[HN Gopher] Electric fan car shatters the Goodwood hill climb re...
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Electric fan car shatters the Goodwood hill climb record
Author : Element_
Score : 111 points
Date : 2022-06-27 14:54 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thedrive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thedrive.com)
| smm11 wrote:
| That's a hill?
| toss1 wrote:
| Yes
|
| Video cameras _really_ flatten out slopes.
|
| This is especially so where snow or consistent surfaces are
| involved. I've raced on yikes-steep hills that later you see
| the video -- and it doesn't matter if it's just some coach's
| camera or network sports coverage -- it just looks like barely
| a notch above the novice slopes. A cameraman needs to really
| work to show the steepness anything close to being there.
|
| The only situation where the slope might really show up is
| where there are dramatic changes in slope like a sudden drop-
| off, flat, crossroad on a slope, etc. Then you can sort of see
| a good comparison, but it still doesn't rival the reality. And
| the Goodwood course is a fairly consistent grade with no sharp
| features like that.
| [deleted]
| TylerE wrote:
| It's not super steep compared to some, but yes. Climbs 300ft in
| just over a mile.
| notacoward wrote:
| FWIW, that's a 5.7% grade. If anyone thinks that's not a
| steep mile, they should try running up it and see if they
| change their mind.
| [deleted]
| prmoustache wrote:
| Even by cyclists standard, 6% is pretty mild.
| notacoward wrote:
| That's funny. There are a couple of Strava segments
| around town that are relevant here. One is 4.4% for only
| 0.4 miles (i.e. very similar to "Heartbreak Hill" on the
| Boston Marathon course); the other is 3.8% for 0.7 miles.
| As a runner I regularly pass cyclists on both, and that's
| from the minority who will even attempt them. I see many
| more walking their bikes, and I suspect the next street
| over from the shorter one has three to five times as many
| cyclists precisely because it goes around instead of
| over. Simply put, 5.7% for a mile is out of most
| cyclists' and runners' range, never mind the vast
| majority of the population who aren't either. I doubt
| even those who can handle it have "this isn't a hill" on
| their minds very much. Yes it damn well is a hill, and
| it's very noticeable even if you're one of those easy-
| mode folks who can build up speed at the start and coast
| down the other side at the end.
| TylerE wrote:
| Well, for a hillclimb it is pretty mild. Some of them have
| sections as steep as 30%. But it's def. not flat,
| especially the second half, starting with the left 90 and
| then the run up to the chicane by the wall.
| justin66 wrote:
| The driver of this car, Max Chilton, deserves a lot of credit for
| really going for it with a very fast car that looks pretty
| squirrelly.
|
| With regard to taking records away from the VW ID.R, a much more
| interesting benchmark would be its performance at Pike's Peak. I
| don't imagine they're ready for that yet.
| toss1 wrote:
| Squirrelly indeed! Max was definitely leaving extra room and
| not going for every last 1/100 sec. - It made a record but he
| still left some on the table - would probably want a lot more
| seat time and data on the car before pushing it harder - it
| looks like a handful - and tons of fun!
| jackmott42 wrote:
| Why is Pikes Peak much more interesting? The altitude there
| would seem to give its electric and fan properties even more of
| an edge.
| [deleted]
| mrcartmeneses wrote:
| Not OP but Pikes Peak would be more interesting because it is
| infinitely more interesting than Goodwood. And it's much
| longer so would be much more difficult technically for an ev
| to perform well.
|
| The differences are mainly intangible but the events are just
| not in the same league
| jackmott42 wrote:
| Pikes peak doesn't present any challenge to it in terms of
| length at all. Its designed to do ~30 minute track sessions
| and Pikes Peak is only 8 minutes.
| cgrealy wrote:
| Not my area of expertise at all, but I would imagine 8
| mins on a track is easier than 8 mins climbing a steep
| mountain road.
|
| Just as a very unscientific benchmark, looking at the
| instant fuel consumption on my car shows that driving
| slowly up a mountain road (i.e. to a ski field) consumes
| about 3 times the fuel as flat driving at highway speeds.
| justin66 wrote:
| It's an infinitely more sophisticated race course, if you are
| interested in that sort of thing.
|
| More to the point, in terms of testing an electric car
| there's a stark difference in the amount of storage (and
| therefore, mass) needed to climb Pike's Peak and to climb the
| hill at Goodwood. If VW had to beat the Speirling's time at
| Goodwood tomorrow, they'd make the run with less battery
| storage. I honestly don't know if the Spierling could even be
| set up to make it all the way to the top of Pike's Peak.
| Their stock car surprisingly has, on paper, _more_ battery
| storage than the VW (60KWh vs 40KWh) but they need to spin
| those giant fans...
|
| I would not want to make any guesses about how Spierling's
| ground effects would perform at a much higher altitude. I'll
| be the first to watch if they set it up as a proper race car.
