Formula E

[wesley123]

Yes, it doesnt guarantee anything, but I can surely see the potential and threat of FE on F1 due to its relevance to the automobile industry trend,

Since when has open wheel racing ever been road car relevant? It never has been and even with FE it still hardly is relevant.

the marketing appeal those guys have put together. Woman drivers, low profile wheels, great aero design, technology etc.

And that is pretty much all they have; marketing. And just like everything the hype surrounding electrical cars will blow over. Autosport fanatics don't really like the silence very much, so they'll have to build on their "green" image. And that will possibly die down once it becomes common.

After watching the video of the car zooming around it really does make F1 cars looks a little dated.

I don't see how it makes it look dated.

[CHT]

Yes, it doesnt guarantee anything, but I can surely see the potential and threat of FE on F1 due to its relevance to the automobile industry trend,

Since when has open wheel racing ever been road car relevant? It never has been and even with FE it still hardly is relevant.

the marketing appeal those guys have put together. Woman drivers, low profile wheels, great aero design, technology etc.

And that is pretty much all they have; marketing. And just like everything the hype surrounding electrical cars will blow over. Autosport fanatics don't really like the silence very much, so they'll have to build on their "green" image. And that will possibly die down once it becomes common.

After watching the video of the car zooming around it really does make F1 cars looks a little dated.

I don't see how it makes it look dated.

Big auto giants are now taking EV more seriously than before, with major car brands like Audi Toyota BMW all pushing all full electric cars and now Tesla is even looking at shipping more than 100,000 units in 2015. The hype about electric cars will not blow over, it will only get stronger.

Although expensive, it will be a matter of time that EV will be a common sight for city driving and it will be a perfect platform for luxury car maker to introduce something fun and unique targeting at the younger generation who are looking at something different. Motor racing is all about marketing and show and thats why we have sponsors.

[wesley123]

Once more and more cars get sold the hype won't get stronger, no, the electric car will become common. and thus the whole concept of electric vehicles isn't special anymore. And at that point, Formula E has to carry it's own hype. Once the newish, "Look how cool we are racing Electric Vehicles!!!!", wears off it will have to carry itself. Can it then carry itself? It's hard to say. But one thing is certain; it's not going to dethrone F1 in the first day.

[autogyro]

Once more and more cars get sold the hype won't get stronger, no, the electric car will become common. and thus the whole concept of electric vehicles isn't special anymore. And at that point, Formula E has to carry it's own hype. Once the newish, "Look how cool we are racing Electric Vehicles!!!!", wears off it will have to carry itself. Can it then carry itself? It's hard to say. But one thing is certain; it's not going to dethrone F1 in the first day.

That depends entirely on sponsor interest.
Motor heads can continue to satisfy their base interests with noisy IC engined race cars.
However, making a company pay takes a great deal more thought than that.

[CHT]

This should help generate some fan base.

http://www.fiaformulae.com/en/news/2014 ... -game.aspx

[Richard]

And that is pretty much all they have; marketing. And just like everything the hype surrounding electrical cars will blow over.

The financial model for F1 is entirely built on a marketing exercise with lots of hype - isn't that true for all major sports?

The USPs for FE seem to be a more diverse participants, lower participation costs, and city centre locations .... oh and electric propulsion. None of that is hard to replicate. So if Bernie sees sponsorship cash leaving F1 for FE, he can easily adjust F1 to beat FE at its own game. If that fails he can simply buy them out.

That's the thing about overwhelmingly dominant players in a market, they have the resources to squash young upstarts. The trick for the upstart is to pretend they are not a threat until it's too late for the dominant player to adapt. Even then a dominant player who is late to adapt still has the option to buy out the upstart. For example Unilever failed to adapt to threat from Ben & Jerry's ice cream, so they bought them instead.

[autogyro]

And that is pretty much all they have; marketing. And just like everything the hype surrounding electrical cars will blow over.

The financial model for F1 is entirely built on a marketing exercise with lots of hype - isn't that true for all major sports?

