fiestaturbo.com

[- Danny Boy -]

So then, whats your opinion on this then?

http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/2829 ... mpionship/

[Tweek]

Nutsack.

[heeman10]

Sounds awesome! I'd sure as hell rather they started developing electric race cars in 2013 (before we end up with few options other than to buy an electric car), rather than us all having to drive G-Wizes for five years till someone makes genuinely quick, genuinely practical, affordable electric sports cars. Bring it on

[MircoJ]

I know that my answer isn't pc, but i love engine (and exhaust) noise. Couldn't live without it. I live less than an hour away from the Nürburgring and i'm pretty often there, but would never watch an electric car race.

[frst toady]

no offence but even electric aint exactly green at the end of the day the cars still need charging and where does that come from... power stations nuclear or any other type they still produce s**t either way you look at it fair enough that might be better than coal/oil but still.....

[Sheriff Burman]

If they want to race Electric cars, then they can race Electric cars. As long as it doesn't replace traditional F1 cars then its OK.

Electric power isn't really all that green anyway. Sure, it takes the emissions out of the exhausts, but coal fired power stations are still providing the power for them (=emissions!).

Hydrogen is the way forward IMO.

[Ollie]

Bit of a misleading thread title, you've make it sound like the plan is to replace F1 with Formula E in 2014. Obviously that's not the case. Formula E is a new series for electric racing cars. F1 is getting new smaller engines in 2014, v6's with turbos.

Personally I really like the sound of Formula E, if reports that Lord Drayson has been brought in to advise are correct then it'll be interesting to see how the cars turn out. The Lola-Drayson B12/69EV is pretty amazing. I just hope the series gets coverage somewhere I can watch it. Hopefully it'll also spur faster development of electric vehicles and bring more advances in the technology that will benefit the rest of us. Better batteries, faster and easier charging, etc.

I'm also pleased to see the measure to increase the efficiency of F1 engines. Obviously it's good to see one of the foremost motorsports taking action to reduce the environmental impact of the sport (although you could argue it's a bit mute since the majority of the sport's emissions will be from the travel between tracks, the spectators, etc), but increasing the efficiency of the engines also helps the teams by reducing the fuel costs.


The rest of this post is about the comments regarding "emissions" of EV's.

All the stuff about the "emissions" of electric cars is a bit pointless. EV's (electric vehicle's) have no local emissions, you're talking about fuel supply emissions of EV's compared to tailpipe emissions of ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles that completely ignoring their fuel supply emissions.

In any case, to humor that comparison I've done the following calculation...

According to DECC, the emissions from electricity generation in the whole of last year were 428 tonnes per GWh. Which is 0.428kg/kWh.

As an example EV, the Nissan Leaf uses a 3.3kW charger and takes 8 hours to charge fully from empty. That 26.4kWh charge will then keep it going for a quoted 109 miles (175km). So 26.4kWh x 0.428kg/kWh = 11.2992kg CO2 emission from a single charge. So 11299.2g / 175km = 64g/km "equivalent" emissions.

Currently, on average, the most efficient fuel only cars (i.e. not hybrids) on the roads, economy diesels, achieve around 90g/km of carbon emissions. Last time I checked hybrids they were around the 74g/km mark. So the EV is still lower.

As I said before though, this completely ignores the fuel supply (manufacture and delivery). In the case of the EV, that 64g/km is the total, that's the whole story. In the case of ICE fuel you've got emissions from the extraction rig, emissions from the tanker ships, emissions from the refinery, emissions from the tanker trucks that deliver the fuel to the filling station, emissions from the electricity used to pump it into the vehicle, then that 90g/km comes out the back of the vehicle right at the end.

They simply don't compare.

Then there's the benefit that those EV "emissions" aren't coming from the car, they're centralised at the power stations where they're far easier to control, not polluting the air in cities.

Another point to take into account is that the national grid currently suffers from a very inefficient dip in consumption during the night, which requires power stations to be taken offline and then brought back online the next day when demand rises again. Charging electric cars during the night would help to flatten this out and increase the efficiency of generation.

[filtra]

Nice one Ollie!

Agree 100%