|
| edit: intriguingly, a Top Gear article suggests the VW ran at
| Goodwood with a smaller than normal battery. No idea how the
| Spierling was setup. Pike's Peak, or a sprint race at any
| proper sports car track, would be a more realistic test for
| both cars. I actually don't have any doubts about who would
| win that, short of some very real development on Speirling's
| part...
| jackmott42 wrote:
| The McMurty as normally configured is good for 30 minute
| track sessions, and I haven't heard anything about it
| having a small battery for the day, nor did the weights
| being quoted indicated it was a small battery. A smaller
| pack could also reduce power potentially so they might not
| be able to do that for a net win.
|
| >I actually don't have any doubts about who would win that,
| short of some very real development on Speirling's part...
|
| It is a team that figured out how to absolutely shatter the
| goodwood record that VW had set, seems strange you are so
| confident they can't figure out Pikes Peak.
| theluketaylor wrote:
| Pikes Peak (especially in an electric car where altitude
| doesn't matter) is primarily a test of the driver. 156
| corners in 12 miles is incredibly hard to learn and there
| are almost no safety barriers (or reference braking
| points). The goodwood hillclimb is simply not in the same
| category of complexity or challenge as Pikes Peak, which
| stands alone as the toughest and most dangerous hillclimb
| event in all of motorsport.
|
| Pikes Peak is also extremely bumpy and was only paved all
| the way to the top in 2011. A car like the Speirling
| relying on fans for downforce would really struggle to
| maintain grip throughout a Pikes Peak run as each bump
| would cause a momentary loss of aero (not dissimilar to
| this season's F1 porpoising issue, just bigger and worse)
| justin66 wrote:
| Hey, are you there right now? Do you know if the Gen3
| Formula E car Mahindra brought set a time?
|
| > seems strange you are so confident they can't figure
| out Pikes Peak.
|
| I meant what I said: they would need some real
| development to make that car into something that could
| win at Pike's Peak. I'm pretty sure VW spent seven
| figures preparing their car for that race. Don't get me
| wrong, I hope these guys do it.
|
| If they're taking publicity seriously, they'll do
| something at Nurburgring once they've made their street
| legal version available. Of course it would be
| interesting to see how the current car performs there as
| well.
| sdfjkl wrote:
| The most famous fan car was the Brabham BT46, which used a skirt
| and fans to suck itself to the ground, leading to a ban of fan
| cars in F1.
|
| "when the drivers blipped the throttle, the car could be seen to
| squat down on its suspension as the downforce increased"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabham_BT46
| pengaru wrote:
| The Chaparral 2J [0] is the one that comes to my mind as most
| popular, but I wasted years of my life playing GT3/4 on PSX
| where the 2J was the only thing I had unlocked as ridiculously
| fast as the turbocharged 787B.
|
| The other thing that was really exceptional about the 2J, at
| least as simulated in GT4, was how tall the 3-speed automatic
| gearing was. Between the car seemingly never changing gears,
| barely varying RPMs despite accelerating like a rocket, and
| essentially not needing to brake for turns, it just seemed like
| the epitome of buggy arcade physics. Through a 2022 lens that
| description sounds apropos to an EV, despite it being a rather
| old ICE machine.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral_2J#2J
| causi wrote:
| An F-1 race with no rules other than "go around the track the
| fastest without wrecking other drivers" might actually be worth
| watching.
| Syonyk wrote:
| That was the 1980s Group C cars.
|
| Turns out, it's fairly straightforward to build a car that
| rather radically exceeds the physical limits of the driver.
|
| I would love to watch the autonomous version of that, though,
| with "no restrictions" (or nearly none - melting the nose of
| the car behind you with a flamethrower isn't quite in the
| spirit). You want to have a driver in a sim booth drive it
| over wireless? Great. You want to have a self driving
| algorithm? Great. You want to generate gobs of downforce with
| upward firing jets? Great. Just define some basic fan safety
| based limits, or... don't, and have a closed track.
|
| I would love to see what some of the race teams could come up
| with, unrestricted from all the various "Hey, let's keep
| drivers and fans alive!" limits out there.
| jl6 wrote:
| The vehicle would probably be less like a car and more like
| a missile with manoeuvring rockets.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Now that's what I call podracing!
|
| I mean, things like X-games get a lot of viewers, why not
| the above?
| themitigating wrote:
| Group b
| Someone wrote:
| If you're going to race, rather than time-trial, you
| probably want limitations on car size, too.
|
| Also, formula one for years has cars leave a so highly
| turbulent wake that they had to introduce a system that
| gave cars close behind other cars some leeway as to their
| aerodynamics to make overtakes possible
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_reduction_system)
|
| I guess you'd need something similar, too.
