Lord Drayson: PH Meets
Politician, racing team owner and electric racing advocate asks PH what do you want from Formula E?
Lord Drayson reckons Britain can lead the, er, charge
Drayson thinks so, his political savvy - following a peerage in 2004 he served as Defence Minister under Tony Blair in 2005, expanded his work to include the Department for Business two years later and from 2008 was Minister for Science and Innovation - matched with a passion for science, technology. And a desire to see Britain at the front of the electric revolution. As a politician he is a convincingly impassioned champion for British engineering talent and as a car fan and racer sees motorsport as a way to get electric cars away from what he describes as the 'greenwash' painting them as eco focused purely city runabouts.
Can petrolheads really embrace electric racing cars though?
Judd V10 out, electric motors in on B12/69EV
The evening before meeting with us he'd been at a lecture at Oxford held by Ferrari F1 chief Stefano Domenicali. "I said to Stefano, just imagine what would the character of a Ferrari be if it weighed less than 1,000kg and it had 1,000hp electric drive that could drive on one charge from London to Paris?" he says with a grin. "He said 'it's not in the strategy' but we're doing this project with the Royal College of Art sponsoring a project asking what should be the design language of the electric car. You. Will. Be. Amazed. We've grown up with the emotion of the car being associated with the internal combustion engine. I don't know - we don't know yet - how will the thing that we love about cars translate to the electric car if you're given a clean sheet of paper. We're not talking about city cars. I'm talking about the Drayson E Racer, a car that is designed for absolute performance, no compromise and zero emissions. That's it, go to it."
Drayson's passion is clear enough, the tempo and pitch of the conversation rising as we go. Especially when he gets onto the electric B12/69EV that ran at Goodwood last year. In the first season the Spark-built Formula E cars - co-developed with McLaren and with Renault now on board - will use a common design. But after that teams will be able to use their own motors and control systems and Drayson Racing hopes to lead the field, using experience gained on the B12/69EV.
Drayson's first job was at Longbridge in 1978
"Nobody has heard what a Formula 1 car sounds like at 200mph with the engine switched off," he says. "I guarantee you it's a really cool sound and that's what electric racing is going to do - it's going to show you what a car is like at 200mph without the engine drowning everything out."
And what of the driving experience, having removed the previous Judd V10 and replaced it with electric motors?
"It's got 850hp, it weighs 1,000kg and the driving experience is completely transformed," says Drayson. "It's not just about taking out a Judd V10 and putting in an electric drive - it's changed the character of the car and there's something really cool about it because it's really stealthy. There's a total lack of vibration and obviously you don't have the sound of the Judd V10 firing up behind your head. But when you are in the car the feeling of the power delivery ... it's like being in an aircraft on the ground because that push in the back is so smooth it's like being transported by something that's not mechanical. And then you hear, like you do a little bit with the Audis at Le Mans, you hear the aero."
And now's the time to have your say about how all this translates to Formula E. "That's the great thing about Formula E, it's brand new and a clean sheet of paper but in a year's time it won't be," he says.
Formula E cars built with input from Renault and McLaren
"Contemporary social media, wireless and smartphone technologies will provide us with the means to offer a more interactive fan experience in Formula E," he's said previously at a press conference at the launch of the Drayson Racing team. "We think there's an opportunity for the fans to be closer to Formula E than any other series so we're taking their input very seriously."
The legacy of wireless charging points in the road circuits used by Formula E - "It's like a giant Scalextric with no wires!" - means cities hosting races could have areas where electric cars, buses and taxis can demonstrate how such vehicles can run without being slaves to heavy batteries. "We're working with some amazing wireless charging technology," says Drayson. "Just imagine if you don't have to plug the damned thing in! It just charges itself while it's moving, it doesn't have to carry 300kg of batteries because you don't have to carry all of the energy on board, it's topped up as it goes so now you've got a car with 1,000hp and it's weighing 600kg."
Street racing to bring Formula E to the masses
Can we really learn to love the hum of an electric motor as much as a screaming V8 though? Drayson reckons so. "Don't fight it, embrace it! Let's make cars which we can fall in love with and be passionate about but let's just make them with the new technology."
Over to you...
It's going to take a change in perspective, and I guess fireproof overalls could have some conductive elements (a la Farraday cage) to keep the eletrons away.
http://youtu.be/D52uNQfqiwk
It's not zero emissions though, the electric energy isn't produced by fairies living at the bottom of your garden :/
I wish people would look at the manufacturing process for pollution not just how much comes out of the exhausts.
BEVs are not the future, Electric motors can stay, replace the drive train, a la Fisker. But we need a technology that works the way ICEs work now, A battery charging to full in 20 minutes is too long, and that's a long way off.
Instead of replacing the Energy converter, why not replace the energy source. ICEs can be made to run on any combustible liquid or gas, look for an alternative. Change our current infrastructure not build an entirely new one.
STOP WASTING MONEY ON BATTERIES AND DEVELOP A TRULY CARBON NEUTRAL CAR!
My opinion anyway haha
http://youtu.be/hz7PJSWUveI
I can still remember my first F1 race……oh my god, the noise! 
To me, downforce is a bigger killer of trackside thrills than the sound of deisel / electric / fart / whatever powered engines, but I appreciate that this is a minority view, and somewhat off topic.
All those of the 'don't like it, don't care for anything but a rumbling V8 or screaming V12' persuasion are rather missing the point, things will have to change sooner rather than later. Even if they have to fudge it a bit it would be really interesting to see what sort of sounds work from an aural enjoyment perspective, but also have minimal environmental impact.
Throwing one out there, different sounds for different cars. The kids always pick cars to follow, 'I'm supporting the one that sounds like a Tie Fighter' etc etc would be good fun.
I can watch formula E despite it not having petrol engines.
I can watch a race because the most important part of a race is exactly that... The race. There was an incredibly dull period of Formula one in the 2000's. I stopped watching. Engine noise did not matter, the racing did.
I can watch formula E despite it not having petrol engines.
I can watch a race because the most important part of a race is exactly that... The race. There was an incredibly dull period of Formula one in the 2000's. I stopped watching. Engine noise did not matter, the racing did.
Formula E will run alongside other ice events etc, not replace it for a long time, so why not embrace it?
BTCC produces probably the best track action, but the sounds aren't all that exciting.
Let's not pre judge this until we see it. Oh, I forgot, this is PH.
I find there kinds of debates over motor racing quite amusing on PH. They're invariably argued out by folk who go to one or two events a year, yet hold disproportionately strong opinions.
I can only write as I find but I am extremely excited about the prospect of Formula E. Anyone who's witnessed street racing will understand the sheer thrill of racing vehicles at close quarters. Even as a spectator you can really see the difference in technique and skill of the drivers. It's so visceral.
A large part of this relates to the noise. I'm deeply intrigued though. I've only seen electric car demos but the way they move is remarkable. Drayson's Lola moves with total stealth and apparently no inertia. It's amazing. For the record, though, I love the big V12 diesel LMP1 cars as well.
The simple, unavoidable, truth is that one day the oil will run out. This will, of course, affect manufacturing of vehicles as well as running. But this is a start. The next steps will involve materials and manufacturing from genuinely renewable materials. Witness Lotus's hemp car for ideas.
Through my writing for one of the racing technology magazines, we've discussed at some length the ways to engage 'Generation Y'. This generation of youngesters brought up on PlayStations and Gran Turismo for whom tuning carburettor jets is of no interest. By introducing manic fast cars to the centre of cities, it offers promise. I hope Rallycross, Pike's Peak and Time Attack do something similar.
Formula E has my unequivocal support.
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