Racing goes electric: At the track with Formula E, the first e-racing series - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/cars/2015/03/racing-goes-electric-at-the-track-with-formula-e-the-first-e-racing-series/ <comment><USER2> Excellent interview with Formula E founder: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrTbdKe0XTo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrTbdKe0XTo)

Best quote, when asked if he thought we could end our dependence on oil: "The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones."

Really important to understand that this is just the first iteration of their plan. Goal is to get to single car for a full hour race within a few years. Agag says they now have many major cities approaching them about participating in the second year of Formula E, including San Francisco.

Also, the cars are louder than most people realize, at 80 decibels.

<comment><USER3> It's all relative. 80 decibels in the day isn't that loud. It's the sound of a vacuum cleaner. At night on the other hand 80db is loud. Considering that the F1 are 140DB the sound differences are massive.

<comment><USER4> Just to add to this, 140dB isn't about twice as loud as 80dB as the units might lead you to believe, since the scale is logarithmic: [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decibel](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decibel)

These FE cars are MUCH quieter than their F1 cousins.

<comment><USER5> Well, in terms of sound energy, but our hearing is also logarithmic, so 140dB will sound about twice as loud.

<comment><USER6> > an increase of 10db SPL is perceived to be approximately twice as loud

From [http://trace.wisc.edu/docs/2004-About- dB/](http://trace.wisc.edu/docs/2004-About-dB/)

So it's really 2^6 = 64x as loud, perceptually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Video of the race from the second page: [https://youtu.be/fvxRqC8UoAs?t=2m55s](https://youtu.be/fvxRqC8UoAs?t=2m55s)

Engine sound is amazing. This is the first time I have heard tire screech in a race. I wonder why. :-)

The problems seems to be battery capacity. They have to switch cars. Since the racing is usually done on a closed circuit they could implement inductive charging in the future( and perhaps power-ups ). Who wouldn't want to watch that?

<comment><USER8> Here's a video without an annoying commentator, so that you can actually hear the engine: [https://youtu.be/IptBVdys-mo?t=1m2s](https://youtu.be/IptBVdys- mo?t=1m2s)

And yes, the engine sound is amazing! It sounds so much more futuristic than Formula 1.

<comment><USER9> Color me old-fashioned, but I think this sounds horrible. The noise is annoyingly like a high-pitched screech. Grating on the ears.

Then again, F1 cars have terrible sound as well. Too high rev to have a nice sound.

edit: I find it interesting that they have a Senna and a Prost. Coincidence?

edit2: their top speeds are apparently also over 140km/h lower than F1 (225km/h vs. ~360km/h). I wonder why they decided to limit the cars to that and if it's ever getting raised?

<comment><USER10> It'll only get raised with additional battery technology, I think. Around a normal track, where an F1 car will get up to that speed, it will use about 1.7kg of fuel per lap, and this corresponds roughly to about 8kWh per lap, taking thermal efficiency into account.

Formula E cars have about 200kg of batteries (a Tesla has >500kg), and these provide about 28kWh - which would run out a little after 3 laps, or perhaps less than that if the incredibly high rate of discharge caused it to catch fire. You couldn't feasibly add too much more battery capacity without weighing the car down too much.

You can get an appreciable fraction of the speed of an F1 car with a fraction of the power, and the difference is even less noticeable if you're on a street circuit; for example around Monaco an F1 car will use only 1.2kg fuel, with a much higher drag aero package.

The Formula E driver lineup is a bit embarrassing, in that almost exactly half of the drivers are failed or retired F1 drivers.

Also, F1 drivers since the turbos returned are much lower pitched, since they rev only up to I think 12000rpm now - you might be surprised!

<comment><USER9> > Also, F1 drivers since the turbos returned are much lower pitched, since > they rev only up to I think 12000rpm now - you might be surprised!

Oooh that IS exciting! I haven't been paying much attention ever since they banned V10's, but if turbos are back it might be time to revisit.

And that's really interesting about the batteries. Haven't thought of that but it does make sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What I want to see is not heroic drivers like NASCAR, nor heroic billionaires investing in very similar tweaks, like Formula 1, but a diversity of creative conceptual engineering, competing in the same challenges, for lots of money.

Things like DARPA sponsors: The Grand Challenge in self-driving cars, and the Robotics Challenge. The Ansari X-prize also applies. BattleBots was a decent attempt at a sport along these lines. Fields where true novelty still exists, and there are no consistently obvious paths forward.

My impression as a non-fan is that Formula 1 only achieves divergent innovation on rare occasions, and next season or two everyone is doing it or it's been banned by the race sponsors.

<comment><USER12> You are spot-on! At the moment, F1 has little diversity and lots of restricting regulations. Formula-E is even worse, with everyone driving the same cars. NASCAR, or Indy, is not better either.