| bombcar wrote:
| You could also "golf" it where each contestant runs on
| the track with nobody else present, and you compare
| times.
| maigret wrote:
| That's basically called Qualifying and is a part of
| almost all race weekends.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| Some years ago Racecar Engineering magazine had an excellent
| editorial that touched on the rising costs of F1, the
| technological benefit to consumers these programs can have
| but also the rising difficulty of keeping up with the Joneses
| and that perhaps we might be reaching the budgetary limit of
| what racing teams can realistically finance.
|
| The author proposed "Formula Zero," where teams would be
| national rather than purely sponsor-oriented. Team America
| (cue music) vs. Team Japan vs. Team Italy etc. Note that this
| was years before the zero-emissions effort of the same name.
| Cool idea, and one might imagine what could emerge from
| efforts where NASA helps with aerodynamics for Team America,
| DLR for Germany, etc. (and/or DOE's combustion engineering
| experts consulting on Team America engine design: the
| potential collaborations run long).
|
| Fun fact: a major limiting factor for racing speed is the
| allowed size of the brakes. Let F-1 cars have titanic wheels
| with low profile tires and lap speeds would shoot way up. Of
| course, brake too little or too late and the resulting wreck
| will almost certainly be fatal -- it's pretty tough to
| protect against coup-contrecoup injuries no matter how
| energy-absorbent the car may be when speeds get really high.
| Scrambled brains are good for breakfast, bad for drivers.
| jeromegv wrote:
| The issue is: the drivers would die. In large quantity.
| whartung wrote:
| Actually, it's not.
|
| It's been tried in all sorts of endeavors and eventually
| falls apart.
|
| Back in the day, there was a motorcycle series "Formula USA",
| with rules essentially "must have 2 wheels, no alcohol", and
| it was all well and good with folks running their hand
| crafted, bored out Superbikes until Kenny Roberts showed up
| with a pair of factory Yamaha Moto GP 500cc two stroke
| machines (which is, essentially, "unobtainium"), and, in
| time, dominated the field. Things like that lead to rule
| changes in F-USA.
|
| Also, consider the origin of modern MMA. The "Ultimate
| Fighter Championship", which was a "no rules" bout. Royce
| Gracie dominated those events early on.
|
| I will never forget UFC 4. Dan Severn, a very powerful
| wrestler, was dominating his bouts (3 as I recall). His
| fights were over very quickly.
|
| Meanwhile, Royce, who was a skilled grappler, while winning
| his bouts, they were taking quite a bit of time.
|
| At the end, Royce had just finished his 3rd bout and then had
| to stand up to Severn, with very minimal rest. Combining
| Severn's fast bouts, with Royce long bouts gave Severn a lot
| of time to rest and recover between fights. Royce was
| obviously quite tired going in to the final round.
|
| Severn dominated that fight, but it drew on...and on...and
| on. Over 15 minutes.
|
| In the end, Gracie prevailed, upside down, pinned against the
| fence, with Severn bent over him. It was an extraordinary
| encounter.
|
| But in the end, it led to rule changes. 15m fights don't
| really work with the broadcast schedule. Seeing two guys
| tangled in knots for 10m straight with minimal movement isn't
| very interesting to watch, either. And now we have modern MMA
| with combined striker and grappling skills.
|
| Turns out competition is only fun when it's fair. While its
| technically interesting to see folks exploit the rules, and
| even dominate, it's more interesting when they have to work
| within them.
|
| In the end, you (most folks, I know I do) want the man behind
| the wheel to be the deciding factor, not the machine beneath
| him.
| justin66 wrote:
| The problem is that you'd immediately have wrecks.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Many of the rules are there for safety, it's not that hard to
| make a car so fast that the limiting factor is the driver and
| then the race becomes a contest of how willing to die your
| driver is.
| causi wrote:
| Exactly. Modern F-1 is like watching a footrace where
| nobody is allowed to exceed a heart rate of 150bpm, i.e.,
| boring as hell.
| voakbasda wrote:
| I would love to see those rules removed along with the
| drivers. I expect it would be amazing to see the self-
| driving version of these races.
| amenghra wrote:
| Self-driving race car crashes straight into a wall from
| the starting line during the world's first autonomous
| race series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4fdUx6d4QM
| dharmab wrote:
| It was tried with Roborace, but was unsuccessful. The
| racing was unimpressive and unprofitable.
| kube-system wrote:
| Even with humans driving remotely, it's not very
| profitable. Drone racing is about as successful as RC
| racing has become. People don't take sports seriously
| without humans being directly involved.
| michaelt wrote:
| And people who want a contest of how willing to die your
| driver is can already just watch motorcycle racing.
| crubier wrote:
| More specifically, Isle of Man Tourist Trophy. 250 dead
| pilots and counting.
