All it takes is one tree-hugger president and what happened to motor racing in 1973 will seem mild by comparison.

They even tried to ban Indy and those cars run on alcohol.

I'm confused, is it laser pulse driven from the rear cone, or electric hub drive with no batteries, or somehow both?

I know it's just make-believe, but what is the concept I'm supposed to believe in?

I'm guessing pure sci-fi propulsion.
Electric hubs and the rest is current tech. Some VERY OLD. Think LeTourneau
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I went to the Miami race during the 1st or second season of F-E and loved the race.

It was easy to get past the lack of noise mostly because the grandstand seats were not $450 each and we could talk to each other during the race and comment on what was going on.

I would love to attend more races and I am gutted Miami could not bring the race back. Shame on them.

I loosely follow the season, I follow a few drivers and teams on social medial.


The buzz kill for me was the car change mid race, while I am glads to see that going away, I am also bummed it is because they are making the batteries last the race duration or shortening the race or both.

I really hoped they would develop a pit stop battery change, that would translate into the real world and be very handy for mass produced E-cars. It could have been a game changer.

I think Formula E completely missed the boat in that regard.

There was some noise in the media also about tracks. Most are street tracks obviously but therefore narrow and there is at most 2 good lines thru them, making for very hard passing with similar cars... I think buxton was suggesting widening would help the series a lot.. I'm not a huge fan but I watch it regularly to see if it gets better - it will... Lots of big manufacturers next year...

Jim,
LOL Talk to Gordon Murray about a "pitstop car".
ie. Brabham BT 49/50

There is an opportunity to make this racing bonkers and draw a lot of fans.

Use batteries that can be swapped out quickly in a pit stop. Instead of them them trying to manage distance on Batteries crank them up to qualifying trim and beyond for race setup.

Lets see some Tesla insane mode or the new plaid mode all race long.

I hope in several years these cars are so fast and can go so far that they will run F1 tracks and lap just as fast if not faster.

It is pretty exciting to see this technology developing in front of us. I look forward to seeing these cars develop into monsters.

Do the cars have enough energy to power an external loudspeaker emitting this sound :D:D:
https://youtu.be/5SoZiTxdQyw?t=22s
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I have watched a couple of races. I appreciate the tech that goes into the cars. And I'm amazed at how many "sports car" (Le Mans, IMSA, WEC) driver names I recognize in the series. I guess racing is racing?

It will be interesting to see how that would be possible. It is not like a battery operated drill to change the battery packs. The battery packs have to be liquid cooled. So the cooling pipes have to contact the battery in a lot of places. Also there is very deadly power going through the battery. High voltage and high amperage connections.

No doubt someone will figure it out, but it will not be easy.

Supercapacitors or exotic-metal catalyst fuel cells, not batteries.

Thanks for reading my posts, the 1989 March Alfa Romeo Indycar was the first car I worked on, it was dog slow but it did allow me to tick the Indy 500 of my list

Think you hit the nail on the head about diversity, electric cars and motorbikes should start breaking lap records in the not too distant future at races like Pikes Peak and Isle of Man TT. For circuit races Like Le Mans I don't think it will happen very soon.

I'm interested to see what direction LMP1 goes as there is talk of the new generation of cars being based on road cars which should make for some interesting racing. Also I'd love to see an EV rallyx championship as I think they would decimate a fossil fuel powered car on acceleration.

Thank you, the Jaguar FE is my first EV race car, was a very tough design period, when I took my foot off the gas when the car was finished I fell over at the end in a spectacular fashion.

This might sound strange but a lot of cars I've helped create I end up really hating towards the end of the design stage but if its a quick car its easy to fall back in love with it

I don't get VR racing of any kind as it seems like its just a programming/algorithm race and nothing to do with making the best design compromises to create the fastest car driven by a human. I prefer racing cars to be real objects that sound, smell and feel like that are about to blow up into tiny pieces as a hero driver pushes them to the limit. Take autonomous race cars for example without a driver or human controlling it will anyone want to watch??

Noise at a live motorsport event is the major part of the spectacle, without the noise the sense of speed, drama and excitement is lost for me. I was lucky enough to have been on the pit wall for a Monaco GP back in the V10 engine era, I've watched Group B rally car thrashing through a forest and watched GT1 cars over taking each other down the Mulsanne straight at night in the rain. These sights and sounds will stay with me forever.

I'm glad I experienced both but I'm slightly excited by how EV race cars will evolve.

Wasn't very long ago a friend who was responsible for the engine testing of a big F1 team was explaining how an electric motor the size of a Coke can had 150 bhp of power and could spin the turbo up or the turbo could spin it up to help fill in the dips on an engine torque curve.

That's the challenge of motorsport, finding ways to do something that is difficult.

There was a very brief moment in F1 where it would have been legal to change tryes during a pitstop without any mechanics being involved in the process. Quite a few crazy ideas were batted about but the FIA very quickly closed that loop hole as the machinery involved would have been too dangerous and the development costs too excessive even for F1. To reduce the pitstop time the safer option was to keep increasing the wheel gun air pressures and torque until you started breaking the mechanics :D

My FE cred, :D, I’m on the left.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1512603510.jpg
Power unit on the tech training car.
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Yeah, 220, 221. Whatever it takes.

Just make them mental and the fans will go mental too.


Regarding the poo pooing on the battery change.

Yes, it will be an engineering feat, but it should be done.

Just like ABS and TC ended up on street cars so would a viable technology.

Who says people have to change the batteries? Robots can! Lets get into the 21st century.

This must really be an interesting phase of your career! I would imagine that aero challenges are completely different? (all street courses, no engine heat, different tires, need for more robust bodies, etc.)

I know its the future, but I just can't seem to get into it. Actually, any series that is full of ex-top level drivers does something to kill things for me.

I don't think the teams can do anything to the aero, it's a spec chassis. The teams provide the motor and transmission.

I'm in!

I helped out with Aguri FE in pre-season testing before the inaugural season. The very first day all the teams officially hit the track in Donington, the vibe was positively electric (pun intended). Everyone there, the media, interested bystanders and friends of friends in other motorsport, Williams Advanced Engineering and McLaren Electronics support people, they were all super excited and I could tell they all believed in this new thing. I personally thought how they do in the first couple of seasons would make or break the series. Judging by all the manufacturers joining next season, I would say it's the former.

I agree the cars are boring at the moment, but then again, when was the last time a brand new racing series with brand new technology was started up from scratch? They did it right to first start with 100% spec cars, then to open up the powertrain development, and to fully open up chassis and aero in the future. Without this level of control, the whole thing would have boiled down to only a few teams with big resources, and that would have been the end of the series after season 1.

I suspect it will not be long before the cars will be continuously and wirelessly charged. The tracks aren't too big and Qualcomm has been involved from the beginning.

I'll keep an eye open at Mercedes next year to see if there are any "extra-curricular" projects for their upcoming FE team ;)

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Half way through this season and next years cars start their 2nd test next week

1yr of Formula E is like a dog year = 7 human years :) so I'm taking the summer off to have a rest doing hard manual labour building my house

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Enjoy your rest, sir. Thanks much for the insider updates.