Check out the Brand New Formula E Design

[XCalinX]

It's sexy and all... but nothing compared to F1 cars...

 

[Rodent]

Eh, it'll still be Formula E so I doubt I'll bother watching it, but the bright side is we're clearly one step closer to getting a real life F-Zero going. Can't wait for Captain Falcon to get a seat.

 

[Ernie]

Not really interested in the series, but i have to admit that the new Formula E looks really cool. I like this LMP2-style.

 

[Michel Forest]

A Michel Vaillante without the WROOOOOMs and WUUUUUUUSHes

You’ve obviously not read the Michel Vaillant book about Formula E (yep, there’s one already! I don’t think it’s translated in English, though.)

 

[RichardHessels]

Disappointing it is not an open wheeler anymore, they need to drop the formula from the name now, that is only appropriate.

They race on very narrow tracks and are allowed for some slight wheel banging.
Probably a lot saver this way, as wheels don't hook, making cars fly off.
Nobody want to see many full course yellow's or worse during a race.

 

[LeSunTzu]

You’ve obviously not read the Michel Vaillant book about Formula E (yep, there’s one already! I don’t think it’s translated in English, though.)

But when Jean Graton imagined the GP of the future (for year 2000!) the cars still made a lot of noise ^^

 

[Jebus]

That's one butt ugly car! But doesn't matter, I'm not interested of the series anyways.

 

[samcar304]

Interesting that news has surfaced regarding this cars capability to exceed 300kmh... I'll believe it when i see it. I really hope for the series sake it does happen though

 

[PaulH]

Formula Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

[Patrik Marek]

as much as I dislike FormulaE in general, this new design seems to be much better then old one

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

An 'Electric' touring cars series would be far more relevant.

hi wombat, there will be a jaguar e-touring car series running alongside the formula e. find all info here (including the fact it is more of an suv than a touring car but it is of course much closer to what you can buy in real life than the formula e).
http://autoweek.com/article/formula-e/jaguar-i-pace-drive-new-formula-e-support-series

footnote: there is already an all electric touring car series in china, running vw e-golfs:
https://www.motorsport.com/automoti...hallenge-at-formula-e-hong-kong-eprix-800855/

 

[Eddie Ellis]

Interesting that news has surfaced regarding this cars capability to exceed 300kmh... I'll believe it when i see it. I really hope for the series sake it does happen though

Reaching those speeds should be easy. I've been racing 1/10th scale radio controlled cars for over 30 years at the pro level and I can tell you for sure that the current Formula E is not reaching that we were running in 2004. The average current output of our batteries have increased from 10 times the capacity to 100 times the capacity and with half the resistance. We can also charge at 5 or 6 times the current we used to back then. brushless motors have also doubled in power. Our governing body has had a full time job just trying to reduce speeds to controllable levels. The same with electronic speed controls.

Don't worry about the noise, you get used to it after a while.

My R/C background also gives some insight on the body style changes. The F1 style body and wings don't scale down very well at a smaller size or at lower speeds. That is the main reason 1/10 scale F1 tends to be a slow class in my world. An average sedan or GT2/GT3 type R/C car runs 12~15% faster laps on the road course than an F1 car. The LMP style is 50% faster. I suspect Formula E has seen some of this in smaller amounts.
Here is our 1/12 scale cars that have been slowed down 50% by reducing the voltage to roughly 4V under load (1S LiPo) from our normal 8V under load (2S LiPo).

 

[Will Mazeo]

Interesting that news has surfaced regarding this cars capability to exceed 300kmh... I'll believe it when i see it. I really hope for the series sake it does happen though

Reaching that speed is not much of a issue, the amount of energy needed to keep that is. I remember a motorsport meeting once discussed about the Nissan ZEOD (that had better aero than these FE cars), it could do a lap of Le Mans with 3~4l of fuel if I remember right, but needed energy from 150kg of batteries to do the same with the electric engine alone (and for 1 lap only)

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

Hi Kjell. If you like you can turn the volume down in RRE and pretend you are racing these cars too. Great fun mate.
Like you said, each to their own.

I have had a ride in the Tesla Model S, and I'll tell you what, if I was a RL racer I sure as hell would not be missing the sound, the performance on that thing is nothing short of mindblowing.
I'm convinced that in a few years time electric vehicles will make the current gen F1 cars look like dinosaurs.
I specify current gen because I think F1 will go more and more hybrid and at some point down the line there will no longer be a fossil based F1, making FE and F1 one and the same.

It's not that I don't enjoy the sound of a roaring engine, but it is NOT why I'm watching racing, I watch racing because of the sport and competition, I couldn't care less how it sounds tbh.

 

[Andy_J]

It's not that I don't enjoy the sound of a roaring engine, but it is NOT why I'm watching racing, I watch racing because of the sport and competition, I couldn't care less how it sounds tbh.

I understand and we are all different mate. I watch the motorsports I'm interested in for the competition, the sounds and the smells. They all add up to something special for me. This E racing is like watching the world cup football without commentary to me.

 

[InsaneOzzie]

Until they can charge the batteries without using fossil fueled generators whats the point, the same goes for electric street cars, sure your not putting out the fuel emissions, but it's laughable imo to claim it's climate friendly when 90% of the power to charge the batteries is coal generated. When the car can generate it's own power to recharge as it drives, then I'll be impressed

 

[Slowdive]

And you could walk out in front of it, and get run over, and you never heard it coming LOL

Yeah, kind of like a fighter jet that has gone trans-sonic.

 

[Slowdive]

Until they can charge the batteries without using fossil fueled generators whats the point, the same goes for electric street cars, sure your not putting out the fuel emissions, but it's laughable imo to claim it's climate friendly when 90% of the power to charge the batteries is coal generated. When the car can generate it's own power to recharge as it drives, then I'll be impressed

I guess you wouldn't have been impressed by the Ford Model T. You'd have been standing there in the 1920's saying, "Until those cars get heated seats and bluetooth, I'm not impressed..."

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

Until they can charge the batteries without using fossil fueled generators whats the point, the same goes for electric street cars, sure your not putting out the fuel emissions, but it's laughable imo to claim it's climate friendly when 90% of the power to charge the batteries is coal generated. When the car can generate it's own power to recharge as it drives, then I'll be impressed

The point is pushing for change, even if electricity is at large being created using fossil fuel these days, it's certainly not the only way, and research in this area is going on at the same time, it's just a slow process.
But how does not developing electric cars while waiting for development of cleaner electricity make sense?
We know for a fact that fossil fuel is a finite resource and that it's causing environmental damage, so we need to develop on all fronts simultaneously towards getting rid of everything that uses fossil fuel as a energy source. By developing the cars now, we get more efficient cars and better batteries as a result so by the time we have access to more clean energy, the cars are already great.

There's also the fact that electrical motors are far superior to fossil fuelled motors, they have insane torque and need no gears, they can easily be electronically controlled to allow for things like torque vectoring, something which is very hard, expensive and MUCH less efficient to do with conventional engines.
With electrical cars there are also so much less moving parts that repairs and maintenance will become more rare.

The biggest problem we have with electrical cars today isn't really how to get them charged cleanly, it's how to dispose of the batteries in an environmentally friendly way once they have become defunct.

 

[samcar304]

Yeah, kind of like a fighter jet that has gone trans-sonic.

Mad skills if anyone is walking high enough to be "ran over" by a transonic fighter jet.