| bwanab wrote:
| Jack Brabham was an amazing innovator. Constantly, just ahead
| of the rule makers.
| peanut_worm wrote:
| The driver is brave, that thing looks like a plastic bag blowing
| in the wind
| themitigating wrote:
| The previous record was in 2019, 39.90, from the electric
| volkswagon IDR. That car also broke the pikes peak hill climb
| record.
| twawaaay wrote:
| I believe these should be illegal, just as it is in F1.
|
| The basic problem with this concept is that if it ever stops
| working you are now driving way over the limit (not just a tiny
| bit) of what the car can handle and are unceremoniously thrown
| out of the track at a dangerous speed.
|
| It becomes basically the contest of who can create more
| downforce.
|
| The cars resulting from this have very little clearance and very
| hard suspension. Add a huge, changing downforce and you can
| imagine how anything failing like a suspension or a tyre can
| immediately put the driver in danger.
|
| I think allowing this creates unhealthy, dangerous incentive to
| escalate the downforce until something fails -- the driver due to
| G-force, some component in the car or an object on the track that
| causes the car to bump up, etc.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| What if a wing fails on an f1 car? Or a suspension component?
| Or a tire?
|
| Cars that get their downforce from traditional aero elements
| are also susceptible to catastrophic failures if they hit bumps
| too big for the design to handle. Mercedes famously
| demonstrated this at Le Mans.
|
| Anyway this car is designed for people to have fun with at
| track days, so their are no rules, so you can't make it
| illegal.
| omginternets wrote:
| Each of those things you list are orders of magnitude more
| reliable than a fan system where a slight chip in the skirt
| can instantly send you careening off the road. This includes
| tires.
| leereeves wrote:
| The article says "a road-legal version of the Goodwood fan
| car is in the works"
| jccalhoun wrote:
| I'm no expert on cars but according to this article it seems like
| a "fan car" uses fans to pull air in from under the car to create
| down force rather than as a primary means of propulsion.
| https://electrek.co/2022/06/26/watch-electric-fan-car-record...
| ummonk wrote:
| Right and it's specifically used for cornering downforce, since
| the coefficient of friction isn't high enough to justify
| generating downforce like this in a drag race.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| If you're not going to use grip on the road for propulsion you
| might as well make an airplane.
| Bendy wrote:
| From an engineering perspective, racing cars are much closer
| to aircraft than they are to road cars; they just have their
| wings upside-down.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Totally, but I still got downvoted a bunch... Using air for
| propulsion only makes sense if you're saving weight by
| which point you're better off cornering with wings instead
| of dragging wheels around with you.
| blendergeek wrote:
| These fans are to create _down_ force to increase the
| "weight" of the car.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I am very much aware. I was pointing out why using fans
| for propulsion would not be a good idea.
| [deleted]
| olliej wrote:
| I went to the article wondering if it was about a record using
| a class of cars driver by fans (thinking cartoon style giant
| fan on the roof :D)
| eptcyka wrote:
| That's exactly right, the term usually refers to cars that use
| fans to generate vacuum for better grip rather than propulsion
| to go faster. Cars today can easily go super fast in a straight
| line, the hard bit is putting that power down in corners.
| masklinn wrote:
| > the hard bit is putting that power down in corners.
|
| Or even just getting it from tyres to ground. Traction
| control exists to avoid the car just spinning its wheels in
| place as it's completely lost grip.
|
| At high speed downforce can do the job, but at low speeds not
| so much.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| How scary would it be to be in one of those 1,400+
| horsepower supercars and to hit the gas just to immediately
| see all four wheels start spitting smoke as they spin in
| place and start abrasively cutting through the asphalt?
| masklinn wrote:
| > How scary would it be to be in one of those 1,400+
| horsepower supercars and to hit the gas just to
| immediately see all four wheels start spitting smoke
|
| Not very, unless the car suddenly gets a patch of grip
| and launches you into a tree.
|
| > to hit the gas just to immediately see all four wheels
| start spitting smoke as they spin in place and start
| abrasively cutting through the asphalt?
|
| You'd have to wear down the entire tyre first, which
| isn't going to happen unless you're already at the thread
| (though supercar tyres do wear down very quickly).
|
| Tyre rubber is much, much softer than asphalt, and for
| good grip you want pretty soft rubber. By the accounts
| I've seen, even cold F1 tyres feel sticky. And drag tyres
| outright crinkle on takeoff.
| lstodd wrote:
| Based on experiences with 72hp Suzuki SV650 all you need
| to do is grip the front brake and give it some gas. Digs
| asphalt at about 5mm/sec just fine. The tire gets
| totalled pretty fast too. So it's not rubber being too
| soft.
