Formula E testing Donnington
Discussion
Yeah.
I think it started out as something like 180bhp > 300bhp on boost, and boost was 10s.
We now look to be at about 200bhp with 40bhp extra on boost, with 5s per boost.
I'm not sure how many boosts they get, but the teams with good social media get an extra 2 boosts or something.
I'd rather just see them choose a fixed output and run with that... or if overheating is a problem, then let the drivers/teams manage it by using more power one lap to get ahead, then having to run slower the next to cool things off.
Heat management would be much more interesting a strategy to win races, than being good on Twitter.
Hopefully if the series does well we'll see the tech/rules mature a lot and get some really innovative e-cars racing around!
Right now we have two weird things, gearboxes and fan boost. But both I expect are surplus to actual e-car racing requirements and will disappear, hopefully.
Dave
I think it started out as something like 180bhp > 300bhp on boost, and boost was 10s.
We now look to be at about 200bhp with 40bhp extra on boost, with 5s per boost.
I'm not sure how many boosts they get, but the teams with good social media get an extra 2 boosts or something.
I'd rather just see them choose a fixed output and run with that... or if overheating is a problem, then let the drivers/teams manage it by using more power one lap to get ahead, then having to run slower the next to cool things off.
Heat management would be much more interesting a strategy to win races, than being good on Twitter.
Hopefully if the series does well we'll see the tech/rules mature a lot and get some really innovative e-cars racing around!
Right now we have two weird things, gearboxes and fan boost. But both I expect are surplus to actual e-car racing requirements and will disappear, hopefully.
Dave
Well a selection of gears is a bit weird when most electric motors can generate a fairly plump power curve over their operating speed range.
Unless there are some specific reasons why they can't just run one gear and have a motor with one of these plump outputs?!
Or I'm missing something important in it's entirety.
Given these latest super hybrids with e-motors, such as the La Ferrari and the Porsche 918, which use a post-gearbox motor to add a huge amount of torque in higher road gears, I'd expect these are the kinds of e-motors they'd be using in Formula E too. Stuff with fairly flat grunty power outputs... not rev-tastic low torque e-motors?!
Specs are really thin on the ground, contradictory, and changing all the time... so I'm doing quite a bit of assuming and extrapolation here.
If you know more I'd be very interested to hear
Dave
Unless there are some specific reasons why they can't just run one gear and have a motor with one of these plump outputs?!
Or I'm missing something important in it's entirety.
Given these latest super hybrids with e-motors, such as the La Ferrari and the Porsche 918, which use a post-gearbox motor to add a huge amount of torque in higher road gears, I'd expect these are the kinds of e-motors they'd be using in Formula E too. Stuff with fairly flat grunty power outputs... not rev-tastic low torque e-motors?!
Specs are really thin on the ground, contradictory, and changing all the time... so I'm doing quite a bit of assuming and extrapolation here.
If you know more I'd be very interested to hear
Dave
electric motors, like engines, have an efficiency characteristic with speed as one of the variables - that gives them a "sweet-spot" where keeping them close to that operating point will give you better results. So, if you're racing, why wouldn't you choose to do this? Conserve enough energy by efficiency measures like that to get another lap in before pitting and you a long way ahead.
AER said:
electric motors, like engines, have an efficiency characteristic with speed as one of the variables - that gives them a "sweet-spot" where keeping them close to that operating point will give you better results. So, if you're racing, why wouldn't you choose to do this? Conserve enough energy by efficiency measures like that to get another lap in before pitting and you a long way ahead.
I'd like to see the efficiency curves and maths to support that though.Ie, why does the Porsche 918 and Ferrari La run the e-motor at low rpm and high power in higher gears, exactly where they add massively to these cars potential efficiency levels?
Perhaps they are made to be less efficient at high rpm output instead?
My main thoughts are that the gearbox efficiency cost and weight to brake/accelerate many many times per lap, would probably offset any efficiency variance over rpm range with an e-motor that gave a more flat output in power.
If not then these e-motors must be really focussed on high-rpm high-power efficiency (despite getting hot in this spec which seems counter-intuitive if it's more efficient there), and really poor efficiency at low rpm.
But then that begs the question, how relevant is Formula E e-motor tech/advancement if it's geared entirely for peak power output at high rpm, something quite irrelevant for road-car use later on, with dreadful low-speed efficiency that is poor enough to justify adding a gearbox/gears/weight to a system to compensate for.
I'm not meaning to be harsh, but the logic doesn't stand up without more details. Possibly I'm missing quite a lot of details, possibly ones that are not being shared. But right now I'm struggling to understand.
