breljohn

Electric cars are the future when it comes to car as a mean of transportation - emotionless
Not so sure when it comes to racing, where emotions play a bigger role (sound of the engine, speed etc.)

Sean F

lol - formula 1 is/has been the most boring series for years. i don't care so much about the power train if the racing sucks. only a tire puncture on the last lap of the last race could produce the only non-yawn moment in the entire F1 race. I'd watch a series with rubber band powered cars if the racing were any good.

stownsen914

Agreed on the emotional component.

Perhaps we should call it e-motionless racing.

177mph

I'm stealing that....

smiles11

sbelles

Yep, and there's no reason that electric cars can't be just as fun to watch as IC cars. They will eventually far surpass them from an engineering standpoint and the fact that they don't make much noise is what is likely to save the sport at an amateur level. Maybe we will even have Sunday racing at Lime Rock.

mhm993

Scott, trouble is, they’re so unexciting as to be irrelevant. Heck, our spec miata made a better noise, and that was a buzzy little thing (to borrow a somewhat critical observation from Pete Debussman).

At the race we attended, they proudly showed their self driving formula e car—-I’m not kidding—which drove haltingly around the course, and they proclaimed it the future!
If self driving electric cars are the future of motorsports, let’s bulldoze LRP.

38D

I just watched the Formula Erace. Gap from 1st to 2nd was 0.128 seconds. Yes I wish they weren’t racing around an airport and I’d like there to be more visible difference between the various manufacturers, but there was far more actual racing/passing than the typical F1 Mercedes parade race.

Veloce Raptor

With you watching, their TV audience doubled

smiles11

raspritz

Wow. Too many petrolhead curmudgeons. Even Jeremy Clarkson gets it. Maybe especially Jeremy Clarkson gets it. I helped field-test a prototype electric car. In 1969. That was before its time. I own a lot of cars, including three Porsches. But it is crystal clear that electric cars are the future. That world is evolving fast, whereas gasoline cars have gone about as far as they can for practical use. I expect that my kids won't be able to get squat when they try to sell my gasoline cars someday. Like trying to sell a collection of curry-combs. We all know what those are, right?

Veloce Raptor

When the current electric grid in most states can handle even a small heat wave, then we can be sanctimoniously lectured about how we "don't get it" and how "electric vehicles are the future". Until then, they will remain where they are.

TXE36

I'm not all convinced the electric vehicle is poised to take over the future. All this skepticism requires is a basic understanding of physics. It takes energy to move around a vehicle - even if you could get significant improvements in battery lifetime and runtime per charge, where are you going to get the energy from? It certainly is not available on the current power grid. At the same time the ICE isn't done yet with technologies like direct injection.

Every electric car on the road today in any significant number is either a coal powered car, natural gas powered car, nuclear powered car, or hydroelectric powered car (a small minority). A gasoline or diesel powered car is actually powered by gasoline or diesel - there is really no such thing as an electrically powered car - electricity is just the transmission, not the power source.

Electric vehicles aren't really all that clean either, just look at the moonscapes on earth created from sourcing their batteries.

jscott82

No doubt battery technology has a long way to go. But just look how complicated a modern ICE is, its crazy compared to a simple electric motor.

I'm no expert, but I believe the electric grid has plenty of "average" capacity, it's just lacking "peak" cap. For a commuter car model, where you drive 20-30 miles per day and plug in every night to slowly top it off (like a cell phone) this actually helps the grid by filling in the valleys at night.

I keep hearing detractors talk about using electric cars for cross country travel where you drive it to 0% charge then try to bring it back to 100% in the afternoon as quickly as possible. Agree, electric cars suck in that model....

SirLapsalot

If electric cars are the future it looks to still be quite a ways out. A large percentage of the technical articles in SAE's Automotive Engineering and Automotive News magazine over the last few years have been about Tier 1's or OEM's latest battery, motor or controls research. However almost all of them are described as being targeted for either plug-in hybrid or "regular" hybrid applications. That seems to be the overwhelming current direction for the near future, not all electric.

Even scarier than all electric is the autonomous technology. There's some arguments that connected vehicle technology will have a big impact on reducing emissions and fuel consumption due to the ability to keep vehicles on the road moving efficiently by "talking" to each other, reducing traffic jams and unnecessary acceleration and deceleration. Hopefully this is many decades away. I'll move to a damn 3rd world country before I live somewhere where that is a reality.

That said, I've never understood the hate for Forumla E, or other less popular forms of racing. Racing is racing.... Who cares what noises the cars make. Sure it's not as "cool" as Formula 1 or Sports Car racing but it's still motorsport...