All the revolution and innovation is in WEC (World Endurance Championship), it's the one with the Le Mans round. This year, 4 strong competitors arrive in the top class and this is the series to watch [http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-news/first-official- picture...](http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-news/first-official- pictures/toyota/contenders-ready-porsche-and-toyotas-2015-le-mans-racers- revealed/)

<comment><USER13> Everyone is driving the same car only for the first season. Second season they are opening up the motor and inverter for improvement and modification. In the third it sounds like the battery will be opened up as well.

My guess is that they want to keep things as competitive as possible between the drivers. Slowly opening up the playing field for modifications will keep the races interesting but still foster innovation (at least for the first few years).

<comment><USER14> The main aim with the limited number of allowed modifications is to keep the cost of entry low, such that the brand new championship actually gets entrants. It's hard to justify a large budget for an unheard of championship.

<comment><USER12> I was really excited for FE, but at the moment is too like gokarts for me. But if your predictions come true, and they open up everything, I would really like FE to become as crazy as the innovative F1 years of 70s, 80s and early 90s - where just the speed and winning mattered, without the carbon and safety levels ruining the sport...

<comment><USER15> >too like gokarts for me. But even Formula 1 is essentially pimped-up shifter gokart.

<comment><USER12> Thanks to too restrictive regulations. I miss the times of four-front- wheelers, gas turbines and vacuum-undercarriage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As a former avid motorsports fan I believe all motorsport racing forms are dying as the cars are more and more considered a nuisance by young generations and they seem to have plateaued with their mechanical capabilities for a while.

To return fun back to motorsports and enable everyone to compete if they want, I think best would be to have RC models with realistic characteristics (or even real cars) and real-time camera/remote driving ability. Most fun nowadays is in simulators anyway, no TV experience can translate to what one can experience in a simulator competing against other people (sorry F1). Things like renting a NASCAR on an oval or Porsche on a Nürburgring aren't for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER17> Formula E's greatest strength is also its biggest weakness: the tracks they race on. The low noise levels make racing in city centers possible and brings a big crowd but the races are a bit boring.

In my opinion, the best race footage of Formula E is from their pre-race testing ("event simulation") where they ran a full field of cars at Donington Park, a traditional purpose-built race track with long sweeping curves and significant elevation changes.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQNrtmSnQ1I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQNrtmSnQ1I)

<comment><USER10> City centre racetracks also come from the nature of electric power.

Such tracks are usually much slower, which means that much less energy will be lost by means of air resistance, and the cars won't have enough space to reach top speed.

This means they can run for longer, or with higher power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I just thought I'd chime in for Team Swinburne from Australia, which is a university team who R&D a brand new electric formula car each year. Amongst other challenges down here, the electric engines (which can only operate up to 100C) overheating in the 35C Australian ambient is a pretty big one.

Not much of what we need actually exists, so we also engineer our own charging trolley, battery box and computer systems.

Here's our 2014 car specs: [http://www.teamswinburne.com/the- car-2014/](http://www.teamswinburne.com/the-car-2014/)

</comment><comment><USER19> There are limits on everything: acceleration, maximal speed and even noise. Formula E will be boring same way as Formula 1. Identical cars circling around the track.

<comment><USER20> It seems your data on F-1 are slightly out of date. Yes, the rules are the same for everyone, but each team optimizes within them differently. As for identical cars, I guess McLaren only wish they had a car like Mercedes or Ferrari (or any old car that could actually last an entire race).

<comment><USER16> There is no longer awe associated with breaking records/introducing diverse tech into motorsports anymore. I guess previous generations had it better as they could watch how somebody breaks 190, 200, 210, ... mph barrier, run engines with 900, 1000, 1100hp for the first time, run two sets of rear or front wheels etc. None of that applies now, motorsports are now regulated and consolidated. New revival attempts introduce super ugly cars (look at IndyCars in the past 10 years, or even current Formula E), all mind-blowing racing that deviates from the norm is now banned (Zanardi's "The Pass" can't happen anymore), engines can't be pushed to higher hp unless we want to allow multiple casualties per race, as Firestone Firehawk 600 shown us in 2001 we already crossed the threshold of what humans can withstand and had to backtrack... F1 is now boring (who cares that some German guy in a red car wins?) and mainly a world unto itself with very little connection to the real world as the rules are a result of decades of political fights (i.e. they aren't representing technological pinnacle of what is possible rather what powerful people allowed each other). There were glimmers of interesting things happening with drifting etc. but they never had mainstream potential. I really don't see much future in this, the existing motorsports can be probably milked for a while with a proper marketing strategy, but the future lies elsewhere.

<comment><USER19> > engines can't be pushed to higher hp unless we want to allow multiple > casualties per race,

We need robots than.

