172 replies to this topic

[Vielleicht]

Surpise!  Electric GT CEO Mark Gemmell has spoken to e-racing365 about the series, how it isn't dead and where he hopes it is going.

 

Electric GT Plans Still Alive; Gemmell Explains Delays
https://e-racing365....xplains-delays/
 

Bascially, they are still looking for more investors and are still focussed on a strictily production based EV championship with only mininal modifications (unlike, say, ETCR). They are convinced that this is a platform that will need to exist sooner rather than later and that 'their time will come' so to speak.

 

The Porsche Taycan's launch and subsequent Nürburgring rivalry with Tesla are the first signs that the electric GT market might be maturing enough to support this championship. Maserati are supposed to be releasing an EV version of their new Alfieri GT in 2021 and BMW's i4 shoud come around a similar time, so it's easy to see why EGT may feel confident.

 

But then series do not launch by thenselves, so lots of work needed yet.

[ElectricBoogie]

Investors...
Should Porsche decide to swap the Porsche Supercup or whatever it's called now for the Taycan Cup, Electric GT might have its legs cut off.

That said, if some BOP can be done, people will pay to see a Porsche-Tesla Cup.
Taycans and Plaids as they would be.
Some minimum weight, maybe as low as 1,600 kg, suspension geometry and dampers stock, motors and batteries stock although possibly with lighter racing case and wiring and cooling for it.
Short enough stints that lap times on proper slicks (one make and size) would be really good. 
Feature race, short charge stop, then sprint race.
Batteries to get a couple dozen fast charge cycles before being raced to expose them to degradation.

[Fatgadget]

Maybe the can shoehorn enough battery into a GT to actually be able to finish a race.

I have enjoyed FormulaE, but the carswapping in the middle of a rather short race is cringe worthy.

Only a matter of time....Lookey seey  FE.

[ElectricBoogie]

How long should a race be to be considered worthwhile of watching?

Do we need "touring cars" to lap for a full hour at maximum pace?
With a stock LEAF drivetrain and amazing cooling, that would take maybe 90 kWh usable.

With a Porsche Taycan Turbo S, that might take 350 kWh, unfeasible with current state of technology.

IMO, reduced to ~1,600 kg, such cars should be very watchable at 250 kW average over a race. Keep in mind, Formula E has 200 kW peak except for rare cases, 8 minutes per 45 min race.
To get good lap times, tires might be allowed to be pretty wide. Add 6 cm each side of the car and they'd be pretty impressive in every way.

I think 20-25 minute stints would be fun to watch at first. 3 heats. Some limitations to charging. Racing penalty? Charge to 90% max and good luck holding off others unless long FSC periods. Still you'd have to take part and hope for the best.

Qualifying will be something to behold if the BMS gloves come off and these babies unless 1,000 hp or more, AWD. Heck, why not quality side by side, a dual? Always 2 brands per duel. Every quali run a Tesla vs Porsche, for instance. In the SUV class, Audi vs Mercedes vs Jaguar.

Some sensors would need to be added to cap output in quali to 1,000 hp and in race 500 hp perhaps. You can only use 40 Wh per kg of race start mass, for instance. Can't be too hard in a world that is thinking full self driving will happen this year or next year or so.
 

[Ben1445]

Well, and a stock Tesla Model S cannot complete one lap around the Nurburgring (long lap) without overheating its battery!

Fast forward three years and Porsche can do this: 

 

 

And Tesla claim they can do better. 

 

They should put their money where their mouth is and race them on the track to the same rules under equal conditions... like in this championship, perhaps 

[PayasYouRace]

The BTCC format of three 20-30 minute races in a day works well.

 

I don't see why you'd have to follow the unwritten "rule" that GTs have to do endurance races.

[Ben1445]

How long should a race be to be considered worthwhile of watching?

[...]

I think 20-25 minute stints would be fun to watch at first. 3 heats. Some limitations to charging. Racing penalty? Charge to 90% max and good luck holding off others unless long FSC periods. Still you'd have to take part and hope for the best.

 

[...]

