The way they're doing it is more like a KERS system - a standardised system, to deliberately keep the costs down, than a full on move to electric vehicles.
There are reasons why BTCC hasn't gone all in and announced a switch to fully electric cars - such as the fact that most the grid is made up of small, independent teams who just don't have the budget to do that. For example, some teams have been running the same car for a few years now.
It's not to say it won't happen at some point, but definitely not in the short term, because there's some sizeable challenges that need to be overcome beforehand.
I didn't claim it was? Electrification is still electrification though, and it shows that they're aware of their technical place - to be a lower-cost adopter of matured technology representative of the market.
I disagree that there's any particular technical or financial challenge to overcome. I think the main reason we haven't seen it is that BTCC's technological role is more representative than pioneering. Which is fine, I'm not saying that should change at all. But I see a time coming in the next decade where full EVs can and should be a part of the grid.
BTCC races are short races of, what, 20 minutes give or take, have 350hp and weigh 1280kg. A Formula E car is 900kg total weight, races at 200kW (260hp) for a little over 45 minutes (with currently 8 minutes of that at 250kW). That suggests to me that it's entriely plausible to have a ~1200kg road model based EV run at ~270kW for about ~20 minutes in BTCC pretty soon, let alone in around 10 years time.
Smaller budget teams might not be any particular issue; if the performance is similar they can phase it in and have the old Hybrids and new EVs running concurrently. Also, though I doubt it would need to be relied upon, like it or not it's generally going to be increasingly easier to get sponsorship for a 'green' race program than one that isn't. With more EVs on the road you open up sponsorship options for companies wanting to advertise new charging services or EV maintenance capability.
As for 'short term', what do you mean by that? It's obvious they're not going to do this in the next few years. I would say this is entirely plausible stuff for BTCC in the late 2020s though.
Edited by Vielleicht, 19 April 2019 - 13:22.