Electric GT Series Breaks Cover at Autosport International Show

[Wayne Whitmore]

Go play your favourite racing sim with the sound off and see if it FEELS the same.

 

[Blauweke]

I like the idea, but they need to take lessons from Formula E. There you hear all the drivers and commentators talk about the "electrifying" atmosphere. I couldn't care less about that, they tried to hard to make it accessible to the general public that might not even be halfway interested in motorsports.
I've letterally never heard of most the drivers in the list, but that might just be me, but I do like that they are going to oldschool tracks.
The car seems not that racey to me. But i suppose that's what the somewhat subtle style that Tesla has adopted represents, i don't think it will be great aerodynamically, wich will probably be not that big of a deal since they probably won't get that high of a top speed.
Oh, and the sound? It's not a deal breaker to me, It's a generational thing. if all race cars were all of the sudden electric, and after a while we would use petrol engines again, people would complain it's noisy as hell.


Conclusion, they shouldn't threat it as any other racing series, no stupid things that Formula E has like fan boost or the e-races.
If they do that, i think it might work, but it will need to find it's own place amungst other racing series, wich will not be easy, because GT racing classes already exist in all shapes and sizes.

 

[Akra]

Personally I think electric cars are a massive folly both on and off the racetrack.

You're of course entitled to your opinion, and when it comes to race track, I agree. But I'm yet to see an argument against electric road cars that holds any water and stands up to proper examination. The go-to argument is power plants are dirty, which I already addressed. The other is batteries are hard to dispose of, which is completely true and a valid point - but current cars also have batteries and a whole range of materials that are hard to dispose of. Electric cars are not gods gift to motoring and they do not address and solve every issue we face, or will face. They are just a step forward, and that's still good, even if it's not perfect.

 

[James Cook]

You're of course entitled to your opinion, and when it comes to race track, I agree. But I'm yet to see an argument against electric road cars that holds any water and stands up to proper examination. The go-to argument is power plants are dirty, which I already addressed. The other is batteries are hard to dispose of, which is completely true and a valid point - but current cars also have batteries and a whole range of materials that are hard to dispose of. Electric cars are not gods gift to motoring and they do not address and solve every issue we face, or will face. They are just a step forward, and that's still good, even if it's not perfect.

Range and recharge time are major issues.

I think the way forward for the foreseeable future is cleaner fuels, more efficient engines and hybrid technology (which I'm all in favour of). The time for full electric cars is still some way off.

 

[Will Mazeo]

Something I hate more than EV itself is the people that are into it without thinking how all the solutions for global warming (and global warming itself) are being presented....
Oh well, good thing we can uncheck the "Watch this thread" option at least.
This is boring, just like the cars

 

[Akra]

Range and charge time are massive issues. But that doesn't make it bad technology, just young. At one point petrol car ranges were much shorter and we didn't have a petrol network world wide. We didn't abandon that technology - we continued development. And we overcame these issues.

Batteries are no different. We will have a world wide charging network one day. We may have quick change batteries. We may have quick charge batteries. But we won't if we just stop and say "It's not perfect, so let's abandon it and go elsewhere"

Efficiency engines and hybrid technologies are great. But they only save and recover spent energy. They do not solve the problem of the energy source. Whilst we're not going to run out of oil in the next decade (despite the green agenda fear stories), it is a fact that one day we will. And we should be progressing the available technologies now to achieve a suitable replacement for when the day does come that we can't get fuel for a wonderful Chevy V8.

Other options like hydrogen are less efficient than electric just by the nature of how we create it. You need the electricity to create the hydrogen in the first place, so you still have the supposed power plant problem. Even if you use clean electricity, you lose more energy and efficiency in the hydrogen creation process. So the end result is less efficient than a pure electric car. The flip side positive is you can have filling stations that'd solve charging time issues on electric vehicles.

 

[RMR1]

FUEL CELL

That's the answer you are looking for. Did I mention the Kasimir Effect?

 

[Akra]

FUEL CELL

That's the answer you are looking for. Did I mention the Kasimir Effect?

Hydrogen creation requires a lot of electricity consumption though. So you still need a clean way of creating the electricity. And if you get it, then you need to factor in the energy loss during creation, so you end up with a less efficient product anyway. So you'll end up still consuming more energy. The positive is the possibility of upgrading petrol station infrastructure to hydrogen, meaning you don't need to worry about charge times. But by the time that works done, battery technology might have progressed to where a charge is 10 minutes. I'd take a 10 minute charge time with a 400 mile range, if the energy bill was a quarter of the cost, for example.