| pengaru wrote:
| Apparently you've never walked on hot asphalt or been a
| hooligan doing donuts and/or burnouts in asphalt parking
| lots. The tire rubber and asphalt binders/tar basically
| become one and the gravel comes along for the ride caught
| in the crossfire.
| SECProto wrote:
| I've seen both (as I work in civil engineering). That is
| all dependant on the asphalt mix. Parking lots are
| usually not done with a proper performance graded
| asphalt, so they'll deteriorate very easily under
| strenuous loading conditions. Roads (in well-regulated
| jurisdictions) use strong asphalt mixes with a lot of
| large granular aggregate and a lot less asphaltic content
| (and asphalt that's stable at higher temperatures). This
| makes roads a lot tougher in these loading conditions,
| but also tough (and therefore expensive) to put down -
| need to roll it fast while its still hot, with both steel
| drum rollers and rubber tyre rollers.
|
| Not saying they can't be damaged, just that a parking lot
| is a poor comparison
| karlkatzke wrote:
| It's scary enough in a 400hp/3600lbs RWD car. Even with
| traction control enabled, the car likes shaking it's ass
| any time you tap the gas and turning the wheel on
| anything remotely slick with power in will break the
| traction wheels loose.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Four wheel burnouts from a roll aren't that impressive
| from inside the vehicle. It's basically like being on
| "high traction" ice but with more noise. The vehicle
| mostly continues doing whatever it was already doing
| before you stomped on it.
| ortusdux wrote:
| The 3rd paragraph in the link also explains that.
| jccalhoun wrote:
| Ah! I somehow missed that paragraph!
| fatboy wrote:
| Thanks for that. I'd taken it to mean it was propelled by fans
| and couldn't figure out how that could possibly work. This
| linked article on the road legal version confirms what you say
| in one of the image captions:
|
| https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/mcmurtry-launch-...
|
| "It will feature a track mode, which will turn on the
| downforce-creating fan"
| MrFoof wrote:
| Exactly this. One of the bigger "fans" of them -- Gordon Murray
| -- is actually producing a road legal one. The T.50, which is
| Gordon Murray's attempt to "revisit" the McLaren F1 and do
| everything he couldn't do (or hadn't yet realized was possible)
| back in the 1990s: https://youtu.be/NT8PMXCMrsM
|
| For those who aren't aware, Harry Metcalfe was the founder of
| EVO magazine and had an outsized behind the scenes influence of
| Top Gear's new format in the early 2000s. While Gordon sticks
| to some of his script, the two get VERY nerdy at points digging
| into all sorts of non-obvious minutiae and detail. 53 minutes
| is a lot, but by far it's the best interview about the car by a
| large margin.
|
| Harry is also a very big EV and renewable electricity nerd, and
| loves digging into those topics with tons of research.
| gerdesj wrote:
| "is actually producing a road legal one"
|
| The one at Goodward FOS was cleared by DoT and is road legal.
| The driver announced it in an interview on TV.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| the T.50 has a fan, and it is used for aerodynamic benefit,
| but it does so by helping speed up air through the under car
| diffuser, which allows them to use a more aggressive diffuser
| than would otherwise work. It all adds up to a modest
| downforce improvement and/or drag reduction.
|
| The McMurtry by comparison is more like the old F1 fan car,
| in that it is literally sucking itself down to the road, with
| tons of force, with a skirt and so on.
| MrFoof wrote:
| Yep. As Gordon said about the Brabham, the McMurty is,
| "more of a blunt instrument."
|
| When I watched it do the hill climb I was thinking of all
| the drivers they might've approached, and thought that if
| Mark Webber hadn't hung it up a few years ago he would've,
| "noped out" of that conversation immediately given his
| history of flying for Mercedes in the beginning of his
| career.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| I know that the "spacex package tesla roadster 2.0" is a
| running Elon hype joke, but the discussed thrusters would be
| revolutionary in extreme car design. Fan cars can only suck
| downward, but thrust vectoring would be a whole different
| ballgame: it can push down, directly thrust, push counter to
| the g force in a tight curve, brake faster.
|
| Thrust vectoring could serve as a safety system to
| dynamically produce downforce in case a high speed car starts
| to go airborne, can counter spin-outs, etc.
| btilly wrote:
| That is also the purpose of the wing on the back of the car. To
| generate more downwards force at speed.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Right, but the wing doesn't start to work until you hit
| serious speeds, whereas the fan gives the car extreme
| traction at launch, which is pretty important in a race that
| only lasts 30 seconds, especially when your electric car has
| ~infinite torque.
| binbag wrote:
| Infinite torque...?
| jeffbee wrote:
| ~ much more torque than can practically be delivered
| between the tires and the ground, which is why using a
| vacuum to improve the traction and eliminate the
| transient squatting motion of the vehicle is so important
| in a short race.
|
| Drag racers have had this problem for a long time; those
| races last less than 5 seconds. This hill climb is
| interesting because it's only a bit longer, half a
| minute, which really changes the equations for electric
| race cars vs. something like Pikes Peak which is 8
| minutes to the top (and is now also totally dominated by
| electric cars).