<comment><USER21> It would be interesting to do remote control. I.e. nobody in the car. Two classes: one with restrictions (i.e. driver must be in control - no assists / etc. May be tricky to define.), one without (want to go fully computer- controlled? Sure!).

<comment><USER22> Remote control means you can tweak the scale of the cars/races.

<comment><USER21> Yep.

Although it would be interesting to go "you must have a space where a person can fit, and if you ever kill the dummy inside you lose the race" (defined a little more precisely, of course).

Remember: you probably want to keep the scale vaguely car-size. That way you'll get the most applicable innovation coming out of it. And also that way it'll tend to be the most interesting to spectators.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> 5 gear gearboxes?

WHY?

I have an electrical car. They don't need gearboxes, or probably one gear at all.

Had they introduced gearboxes so pilots could feel they do something? If so they don't need gearboxes for that they could manually control the electronics control of the engine.

That leaves the option of manufacturers of gearboxes wanting electric cars to use them.

But this is stupid, and make no sense, as it makes the entire car heavyweight for resisting the torques. They are obsolete. The future is motors on wheels.

<comment><USER18> As I said below, one reason they might run a transmission is so that they constantly run the engine in the most energy efficient zone (which might vary by up to 30%), giving them a longer battery life. There are other factors to consider about whether this is justified, however, like the losses introduced in the transmission.

Whether the drivers are trained to take advantage of this is another story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's awesome to see this hitting the prime time, but Formula E is far from the first. The National Electric Drag Racing association ([http://www.nedra.com/](http://www.nedra.com/)) has been around since 1996 and there's all kinds of good tires screeching (and golf cards popping wheelies).

</comment><comment><USER25> I think they should just remove the drivers and let the engineers compete freely. That would be much more interesting to watch than the current yawn- fest of "which human will make the least mistakes on mostly identical cars"...

<comment><USER21> It's rather difficult to do that and keep some semblance of safety.

Ultimately I think the simplest way to keep things sane would be to do something along the lines of "you have <x> amount of MJ worth of <fuel of your choice or electrical power> for the race" (which would then spawn all sorts of related rules about what exactly counts as fuel, but meh. Such is life.).

<comment><USER25> _It 's rather difficult to do that and keep some semblance of safety._

Huh? But that's partly the point, what do you need safety for when there's no drivers?

Build a strong cage around the track so the spectators don't get hurt when a car lifts off at 400mph. And set hefty fines for when a robocar damages another robocar, so the participants are incentivized to win by racing rather than by elimination (which might actually be an interesting sub-genre of its own, though).

And then let's just see how far the engineers can bend physics when they _don 't_ have to throttle everything down to accommodate for human safety and reflexes...

<comment><USER21> Oh, thought you were talking about driver-d cars.

With driverless cars, I agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> My kind of car sound:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPXHIMHIcvQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPXHIMHIcvQ)

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't understand one thing: why do all cars have to be exactly the same? Here's a better idea: just set some specifications on the vehicles, and let the teams do their best to work within those specs. At the end of the season, all cars are open-sourced, so you can see what the others did. Come next season, the teams will have incorporated the best practices from the previous season and improved upon them. Rinse, lather, repeat.

<comment><USER28> It's like NASCAR, not about the car but the skill of the driver.

Otherwise it becomes who has the better funding to afford the best engineering team and money for the lightest and strongest parts.

<comment><USER27> But even NASCAR has teams of engineers trying to find legal (or questionable) tweaks. At this stage, when technical advances are needed, having a more open model might be better.

<comment><USER29> If I understand it right that'll get going from the second season on.

"From season two, Formula E will operate as an 'open championship', allowing teams and manufacturers the opportunity to showcase their own electrical energy innovations. Working to the technical specifications set out by the FIA, teams will focus their efforts on improving and developing powertrains and battery technology, with the aim of this filtering into the everyday electric vehicle market."

[http://www.fiaformulae.com/en/guide/overview.aspx](http://www.fiaformulae.com/en/guide/overview.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you ever been to a F1 it is the sound and smell of burning fossil fuels that adds to the energy and excitement of watching the race.

I would not pay to just watch electrics race. 3 years ago at MotoGP they had electrics race and it drew little crowd. For consumer use yes I am totally for electrics but for the race track it will destroy the spirit of a Formula race.

KERS is a great addition to the petrol motors but not a full electric replacement.

</comment><comment><USER30> Cars sound like the future.

They want to aim at the younger crowd, but fail technologically. Its 2015, there should be live streaming from every cars front and back camera during the race.

</comment><comment><USER31> I don't know, those tires look hideous and the sound...the best thing I love about formula 1 is engine sound, these e-formula cars look and sound like a bunch of my son's remote control toys on a track. I don't find it exciting to watch</comment>