The USPs for FE seem to be a more diverse participants, lower participation costs, and city centre locations .... oh and electric propulsion. None of that is hard to replicate. So if Bernie sees sponsorship cash leaving F1 for FE, he can easily adjust F1 to beat FE at its own game. If that fails he can simply buy them out.

That's the thing about overwhelmingly dominant players in a market, they have the resources to squash young upstarts. The trick for the upstart is to pretend they are not a threat until it's too late for the dominant player to adapt. Even then a dominant player who is late to adapt still has the option to buy out the upstart. For example Unilever failed to adapt to threat from Ben & Jerry's ice cream, so they bought them instead.

You have no idea how close you are to the truth Richard.
However F1 will never be run in City centres and F1 cannot hope to gain new sponsors from the alternate energy industry or the public interest which is still building for green issues.
FE is not just a marketing exercise with lots of hype, it has a far better future than F1 no matter what changes are forced.
It would interest you to know just how close the business connections are between F1 and FE.
Perhaps you should ask Bernie or Adrian or even Briatorre.

[Tim.Wright]

If Formula E has dreams of becoming the "pinnicle" (as artificial as this title is) their main problem is going to be the FIA.

Governing bodies set out their rules to maintain a particular order of their categories. E.g. regulating tyres and powertrains, the FIA have put F1 at the top then with help from the ACO kept the Sports Prototypes from surpassing that performance level. The feeder series are then also "gapped" in a similar manner, using the rules to maintain this order.

Unless the FIA can be convinced to open up the tyre and powertrain regs for Formula E, it will never have the opportunity to overtake F1 in performance which for most people will dilute the interest and put an upper limit on its growth potential.

[CHT]

This is a good article on the future of FE.

http://www.motorsport.com/formula-e/new ... 3/?v=2&s=1

[Andres125sx]

Once more and more cars get sold the hype won't get stronger, no, the electric car will become common. and thus the whole concept of electric vehicles isn't special anymore.

Right, once electric cars will become common (that will be when batteries technology evolve to the point they solve autonomy problems) they won´t be special, they´ll be standard. But that also means ICEs will become vintage, something of the past.

Then ICEs will be seen as those complicated engines with tons of pieces that needed tons of maintainance, failed from time to time, generated lots of vibrations, produced harmfull smoke and had a very limited lifespan before becoming maintainance adicts

So motorsports fans who enjoy watching autosports that use latest technologies.... What do you think they will watch and support? F1 with those XX century engines not even theyselves use anymore? Or FE with that new technology wich is replacing ICEs everywhere, even at their own garage?

I agree with TimWright about FIA is who decide what series is the pinnacle with their restrictions, but once we reach that point where everybody is conviced EVs are the future, FIA will be forced to enthrone the new king







At least that´s what my crystal ball told me

[Edax]

Once more and more cars get sold the hype won't get stronger, no, the electric car will become common. and thus the whole concept of electric vehicles isn't special anymore.

Right, once electric cars will become common (that will be when batteries technology evolve to the point they solve autonomy problems) they won´t be special, they´ll be standard. But that also means ICEs will become vintage, something of the past.

I don't see the future of F1 so bleak.

Currently F1 gets about 10% of its work from (recovered) electric energy. I think that what will happen to F1 is that when the capabilities of batteries are improved this percentage will be increased.

If indeed EV technology will improve this much then F1 will move with it. What you probably will see is that the ICE will evolve from the main power unit, to the electricity generating part of a chemical battery. Perhaps at some point it will even have no direct drive to the wheels anymore.

The way I see it F1-hybrids are in a perfect position to profit from developments in EV-technology. And they have the conventional ICE on board to make sure that they are the fastest racing series. If there are no disruptive development in batteries then they will always be one step ahead of a full electric series.

[CHT]

Once more and more cars get sold the hype won't get stronger, no, the electric car will become common. and thus the whole concept of electric vehicles isn't special anymore.

Right, once electric cars will become common (that will be when batteries technology evolve to the point they solve autonomy problems) they won´t be special, they´ll be standard. But that also means ICEs will become vintage, something of the past.

I don't see the future of F1 so bleak.