Qualifying will be something to behold if the BMS gloves come off and these babies unless 1,000 hp or more, AWD. Heck, why not quality side by side, a dual? Always 2 brands per duel. Every quali run a Tesla vs Porsche, for instance. In the SUV class, Audi vs Mercedes vs Jaguar.

20 or so minutes would be just fine. If we expect that from the touring car classes why not for these? 

 

Agree on the qualifying. Would love to see unlimited power qualifying (for points as well as grid position) to test the absolute performance with this type of car followed by race heats which tests the race-craft and efficiency. 

[ElectricBoogie]

To make long race feasible, all we need is battery trays. Can't be too much of a challenge to the likes of Porsche, Tesla or the various DTM/LM level race teams to stick (even full stock as driven on the road) batteries and circuitry in to a tray with race cooling, ready for 20 second pit stops. 
Race chassis with minimal adjustment to the silhouet, battery in a tray that sits inside seal. Can be unlocked and re-locked by smart jack. Sensors confirm all is in place.

Half hour stints offering 200 kW average around the track, at commericial ROAD state of the art. That's 268 hp non-stop. Say, 400+ hp on the straights. Perhaps more factoring in hard regenerative braking power. Something between a WTCC and DTM, just heavier? Could be worse.

If we take a stock Porsche/Tesla drivetrain and strip it to the minimum, replace metal packaging for carbon, some silver wire where useful, etc... It might be as little as 1000 kg. Or less. for 90-100 kWh usable energy
How much to build a FAST race car around that? 600kg? That's a heavy F1 car including everything. 800kg builds a great WOC car including engine and tank. 
Really, let's use 600 kg. On top of whatever a STOCK top BEV drivetrain weighs. That will include race cooling at 1600kg. Or even much less.
LeMans wans hypercars to be 1100 kg minimum so not too bad. GT3's are 1,200-1,300 kg (without fuel I presume) and there is room to make them faster at this weight. 1600 kg BEVs will be spectacular if we let them. Might look cool beyond belief.

Every time cells on the market get better, we have the choice between making the car race longer or faster. We choose faster. And keep pitting every 20-40 minutes. And really, LeMans racing to 45 minutes is not outside the realm of possibilty, at current state of the art. And there are a number of battery breakthroughs on the near horizon. Each add either lots of speed, or race length, whichever mix of both we choose.

[Vielleicht]

Investors...
Should Porsche decide to swap the Porsche Supercup or whatever it's called now for the Taycan Cup, Electric GT might have its legs cut off.

For general reference, Gemmell's thoughts on this:

 

“There’s a fairly obvious deadline: if another production electric car series got underway, that would be a clear line in the sand where we’d have to reconsider. There needs to be a championship of this format, with production cars, and if there were another one, that would essentially be our opportunity gone. Until that day, I would say there is still this opportunity."

 

I think he is right in that such a championship has to exist. Volksvagen wants a project based on racing its MEB platform which no series currently offers. Porsche is only just getting its own electric ball rolling with they Taycan but who's to say a Taycan Cup wouldn't be attractive to them? Or maybe with their 2022 Boxter/Cayman EV? Jaguar has already gone ahead and decided that a one make trophy series was the way to go for its I-Pace.

 

Electric GT Holdings have (had?) the FIA approval to be the Electric Production Car Series (EPCS), so in theory they are well placed to meet the demand that we expect. Absolutely fascinating to try and predict how this will pan out.

 

How long should a race be to be considered worthwhile of watching?

I think 20-25 minute stints would be fun to watch at first.

I-Pace eTrophy cars do 25 minutrs plus a lap and that seems perfectly fine to me, especially if there were multiple heats.
 

Edited by Vielleicht, 09 February 2020 - 21:24.

[Fatgadget]

I kinda like the idea of racing till you run out of juice!

[ElectricBoogie]

In 20 years all racing series may be zero emissions. Some new, some old.

That Nurburgring lap was with the Taycan non-S. The Turbo S did the Top Gear track in 1.17.6. On stock road tires, that's really fast for a 2.3 ton sports car.
And Taycans can keep up good performance until the battery is empty. Granted, at such pace and enough straights that will be a matter of as little as 15 minutes.