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| Probably thinking of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerk_(physics)
|
| If acceleration were an instantaneous off-on step, that
| would be a
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_delta_function
| mywittyname wrote:
| This is a weird car guy myth that gets tossed around. The
| thinking is that, electric motors make uniform power
| output at any RPM, and torque = some_constant *
| power_output / RPM. Thus, as RPM goes to zero, torque
| goes to infinity.
|
| Obviously, this is wrong in the real world for so many
| reasons, but that doesn't stop this from getting
| repeated.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Repeating it is a great way to paint yourself as one of
| those dolts that likes to act like they care about EVs
| for the virtue points.
|
| Everyone who's ever used a drill knows that while speed
| and torque are inversely related in most of a motors
| normal operating range you don't get insane torque at low
| speed. Of course you can wind a motor differently to
| mitigate this somewhat but still, not a huge improvement.
| You wouldn't see reduction gears on all sorts of things
| if this were the case.
| ht85 wrote:
| Aero also has the issue of creating a ton of drag. An f1 at
| 300kph will decelerate around 1g if you lift off the
| throttle.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Did you see Pastrana's ridiculous Subaru with active
| aero? It puts the wings away when they're dragging and
| they pop back up when the downforce and/or drag is
| wanted.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| The wing starts to work immediately. Just not much. This is
| a pedantic but important point. Even low speed motoring
| events aero can be very very important if sufficiently
| large wings are allowed. Aerodynamic gear for cyclists is
| advantageous even if you are a slow cyclist, etc.
| loeg wrote:
| Popular "wisdom" in cycling is that aerodynamics are not
| a factor below 10 mph and not much of one at 15. It
| becomes pretty noticeable in the 15-20+ mph range
| (increasing with the cube of speed, or something like
| that).
| jackmott42 wrote:
| Yes, but the physics is that the _amount_ time saved over
| a fixed distance is actually _more_ for the 15mph cyclist
| than the 20mph cyclist.
|
| However the _percent_ of time saved for the slower
| cyclist is less, but only a little.
|
| Basically at cycling speeds the aerodynamic curve is
| pretty flat so it doesn't really matter if you are fast
| or slow.
| omginternets wrote:
| The main issue is more so that they produce incredible
| downforce at the cost of incredible drag.
| jjav wrote:
| > the wing doesn't start to work until you hit serious
| speeds
|
| I don't know what you consider "serious speeds", but wings
| can produce meaningful downforce at pretty low speeds.
| Check out the various unlimited class autocross cars which
| carry giants wings for downforce, even though autocross
| events are typically very low speed events (2nd gear most
| of the time).
| mywittyname wrote:
| "Meaningful" on order of 100lbs at 60mph. Which isn't
| nothing, but a Viper ACR has a peak downforce of
| 2000lbs@177MPH, or basically half the total weight of the
| car.
|
| Plus, with extreme aero, there's a top-speed vs downforce
| tradeoff to be made. The big fan trick doesn't have that
| issue.
| haunter wrote:
| I was watching Goodwood this weekend (it's still ongoing btw [0])
| BUT holy moly that brick wall at 0:27 in the video after they
| leave the Grand Stand. Or here is it
| https://i.imgur.com/7TyNsP0.jpeg One slight mistake and you are
| dead and oblitareted into atoms. No official FIA sanctioned event
| track have anything like this.
|
| 0, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC6fQ8EkASE
| LandR wrote:
| Here is my local hill climb course. I used to love going to
| watch this. Hillclimbs are almost always thin courses lined
| with solid walls in sections.
|
| https://youtu.be/9kufacVXlSc
|
| Not sped up (he launches at about 1m37, cuts beam at top about
| 2m12 for a 35 sec run.
|
| Crashes can be pretty serious.
| jeffbee wrote:
| The British seemingly prefer their motorsports to be dangerous.
|
| https://www.visordown.com/news/general/isle-man-tt-investiga...
| adwww wrote:
| Isle of Man is tenuously British.
| [deleted]
| jackmott42 wrote:
| This is an old school thing with tradition and stuff. Can't
| bother with safety! Sorta like pikes peak where you go off a
| cliff instead of into a wall.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| American race-car driver Jim Hall pioneered a number of ground
| effects in the mid to late 1960s, including the use of fans like
| on this car. I think McLaren also used them on a Formula One car
| in the 1970s.
|
| It's worth reading the comments section of the article as it
| includes some observations from spectators at the hill climb. It
| sounds like the car in motion is quite a sight to behold!
