EVs at Castle Coombe

EVs at Castle Coombe

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E-bmw

9,364 posts

154 months

Wednesday 3rd April
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grahamsimmonds said:
Ken_Code said:
You seem completely unable to separate severity from probability. If a car goes into the barriers things happen to it which are sub-optimal, including batteries being short-circuited. When that happens the resultant fire is far more difficult to deal with than a petrol fire, given the chemical properties of lithium.

You are giving an excellent example here of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing.
I think I understand the difference between probability and severity only too well. I have attended over 50 track days in my Taycan and it has not blown up, caught fire or any other circumstance your furtive imagination can come up with. It has never broken down or caused a red flag. Like all Porsches, it is designed for track use. If I thought for one minute that it was not safe to drive it on a track, I would not do so. In fact, I would venture that it is much safer than many of the jalopies that turn up on track days, that end up causing red flags due to poor maintenance.
And once again, you are completely ignoring severity/consequence.


E-bmw

9,364 posts

154 months

Wednesday 3rd April
quotequote all
grahamsimmonds said:
matt5964 said:
Not to mention the costs involved as well as possible infrastructure improvements , not to even mention that the circuit owner may not event want to have EVs on there circuit at this point, after all it’s there decision to make
I think you may have hit the nail on the head there. Certainly Anglesey does not want EVs on its circuit at this time. Knowing that there is no evidence whatsoever to back this decision up on safety grounds, it will be solely down to a bias against EVs, based on ignorance.
You talk about ignorance & are STILL completely ignoring the other half of the risk assessment in your ignorance.

EV fire fighting.

https://www.evfiresafe.com/ev-fire-suppression-met...


Wh00sher

1,611 posts

220 months

Wednesday 3rd April
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As I said but you chose to ignore it your quoting.

IF an EV has a fire on circuit, from a crash or another issues the stoppage is likely to end the day for everyone else.

That wouldn't happen with an ice car.

You can bluster and obfuscate this fact all you want but it doesn't change reality.

Anglesey have decided it's an unnecessary risk for everyone else, likelihood is low but it is NOT zero.

carlo996

6,216 posts

23 months

Wednesday 3rd April
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grahamsimmonds said:
Heavy yes. Ponderous no. 680 bhp and a 0-60 time under 3 seconds is not ponderous.
It’s not a track car. If there is an issue which results in fire the circuit isn’t equipped to deal with it. How is that ignorance, it’s more like your entitlement getting in the way of logic.

Edited by carlo996 on Wednesday 3rd April 20:51

matt5964

57 posts

18 months

Wednesday 3rd April
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Ken_Code said:
Quite why you want to take such a heavy, ponderous car on the track in the first place is a bit of a mystery too.
Because it does all the driving for you making you the quickest on track, which as we all know is the most important thing for the day..lol

I’ll stick to my un nano’ed, no aids Lotus, where if it turns a decent lap it’s the driver that has nailed it not the computer’s, do i care about the top speed, 0-60 or lap time… not one bit.

mrfunex

546 posts

176 months

Wednesday 29th May
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grahamsimmonds said:
Heavy yes. Ponderous no. 680 bhp and a 0-60 time under 3 seconds is not ponderous.
Be interesting to hear how a 0-60 time has ever been useful on a race circuit.

The problem clearly isn’t one of performance, or how often they might catch fire; but should an EV catch fire, they have proven rather tricky to put out.

48k

13,303 posts

150 months

Thursday 30th May
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The reasoning seems pretty logical and fair to me. If it's a manufacturer supported day or a race meeting, they can accomodate EVs and Hybrids because the manufacturer and the teams bring the appropriate support on site and it's a more controlled environment. If it's a trackday, circuit themselves don't have the equipment and training to know how to deal with each different manufacturers vehicle type. “I don’t want to put participants, marshals and medics in a situation where they can’t respond to an incident.” - seems reasonable.
Seeing how the circuit has evolved in the 25+ years I've been going there, I'm sure they will look at ways to develop their facilities and training to accommodate EVs and Hybrids if there is enough demand.

