Drayson Racing electric Lola

[Radar]

You can see it here in action: http://bbc.in/146AFbf

Not much quieter than the diesels really.

[pretzel]

Interesting, but surely a dead end from an endurance racing perspective without secondary power of some sort?

I'm sure hybrids may have a bit of a future but if racing is supposed to improve the breed and trickle down to the real world where's all the development in Hydrogen fuel cell powered racers?

Pete B.

[Grand_Fromage]

where's all the development in Hydrogen fuel cell powered racers?

Ahem!.... there will be a Hydrogen fuel cell car racing at Le Mans this year, the 'GreenGT H2'.

http://www.greengt.com/en/greengt-h2.php

[Radar]

The Drayson car hasn't actually been developed for endurance racing - they're using it as a test bed for Formula E. In theory, you could have longer races  - but you'd have to bury a lot of very powerful induction coils in the road to enable wireless charging. Might make sense on city circuits, where they could also be used to charge elctric buses etc - but not much point on a semi-rural circuit like LM.

[Grand_Fromage]

There is a much simpler solution to the recharge time problem than fannying about with coils in the road. You just change the battery for a charged one and recharge while the car is on the road. But that means building-in a way to swap-out batteries quickly and safely.

The Drayson car hasn't actually been developed for endurance racing - they're using it as a test bed for Formula E. In theory, you could have longer races  - but you'd have to bury a lot of very powerful induction coils in the road to enable wireless charging. Might make sense on city circuits, where they could also be used to charge elctric buses etc - but not much point on a semi-rural circuit like LM.

[pretzel]

where's all the development in Hydrogen fuel cell powered racers?

Ahem!.... there will be a Hydrogen fuel cell car racing at Le Mans this year, the 'GreenGT H2'.

http://www.greengt.com/en/greengt-h2.php

Oops, my mistake. How could I have forgotten that one?

Will be interesting to see how it goes....

[Radar]

There is a much simpler solution to the recharge time problem than fannying about with coils in the road. You just change the battery for a charged one and recharge while the car is on the road. But that means building-in a way to swap-out batteries quickly and safely.

The Drayson car hasn't actually been developed for endurance racing - they're using it as a test bed for Formula E. In theory, you could have longer races  - but you'd have to bury a lot of very powerful induction coils in the road to enable wireless charging. Might make sense on city circuits, where they could also be used to charge elctric buses etc - but not much point on a semi-rural circuit like LM.

True - but the batteries would need to be a lot smaller than they are at the moment. In Formula E they're planning to have pitstops where you swap the entire car.

[Grand_Fromage]

>>>would need to be a lot smaller than they are at the moment

Why?

Batteries already have to be small enough and light enough to fit in the car, but they are never attached or positioned in a way that would allow them to be changed out . The challenge is to invent a system that holds a battery module safely while racing, but that allows it to be efficiently swapped-out at a pit stop. I wouldn't have thought that would be beyond the reach of human ingenuity.

[Radar]

The Drayson car can run for about 15 minutes, flat chat - and the battery pack is pretty big. I'm sure you're right, though - it shouldn't be impossible. Packaging would probably be an issue - as Boeing has found out, you have to be a bit careful.

[Barry]

Batteries already have to be small enough and light enough to fit in the car, but they are never attached or positioned in a way that would allow them to be changed out . The challenge is to invent a system that holds a battery module safely while racing, but that allows it to be efficiently swapped-out at a pit stop. I wouldn't have thought that would be beyond the reach of human ingenuity.

Cars towing trailers with the batteries in? 
Just change the trailer, Audi will do it in 2 seconds.
WCC, World Caravan Championship.
Don't think it will catch on.

[Shortcut]

Batteries already have to be small enough and light enough to fit in the car, but they are never attached or positioned in a way that would allow them to be changed out . The challenge is to invent a system that holds a battery module safely while racing, but that allows it to be efficiently swapped-out at a pit stop. I wouldn't have thought that would be beyond the reach of human ingenuity.

Cars towing trailers with the batteries in? 
Just change the trailer, Audi will do it in 2 seconds.
WCC, World Caravan Championship.
Don't think it will catch on.

So you don't think racing cars with trailers will catch on eh?  They allowed that "racing car" the DeltaWing on the track, so why not.  FIA World Caravan Championship.  It has a certain elegance to it.......  

[Grand_Fromage]

I think you may have something there... Time for a bit of photo-montage to mock up an R18 with trailer hitch.

Cars towing trailers with the batteries in? 
Just change the trailer, Audi will do it in 2 seconds.
WCC, World Caravan Championship.
Don't think it will catch on.

[Rhino]

What is the point of formula e. Electric cars aren't the way forward. On a cold winters night with heater and lights on how far will an electric car go?
With formula e they change cars, how 'green' is that

[Grand_Fromage]

>>>What is the point of formula e?

At current rate of (still escalating) use, oil reserves will start to run out in our lifetime. As oil gets progressively more scarce, the price will rise and running a car on petrol or diesel will soon become prohibitively expensive for personal transportation. We will reach that position quite a long time before fossil fuel reserves run completely dry. Even if you are unconvinced by tree-hugging hippy new-age clean and green claptrap, there remains the fact that petrol pumps WILL run dry one day, so we need an alternative, and we had better start preparing for it NOW.

Motorsport has always been the hothouse for breeding new automotive technologies so it isn't that strange that electric propulsion is making its first tentative steps. Electric motors might, or might not, be the final answer to the problem, but it makes complete sense to see how far we can get with them.

[Radar]

Electric cars make sense in cities, where most journeys are short, it's easy to set up charging points and you don't actually need motorway-type performance. They aren't an all-round substitute for petrol/diesel cars, and the mistake people make is in expecting the two to to be interchangeable. So they have a role as urban transport. Motorsport can help develop the technology.