Dave
Dan_1981 said:
BBC said:
.. to immerse fans into the world of Formula E they will play music during the event and have a 'fanboost', where three drivers with the most social media votes will have the power of their cars increased from 133kw to 200kw prior to the race so that they can use a 'boost' of 90hp during the proceedings
For serious??
130R said:
Dan_1981 said:
BBC said:
.. to immerse fans into the world of Formula E they will play music during the event and have a 'fanboost', where three drivers with the most social media votes will have the power of their cars increased from 133kw to 200kw prior to the race so that they can use a 'boost' of 90hp during the proceedings
For serious??I guess the hope is, with all of the media junkie youth we have these days, that they'll buy into it the same way they buy into all the other worthless 'reality' and imitation social interaction they're slaves to.
I think the BBC data is a bit incorrect, the boost won't be that much by now.
One shot of that kinda boost on Beijing would see you get enough of a lead to lead the race to the end in fairly even conditions. Iirc it was 10s @ 77kw... which is a huge boost.
I think now it's a bit more kw as standard, and only about 20% boost at 5s intervals.
I think all teams will get so many kwh to run the race with, with so many 'boosts' handed out, with a few extra for those popular on Twitter.
Bit sad that it's being somewhat cheapened and degraded with boosts and music that may not to be everyones tastes.
Does it really need it?
I don't think it would if you were half interested to begin with. Will Twitter interactivity and music really swing someone on the fence over to bothering to watch it? I really doubt it.
Dave
One shot of that kinda boost on Beijing would see you get enough of a lead to lead the race to the end in fairly even conditions. Iirc it was 10s @ 77kw... which is a huge boost.
I think now it's a bit more kw as standard, and only about 20% boost at 5s intervals.
I think all teams will get so many kwh to run the race with, with so many 'boosts' handed out, with a few extra for those popular on Twitter.
Bit sad that it's being somewhat cheapened and degraded with boosts and music that may not to be everyones tastes.
Does it really need it?
I don't think it would if you were half interested to begin with. Will Twitter interactivity and music really swing someone on the fence over to bothering to watch it? I really doubt it.
Dave
BBC said:
Practice, qualifying and the race will all happen on one day. So to immerse fans into the world of Formula E they will play music during the event
I read that to mean they`ll have music between sessions. If people are there all day to watch practice, qualifying and the race, there will be times with no on track activity, so that`s when they`ll be playing music ? It`s pretty vague though, so I could be wrong...Wh00sher said:
I read that to mean they`ll have music between sessions. If people are there all day to watch practice, qualifying and the race, there will be times with no on track activity, so that`s when they`ll be playing music ? It`s pretty vague though, so I could be wrong...
I did read originally they had planned to play the music during the race as well, due to the fact they don't make much noise. I believe they tested this out during the race simulations at donington a bit? Not long till we find out now though!The closer we get the more I actually get quite excited about this. It's great that it is live on ITV4 from 8am tomorrow as well.
Gah I forgot to set it taping.
Anyone know where I can watch the full thing?
I'm guessing the highlights will nearly be the full race length any way, so maybe ITV will just put the full thing on their ITV player.
Or I'll just torrent it from somewhere. Madness in this day and age. 15 years ago I'd have manually set a VCR, but a digital version today relies on your computer being left on, oops haha
Dave
Anyone know where I can watch the full thing?
I'm guessing the highlights will nearly be the full race length any way, so maybe ITV will just put the full thing on their ITV player.
Or I'll just torrent it from somewhere. Madness in this day and age. 15 years ago I'd have manually set a VCR, but a digital version today relies on your computer being left on, oops haha
Dave
Mr Whippy said:
I'd like to see the efficiency curves and maths to support that though.
Dave
Dave
Not the whole story by any stretch, but you can see that the efficiency varies from 0% to its peak, which is very narrow. There is also a limiting speed for an electric motor for a given voltage (which can be tweaked and extended by various clever means).
The efficiency gains with hybrid powertrains come by cleverly trading off the deficit of one power source in favour of another depending on operating point and sizing them both appropriately. Torque fill is an example of this, but I'm pretty sure the electric motor isn't actually operating very efficiently in this mode, but it does allow a much more efficient (and simpler, but laggier) turbocharger system to be used which has a knock-on effect of allowing more extreme IC engine downsizing. In the end, torque fill doesn't amount to much total energy usage so efficient operation here doesn't actually matter all that much.
When you go all electric though, you really need to maximize your motor efficiency because that's all you have...
Edited by AER on Monday 15th September 06:09
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