 

[RMR1]

Hydrogen creation requires a lot of electricity consumption though. So you still need a clean way of creating the electricity. And if you get it, then you need to factor in the energy loss during creation, so you end up with a less efficient product anyway. So you'll end up still consuming more energy. The positive is the possibility of upgrading petrol station infrastructure to hydrogen, meaning you don't need to worry about charge times. But by the time that works done, battery technology might have progressed to where a charge is 10 minutes. I'd take a 10 minute charge time with a 400 mile range, if the energy bill was a quarter of the cost, for example.

Yeah, well made statement.

My money, my wife, my house...

And, as I've seen, no knowlage on your side about the Kadimir Effect. Run baby run..

 

[Akra]

I'm not familiar with the Kadimir Effect. I did a Google but nothing relevant came up. Do you have anything I can read that'd be useful? (Or I'm missing a reference and am going to be very silly when the joke/reference is revealed )

 

[MoerasGrizzly]

Go play your favourite racing sim with the sound off and see if it FEELS the same.

Just the engine sounds, and it's not like those F-E engines don't make noise...
It might not be a particularly *nice* noise, but there's still sound at those events - it's not only the engine that is generating the sound.

(And yes I do actually turn down engine noise in Project Cars because it's so ear blistering )

 

[MoerasGrizzly]

I'm not familiar with the Kadimir Effect. I did a Google but nothing relevant came up. Do you have anything I can read that'd be useful? (Or I'm missing a reference and am going to be very silly when the joke/reference is revealed )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect

 

[Akra]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect

I found that in Google but assumed it wasn't what the poster was talking about given the spelling. But without getting down to the level of quantum physics I'm not sure how it's relevant really.

On the topic of EGT, as long as it acts like a proper racing series then it's already miles ahead of FE. It'll never have the wonderful engine sounds but FE is ruined by car swaps and twitter voting fan boosts and what not. There's no need for this. EGT appears to be going down a more traditional route.

 

[Panamera4]

ohhh will be awesome! Maybe a V8 Series would be cool with E-Drive

 

[James Cook]

I found that in Google but assumed it wasn't what the poster was talking about given the spelling. But without getting down to the level of quantum physics I'm not sure how it's relevant really.

On the topic of EGT, as long as it acts like a proper racing series then it's already miles ahead of FE. It'll never have the wonderful engine sounds but FE is ruined by car swaps and twitter voting fan boosts and what not. There's no need for this. EGT appears to be going down a more traditional route.

So knowledgeable on the subject he spelt it wrong. Twice.

 

[MoerasGrizzly]

So knowledgeable on the subject he spelt it wrong. Twice.

Scientific spellings of things don't always carry across well across languages though: Sometimes they are changed because a language has a different spelling for the same pronounciation (or just uses a different alphabet entirely, such as the cyrillic languages). Case in point would be aluminium. Or aluminum. Depending on where you live, the casimir effect could just as well be the Kazimir effect.

 

[TheReaper GT]

Scientific spellings of things don't always carry across well across languages though: Sometimes they are changed because a language has a different spelling for the same pronounciation (or just uses a different alphabet entirely, such as the cyrillic languages). Case in point would be aluminium. Or aluminum. Depending on where you live, the casimir effect could just as well be the Kazimir effect.

Don't you go all e-racing on us...

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

All these posts and no one has address the main issue... Tom Coronel is one the list of drivers! Does this mean the end of his WTCC career?

Not sure of his plans next season but he always seems to pull a last minute deal together for a touring car drive. Does his name on the list of drivers mean he's abandoned WTCC?

Any Dutchmen in the forum know anything? Looking at you @Bram for answers here

 

[TheReaper GT]

All these posts and no one has address the main issue... Tom Coronel is one the list of drivers! Does this mean the end of his WTCC career?

Not sure of his plans next season but he always seems to pull a last minute deal together for a touring car drive. Does his name on the list of drivers mean he's abandoned WTCC?

Any Dutchmen in the forum know anything? Looking at you @Bram for answers here

Naaaa he drives anything you throw at him... His sponsors and family companies are 100% behind him all the time... Him and Tim just finished the dakar rally...He is an all around great guy and speed junkie...

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

Phew! So WTCC might still be on then? He's one of the few remaining drivers that make that series bearable nowadays. Also still praying Tarquinii finds a seat this season too (or comes to BTCC... pleeeeease)