The official "NEWS FROM THE SOCIAL NETWORKS" thread

Well, even that video you see that later Heidfled's car has a different livery and also the commentator says 'last year...'.
Yes, you can get a wrong imoression, but it's not hard to figure it out I think.

 

True, if you watch through the whole thing. But given that crash is right at the start of the video, I think its pretty easy to make the mistake that that particular crash was recent - a little caption saying "Season 1, 2014" or whatever would have made it clearer.

 

RWD ! Yes !

I have a very good feeling about that car. The electronic instruments is very interesting part, never seen them spinning like in the Alfieri, which could be seen in Monza Rally Show video. Something that feels very modern, but at the same time keeping it simple and classy. Maserati doing it right.

 

A quick check seems to indicate that the V8 in that Alfieri concept car is a 4.7 litre Ferrari derived power unit delivering 460hp and 520Nm of torque. That sounds good to me

 

In his defence though Formula E is pretty rubbish, I only knew it was an old crash because I watched the first couple of races. I havent seen one since and have very little interest in it, the car actually looked pretty good going up the goodwood hillclimb but thats not saving any power.

If they really want to make electric powered cars look appealing they need to make them faster and be driven flat out for a full race distance. This saving energy thing really seems pointless to me, Id rather see them do 5 lap sprint races flat out on proper tracks then see who could get to the shops faster saving lots of power while still needing 2 cars to get there.

 

In order to do that you would need way more batteries (to be able to push hard without energy saving and go faster), which would make the cars much heavier/larger.
Give it time, efficiency will increase, technology will improve and speeds will get faster.

This thing is barely out of the womb, its gotta walk before it can run.

 

But even F1 and WEC are pretty annoying with their BS power saving ideology, they aren't kidding anyone flying these cars around the world to race with teams of 100's then after all that wasted energy the main event is handicapped because now its time to look like they are some kind of conservationist society.

Let them use as much fuel and battery power as they can manage, if saving fuel to carry less is faster then go ahead but if some want to just go full Tim Allen engineering style then go ahead.

 

Like i said, if you wanted more battery power the cars would be huge... The battery packs are already as big as they can possible fit practically into a single seater chassis. They still have to navigate tight city centre street circuits, which are barely big enough for the size of car they already have. Keeping these things regulated keeps costs down, allowing more teams to enter, and spend more on good drivers.

 

If they want to keep costs down race something like this.



It will be cheaper and work better on those crappy little tracks while being more fun for drivers and spectators.

 

MORE POWER!!!




(SCNR, for obvious reasons)

 

Thats what local club racing is for, and its great. Not ideal as a platform for promoting and developing electric drivetrain racing though, is it?

I get it, FE isn't the most exciting, or fastest or whatever motorsport out there, but they have to start somewhere.

 

If its more boring then club racing and not much faster even if they still spend millions they are surely doing something very wrong. Its simply wasting money and energy promoting a green racing series when its far from green or entertaining racing.

 

Thats fine if you think that way, it doesn't replace any other form of motorsport so those options are still there to watch.

Can't be that much of a waste of money and energy considering so many manufacturers are joining in future, with many even leaving their previous sports (WEC, DTM etc) to focus on FE. I'm sure these large companies have done their sums and decided that in fact FE is financially viable and beneficial to them (think long term development gains beyond motorsport). What makes you think they would enter if it was a waste of resources?

 

Its purely marketing, its all about promoting a green image. I doesn't matter if its not green in the slightest and purely a waste of real resources, the general public sees it as being good for some unknown reason.

If its not even replacing any other motorsport its even more of a waste of resources, they aren't even joining in to another series like F1 where they could have been a support category. They instead need to waste more resources to make concrete jungle street circuits used for nothing else but their series so more wasted energy. Everything in the series is a joke and the majority of people don't even care that its on as its not entertaining. So much effort and waste to promote some BS energy saving around the world where it has saved nothing but given some brownie points to a few sponsors or manufacturers.

 

As Gary said, the battery technology isn't there yet. Gotta start somewhere and as history has proven one of the best ways to quickly advance a technology is through the crucible of racing.

Edit: Nevermind, I can see there's no point discussing this with you.

 

No one really thinks travelling round the world with a convoy of race cars is green. But racing in general isn't really a problem for the environment anyway, its entertainment.

But the implications that the development racing brings for the technology could have major impact further down the line. Manufacturers see this, and I thought most motorsport enthusiasts saw it too (evidently not). So many technologies we use daily have been developed for and in motorsport. Nothing like some direct competition to force manufacturers to innovate.

Your argument is really weak. "I don't like it, I don't find it entertaining, I don't think its not fast enough, so its a waste" is basically the jist. Open your mind a bit, it may do you good.

 

Battery tech is on the verge of getting vastly more effective, honestly we are on the edge of at least three types of technology improving its energy density by over 50%, reducing the volatile nature of batteries such as Lipo. Its way too technical for me but theres been several presentations at my university regarding what is coming. last year there was a lot of presented breakthrough but they take a lot of time to test for safety especially with the sheer amount of batteries included in full electric cars at the moment. I reckon this time next year battery tech will be a very viable option. By 2020 I dont think there will be anything apart from price and maintenance that fossil fuels will be able to do better than electric.

This is at least from the evidence ive been presented, hitches can occur but I do think next year will be the tipping point

 

You're missing the point though. The objective isn't so much to make F1 eco friendly, that's something entirely different that the teams would do to save their own costs, and you can be certain big teams like this are using every trick in the book to save costs.

The point of the hybrid engines in F1 was to make them relevant to the real world. There are no big breakthroughs to be made in making powerful engines, every manufacturer knows how to make a fuel guzzling horsepower monster. F1 switched to hybrid because it looked like the future (although it may be short lived at the rate electric is developing). F1 was to be where these technology could be pushed to destruction.

If it meant that real world cars could save 5% fuel which could amount to billions of savings it's worth the few hundreds of millions they spend putting on the show and developing the technology.


The big issue now may be that F1 has backed the wrong horse. FE could be the future and hybrids could be the betamax.

 

I think if it ever got to the point where FE was competing with F1 as the lead single seater category (a long way away yet), they would just be merged, as both as FIA sports and I think Liberty has a stake in both as well.

Both are an open book in terms of long term regulations, so they always can evolve into whatever it needs to be. All it requires are the right people to recognise the needs and move in the right direction - easier said than done.

 

I would be interested in electric Alfieri actually.