| sjm-lbm wrote:
| It was actually a Brabham:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabham_BT46
|
| I find the whole concept fascinating, just because it seems
| ridiculous in a way.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| That's right. I knew there was a Gordon Murray tie-in
| somewhere, but it was for Brabham, not McLaren, that he
| utilized a fan on a Formula One car in the late 70s.
|
| Edit to add a link to Jim Hall's "sucker car" that predated
| the Brabham: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral_Cars#2J
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| It looks ugly as sin though.
|
| It is my opinion that the current generation of supercars (not to
| mention hypercars) not only exceeds the driver skills but also
| the driver's ability to properly function for 7-10 days after
| bringing said supercar to the limit.
|
| Makes sense to have both the V12 and a small electric motor
| because the rich folks would buy the car for the option (but not
| the obligation) to use the V12 but in reality it's gonna be the
| electric motor doing all the work while proceeding at 7mph around
| Harrods/Piccadilly or the Burj Khalifa. I think the environment
| can handle a couple of V12 revs per week when rich folks get out
| of Harrods.
| 1024core wrote:
| An electric fan sucking your car downwards sounds all nice and
| lovely for a street-legal car, until you hit a speedbump and womp
| womp womp.....
| fmakunbound wrote:
| Reminded me of Jim Hall and his Chaparral 2J
| https://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/a32350/jim-hall-cha...
|
| > ".. and we calculated, we could actually drive it on the wall
| around Sebring."
| saalweachter wrote:
| > In fact, it's so quick that it almost looks like the video is
| set on fast-forward.
|
| It totally looks like an old 1960s/70s/80s low-budget TV show
| special effect.
| Tozen wrote:
| Something these types of high performance electric cars are
| continually proving now, is you don't need fossil fuel cars to go
| fast. It's helping to change how people think about cars,
| gasoline, and internal combustion engines. Someone's next sports
| car can easily be electric, beautiful, and fast.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| > Something these types of high performance electric cars are
| continually proving now, is you don't need fossil fuel cars to
| go fast. It's helping to change how people think about cars,
| gasoline, and internal combustion engines. Someone's next
| sports car can easily be electric, beautiful, and fast.
|
| As far as I'm aware of how things work, compared to ICE
| vehicles, EVs currently have better instant torque but lower
| top speeds. That said, is there anybody who doesn't appreciate
| many of the nice qualities of electric engines? Just from the
| perspective of the engines, they're extremely fun toys and I
| think that opinion is close to universal.
|
| I think that most of the skepticism of EVs doesn't have
| anything remotely to do with the engine performance, but many
| of the complicated infrastructure and social factor questions
| surrounding their usage.
| dharmab wrote:
| There's no reason an EV can't have a high top speed, it's
| just that most road going versions omit a transmission for
| weight and cost savings. Formula E cars can be configured for
| 200 mph.
| saalweachter wrote:
| At the same time ... there's (almost) no reason you _need_
| a car to go faster than the 90mph you get out of a Nissan
| Leaf or Chevy Bolt. It 's like, neat that you can make an
| electric car as fast as anything else, but if road-going
| cars basically couldn't do more than 90 it'd be no great
| loss.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > EVs currently have better instant torque but lower top
| speeds.
|
| Some also have limits on battery output. The Mustang MachE
| can only go full speed for 5 seconds before power is cut
| really drastically. So much so, that in a quarter mile drag
| race, the Mach E is as fast as a 5.0 to 60 MPH, but slower
| than a 2.3L to 100. Not that every EV has this weird limit,
| but it does exist.
|
| Plus, EVs are all quite heavy, and even though the weight
| balance is much better, they don't handle nearly as well. The
| writing is all the wall though, there will never be an EV
| Miata or GR86. Future vehicles are all going to be gigantic
| cars with hypercar acceleration and numb handling.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| My understanding is that _a_ factor in making EVs seem like
| they have lower top speeds is because of increased safety
| standards /laws in some countries. Those countries require
| speed limiters for speeds too far above highway speeds. Many
| ICE engine designs were grandfathered in without needing to
| be updated with such speed limiters, but EVs are new designs
| and don't meet any such "grandfathering" criteria.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| Some EVs have lower top speeds because they don't bother with
| a transmission. If you wanted a high top speed, just add 1 or
| 2 gears and you are good to go.
|
| Imho the infrastructure required for them will be much
| simpler than the existing infrastructure required to power
| gasoline cars. All those underground tanks with trucks
| delivering toxic flammable fluids are replaced with modest
| upgrades to the grid (it doesn't take much, as refining a
| tank of gasoline requires as much electricity as charging an
| electric car).
|
| This transition is already well underway and many of us have
| been doing road trips with minimal or no pain for years
| already while others are still skeptical! Granted, there are
| still use cases that are difficult, like towing large things
| a long way.