 

A sufficiently winding track (but please not like Formula E) and somewhat limited power in a stripped car for lower weight could last it 30 minutes or so. Fun to watch. Worthy to race at Bathurst for 12 hours with swappable batteries.

We are in the odd circumstance that road performance IS the best we can get. But as new battery technologies are developed, they will be too expensive for mass production at first, yet great for racing. 
Race specific material needs not die along with ICEs.

[Ben1445]

So the question is... if all this in inevitable... what is the delay in getting investors? 

[Ben1445]

A thing was posted yesterday: 

 

 

So at very least they believe themselves to still be alive! Not that their prior form gives much in the way of hope or trust... 

[Ben1445]

[Vielleicht]

That's interesting. The Model S development car they had struggled with battery overheating, as that infmaous Tiff Needell test drive video froma couple of years back demonstrated.

 

The newer Model 3s come with a track day software package as standard and over the last couple of years has been seen more and more at track days. They seem to be more able to cope with more extended periods of time at speed.

 

Easy to make a mock up image like that though, would be more encouraging if EGT can show us an actual car. Given their past form of missing promises it's all too easy to discount them, unfortunately.

[FLB]

Porsche just made a fairly interesting announcement...

 

[Ben1445]

Customer one-make GT racing is a great candidate for electrification, I'd say. It's not too surprising to see that Porsche may be taking a crack at it, their Cup series have been among the most successful over the decades. 

 

500kW race mode and an 80kWh battery, sounds like 20-30 minutes of racing to me which is fine enough for the application. I'd say they wouldn't need to go above 400kW output really (current Porsche Cup cars are 375 kW). Active aerodynamics just makes sense, not surprised to see that. Recharging capability fast enough to not be too challenging for race-day scheduling of heats and overcomes previous technology barriers.

 

Aside form all the marketing/concept fluff in the language of it, the basic premise is all good and achievable as far as I'm concerned. Get it done, Porsche!

 

(https://newsroom.por...nich-25584.html ) 

Edited by Ben1445, 06 September 2021 - 14:50.

[Ben1445]

[juicy sushi]

Customer one-make GT racing is a great candidate for electrification, I'd say. It's not too surprising to see that Porsche may be taking a crack at it, their Cup series have been among the most successful over the decades.

500kW race mode and an 80kWh battery, sounds like 20-30 minutes of racing to me which is fine enough for the application. I'd say they wouldn't need to go above 400kW output really (current Porsche Cup cars are 375 kW). Active aerodynamics just makes sense, not surprised to see that. Recharging capability fast enough to not be too challenging for race-day scheduling of heats and overcomes previous technology barriers.

Aside form all the marketing/concept fluff in the language of it, the basic premise is all good and achievable as far as I'm concerned. Get it done, Porsche!

(https://newsroom.por...nich-25584.html )

Yup. And they essentially promise this will be a production car as all their GT efforts are. So, we’ve frequently said Formula E needs a junior ecosystem below it, and needs filler material on race weekends. I’ve said someone needed to hit that electric Porsche Supercup niche. Looks like everyone else ran out of time because Porsche are going there. The basic technical package sounds similar to Formula E Gen3 too. Here’s your perfect junior series tied up with a little bow on it.

[Squeed]

I don't care if it's traditional, after all we don't race chariots anymore. I just think batteries will never hack it, neither in racing nor in personal transport.

Maybe fuelcells could do the business. I lust for the torque of an electric drive.

Spoken like a man who hasn't experienced the luxurious majesty of a US off track betting facility. 

[Ben1445]

I think it's a real looker myself, big fan of the roof.

 

Shame it's only a concept and a real racing derivative would likely look a little more conventional.  

[BRG]

It may be a concept but it isn't wildly outlandish or impractical (unlike Peugeot's hypercar....) so a finhsed article ought to look much the same.  Bring it on, Porsche.

[juicy sushi]

Selfishly, in about 15 years a used one could be a really great deal as the last driver's tool after e-fuels fail and all the other stuff is autonomous crossovers.  I can't wait to see the production car they come up with.