SpudLink

6,066 posts

194 months

Thursday 30th May
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mrfunex said:
grahamsimmonds said:
Heavy yes. Ponderous no. 680 bhp and a 0-60 time under 3 seconds is not ponderous.
Be interesting to hear how a 0-60 time has ever been useful on a race circuit.

The problem clearly isn’t one of performance, or how often they might catch fire; but should an EV catch fire, they have proven rather tricky to put out.
The start of a race? smile

Obviously no use on a trackday.

Ken_Code

1,299 posts

4 months

Thursday 30th May
quotequote all
mrfunex said:
Be interesting to hear how a 0-60 time has ever been useful on a race circuit.

The problem clearly isn’t one of performance, or how often they might catch fire; but should an EV catch fire, they have proven rather tricky to put out.
I can’t really understand why people are pretending not to understand this for the purposes of winding others up.

E-bmw

9,364 posts

154 months

Thursday 30th May
quotequote all
Ken_Code said:
mrfunex said:
Be interesting to hear how a 0-60 time has ever been useful on a race circuit.

The problem clearly isn’t one of performance, or how often they might catch fire; but should an EV catch fire, they have proven rather tricky to put out.
I can’t really understand why people are pretending not to understand this for the purposes of winding others up.
It is quite simple really when you think about it.

If you think an EV is actually helping the environment you are only looking at one side of the argument.

Those that can only see one side of the argument are unwilling to actually recognise that there could ever possibly be a downside to their one sided argument.

These are who you are trying to educate.

grahamsimmonds

Original Poster:

56 posts

113 months

Thursday 30th May
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It's several months since I began this post and I thought it would be good to update everyone on my track day at Castle Coombe.

I signed up to a Goldtrack day which was a good decision. A nice bunch of people to deal with. Not the cheapest but I was never waiting more than a minute or two to get out on track and the driving standards and discipline were excellent. I think we only had one red flag in the entire day and that was sorted out quickly. I should also mention the CC marshals who are excellent and run a tight ship.

I was also really impressed by the intelligent, measured approach Castle Coombe take to electric cars. Once I had signed on, I had a visit from the safety officer/paramedic who had a copy of the Taycan emergency responder document on his IPad. We went through it and located the HV battery isolation switches in the front and back of the car. We also discussed recovery procedures as you cannot tow an EV. We still fitted the towing eye so it could be pulled up on to their flat bed if necessary.

In the end, the car was perfect and I had a wonderful day. The rain held off (just) and i steadily improved as I got used to the circuit. I will be returning.


LowTread

4,424 posts

226 months

Thursday 30th May
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As a Model 3 owner, i've been mulling trying it out at Cadwell (40 mins from me) one evening just to see what it's like.

Raced there a few times and done many, many track days/evenings, so it's not new to me, but taking an EV on track is!

How did you find the battery longevity?

I've looked back at some track evenings that i did in my Clio 200 and realised i'd only done about 40-50 miles, so i'm assuming i could get away with an evening in a Model 3 and have enough juice to get home.

grahamsimmonds

Original Poster:

56 posts

113 months

Thursday 30th May
quotequote all
LowTread said:
As a Model 3 owner, i've been mulling trying it out at Cadwell (40 mins from me) one evening just to see what it's like.

Raced there a few times and done many, many track days/evenings, so it's not new to me, but taking an EV on track is!

How did you find the battery longevity?

I've looked back at some track evenings that i did in my Clio 200 and realised I'd only done about 40-50 miles, so i'm assuming i could get away with an evening in a Model 3 and have enough juice to get home.
I'd say just go for it! There is a gang of Model 3 owners that track their cars without issues. It has to be said the more serious ones do upgrade the brakes/suspension but they use Tevo Solutions who are specialists https://www.tevo.solutions/. John Chambers is a very quick M3P owner who runs it. They have also started doing sprints as well as clubs are beginning to accept them.

I got 4 15 min sessions in the morning, charged at lunchtime, and then another 4 sessions in the pm. Charging is easy - there is the busy Ionity at Chippenham but also an MFG 8 unit site a mile on from that which always had availability. There are Tesla chargers at the Leigh Delamare services and I thought you could access them via the access road but never tried.