Currently F1 gets about 10% of its work from (recovered) electric energy. I think that what will happen to F1 is that when the capabilities of batteries are improved this percentage will be increased.

If indeed EV technology will improve this much then F1 will move with it. What you probably will see is that the ICE will evolve from the main power unit, to the electricity generating part of a chemical battery. Perhaps at some point it will even have no direct drive to the wheels anymore.

The way I see it F1-hybrids are in a perfect position to profit from developments in EV-technology. And they have the conventional ICE on board to make sure that they are the fastest racing series. If there are no disruptive development in batteries then they will always be one step ahead of a full electric series.

F1 is unlikely to abandon kers and ice anytime soon while formulae e is now the pinnacle of ev racing. In about 2 to 3 years time if formula one decide to switch to all electric, they can longer sell themselves as pinnacle of motor sports. And for those team who are already in fe they too will not want to get involves in the highly political and expensive racing series where price money are dominated by certain team due to their history in f1

[Andres125sx]

Once more and more cars get sold the hype won't get stronger, no, the electric car will become common. and thus the whole concept of electric vehicles isn't special anymore.

Right, once electric cars will become common (that will be when batteries technology evolve to the point they solve autonomy problems) they won´t be special, they´ll be standard. But that also means ICEs will become vintage, something of the past.

I don't see the future of F1 so bleak.

Currently F1 gets about 10% of its work from (recovered) electric energy. I think that what will happen to F1 is that when the capabilities of batteries are improved this percentage will be increased.

If indeed EV technology will improve this much then F1 will move with it. What you probably will see is that the ICE will evolve from the main power unit, to the electricity generating part of a chemical battery. Perhaps at some point it will even have no direct drive to the wheels anymore.

The way I see it F1-hybrids are in a perfect position to profit from developments in EV-technology. And they have the conventional ICE on board to make sure that they are the fastest racing series. If there are no disruptive development in batteries then they will always be one step ahead of a full electric series.

Maybe, but I see a problem with that

If EV technology improve this much.... or better, when EV technology improve this much, then EV will not need an ICE to generate electricity, batteries will be good enough for a full race, so an ICE will not be needed not even as a generator.

At that point F1 should switch to full electric, but with FE as a FIA series that would be redundant, so some of them would be forced to dissapear. It will depend on how strong FE is at that point

Anycase we´re talking about future, maybe 8-10-15 years. We´ll see...

[flynfrog]

I honestly don't get all the hype over an electric spec indycar series. Look at WSC. Electric cars open rule book, no switching cars half race, lots of innovative ideas, actual development costs are not really that high. All this talk of sponsors ect means nothing if no one watches it. We can even get F1 on decent TV in the states how do you plan to promote FE over here there is zero audience that will get up at 3AM to watch second rate drivers go slowly around a track in a spec car. We can just sleep in and watch the indy race.

[Edax]

Maybe, but I see a problem with that

If EV technology improve this much.... or better, when EV technology improve this much, then EV will not need an ICE to generate electricity, batteries will be good enough for a full race, so an ICE will not be needed not even as a generator.

At that point F1 should switch to full electric, but with FE as a FIA series that would be redundant, so some of them would be forced to dissapear. It will depend on how strong FE is at that point

Anycase we´re talking about future, maybe 8-10-15 years. We´ll see...

Well I think you can safely assume that that will not be achieved with Li batteries or similar.

Don't forget the hole world has been looking for the best way to store electricity for decades, whether for space electronics, photovoltaics or otherwise. The fact that automotive has joined the club, does not make that much difference in terms of R&D budgets or development pace. Battery technology will not suddenly leap forward because Elon Musk needs it.

Now a car is something different than a laptop, so it has a wider solution space. For instance you can install a fuel cell in a car but not in a mobile phone. Therfore I would not discard the idea that something can be developed, but it will be disruptive for Formula E as well. Possibly it will not even be marketed as an electric vehicle. So I do not se Formula E as the logical "owner" of the technology.

There is also another way to look at it. The reason EV's have separate series is because they cannot compete with gasoline engines. If you come up with a solution which is competitive, you want to show it driving against F1 cars on F1 tracks.