| akira2501 wrote:
| "The grid" is not a uniform piece of infrastructure with
| similar capacity or use patterns in all areas. I think
| people drastically underestimate the amount of time it will
| take to absorb these changes to a point where "critical
| mass" is reached.
|
| I'm very skeptical on the road trips part as well, it still
| appears you're going to spend 15% to 30% of your total trip
| time sitting at several chargers along the way. For day
| trips this might not be an issue, but for long range multi
| day trips, the patchy availability still seems to be a real
| problem.
|
| The intersection of Hotels and Motels with Supercharging On
| Site is still a very narrow proposition. I'm excited for
| the future, but I believe it's further away than most
| people readily acknowledge.
| akira2501 wrote:
| No.. but gasoline is still dominant in the "going far" and
| "recharging quickly" category. I think that's the more
| important issue to tackle with respect to the current consumer
| market.
| [deleted]
| dymk wrote:
| Cool, reminds me of how some small racing maze solving robots
| (micromouse) work - little fans on them to create downforce,
| letting the robot change directions incredibly quickly. But
| scaled up for a 2000lb car.
|
| http://greenye.net/Pages/Micromouse/Micromouse2015-2016.htm
| calebegg wrote:
| Fascinating link, I've never heard of these micromice before
| dymk wrote:
| They're a lot of fun. I built one as part of my college's
| IEEE chapter. It was nothing fancy, certainly not fast or
| nimble enough to warrant a downforce fan, but one learns a
| lot going from concept -> schematics -> hardware -> software
| -> working mouse in half a year.
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| Technically F1 cars don't weight that much:
|
| >* Brabham BT45 was an overweight and bulky car, initially
| weighing 625 kg*
|
| From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabham_BT46, linked in
| other comments.
| david_acm wrote:
| Today's F1 cars have a minimum weight of car + driver of
| 795kg excluding fuel.
|
| https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/2022-f1-cars-set-for-
| furt...
| olivermarks wrote:
| Details of the ground effects car with some staggering
| statistics.
|
| I'd be very concerned about trapped energy thermal runaway fire
| risk with the batteries surrounding the driver especially at
| impact, but this is an absolutely spectacular machine imo
|
| WILD ELECTRIC FAN CAR BEATS GOODWOOD HILL RECORD! | EXCLUSIVE
| TOUR https://youtu.be/qTgL8_1GDI0
| quercusa wrote:
| Be sure to go down into the comments below the article to see
| just how tiny this car is. It must be quite the ride.
| w0mbat wrote:
| I am thinking you could flip a switch, which lowers a skirt and
| runs the fan in reverse : instant hovercraft mode for crossing a
| river, or even just deep mud. You'd need a steerable outlet jet
| on the back for propulsion.
|
| Then once on firm ground, flip it and go back to racecar mode.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Hill Climbing is a fantastically old competition. The heritage
| extends well beyond the vehicles. The culture of everyone from
| The Scrutineers to the burger vans is well worth looking into, if
| you can.
|
| An example, continuously running since pre-quake SF:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelsley_Walsh_Speed_Hill_Clim...
| jmartin2683 wrote:
| Just in case anyone thought gasoline powered cars were still
| relevant in a performance context...
|
| There's no metric by which an electric motor, sufficiently
| supplied with everything it needs to function, doesn't embarrass
| them. Very exciting future.
| [deleted]
| crubier wrote:
| Energy density/range.
|
| Long races like Formula 1, Le Mans, Dakar Rally are far from
| being won by Electric cars, because of the range/enormous
| batteries it would require.
| originalvichy wrote:
| If you unleashed 5 full F1 teams to solve EV F1 racing they
| would most certainly come up with record-breaking solutions
| to tackle issues you mention. With how good the F1 car aero
| is and how good the batteries' low centre of gravity is, I
| would't put it past them to be able to create magic.
| ummonk wrote:
| Oh yeah F1 teams will magically outdo the energy density
| that chemists, physicists, and material scientists have
| spent decades achieving with battery technology.
| in3d wrote:
| Formula E cars are currently not just slower than F1 cars but
| also F2 cars (a new generation is coming but it still won't
| come close to F1 speeds).
| engineer_22 wrote:
| considering how paltry electric vehicle range is...
| ChrisClark wrote:
| Yeah, only 650km. So paltry. And if you actually owned an EV,
| you'd know range isn't an issue, even on road trips. ;)
| esjeon wrote:
| It's funny that the only technical downside - recharging time -
| is quite critical to the people's life style. Solves all the
| problem but fails at one mundane problem.
| ummonk wrote:
| Is it? Most people do daily commutes significantly shorter
| than EV range, and tend to take meal and bathroom breaks
| every few hours when commuting long distances.
| dagurp wrote:
| For most people the charging time isn't a problem because you
| usually charge it at home or at work when you're not using
| the car anyway.
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