transport, transport of goods (so lorries, ships) run on electric systems, that'll make a huge chunk. Besides, if you're so worried about your health in London you should really move to the countryside. And since you're so health conscious, you really have to look into the damage of Lithium mining and disposing of old batteries (yes also the car ones!). It's not a pretty picture. In fact, far more dangerous to health on a large scale. It's an incredible dirty business!

 

We had this discussion before. The cars aren't limited by rules but by batteries themselves. The battery already weighs 250kg and only has enough performance (in race mode so power saving even!) to drive 50km. That's 30 miles. Enlarge the battery so they can do full races means they'll weigh 500kg+. The heats idea is cute, but the races will only be 12 laps long or something!

Even if they put all the new tech in they won't be that much faster, they won't last that much longer, it's simple as that. It'll be marginally quicker and last marginally longer.

+1

 

Bas, again, I believe your are missing the point in your comparison. Indeed, that's a massive difference in speed but it's normal. The fact that a go-kart is faster than the F-E in the same track does not diminishes the value of F-E. People who are not involved in Motorsport or the not specialized media don't know how crazy fast professional go-karts are. Have a look at the video below, it's not artificially accelerated. The top speed on this track is a bit over 170km/h, but where a go-kart destroys any other car is corner speed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_fjuIBd6QM

 

See using a car to buffer the electric grid, it sounds great in theory but who would pay for it? The more cycles you put through the battery, the less performance it'll give (both peak performance and battery life). People have been using mobile phones for years and all have noticed battery life over time (around a year or so) deteriorating. A car battery is much more expensive however. I'm sure to a certain degree you'll even get paid for it, but in the end it won't be enough to cover the sheer cost of the battery, and ultimate you'll pay for it out of your own pocket anyways since it's all taxes anyways.

 

I don't say I have answers. But you'll notice you again get stuck on advocating against what there is and was as compared to potential of technologies. Billions go into development of stuff because people see the potential.

You would have sat on your horse 130 years ago advocating against those expensive, loud, damaging etc things they call cars. Those cars that, indeed, do not move faster than your horse anyways. And then they keep breaking down blabla bla. You get what I say. No one had the ability to expect what would happen within 130 years, despite two great wars.

wrt to even current batteries they get better and better. My private laptop and phone are both 4 years old and I don't have battery issues that I take notice off. 10 years ago laptop batteries went down the drain after 1-2 years, often. No longer the case without a big leap in technology.
Use that as a trajectory where things go rather than experience from 5 years ago.

 

+1

Too many people don't use their imagination or cannot anticipate progress.

Battery technology has been dormant for at least a century, and just re-awaken 20 years ago. The recent governments decisions in several countries will incite car makers to put all their resources to solve the problems. They better do, or they will soon be out of business!

Battery research works with the automotive industry and they are studying load bearing batteries, being part of the chassis, and not stuck on it, saving a lot of weight. Also, the car bodywork could become a solar panel, etc...