Is it really just the battery?
08-21-2018, 04:43 AM
#31
Question: The closest my Porsche has been to a track in the 31 years I've owned it has been the Laguna Seca parking lot. (1998 Monterey Historics/Porsche 50th anniversary bash for one.) But if one were tracking a car and pushing it to the max - wouldn't it be more important to hear what your tires and suspension are doing, rather than a screaming engine and transmission covering up what the rest of the car is trying to tell you? With an electric drivetrain you have immediate acceleration, powerful regenerative braking - and nearly dead silence from the powertrain. So you can focus on 'everything else'. Not to mention that the battery mass can be placed optimally for low center of gravity and front/rear distribution.
Heavy cars e.g. a Model S can generate great traction and grip in everyday driving situations (at low speeds the mass of the car on the contact patch aids grip) - however on track at speed, the weight of the car overloads the tire contact patch, ultimately causing the tire to over heat and thus lose grip. In this situation the dynamic coefficient of friction at the contact patch is dropping quickly - the same obviously applies to a heavy ICE car e.g. Bentley Continental GT.
Thus when you race a car, whether it be round a circuit or at a road rally you actually try to feel the level of grip - which means you don't want to understeer, oversteer or skid/lock brakes under hard braking. The limit of grip manifests itself as a slight twitchy feeling through both hands and butt (feathering). If you are watching a very fast driver you will notice how smooth they are - no locked brakes or over steer histrionics. They seem slow but are in fact fast because they are using the tires to the maximum level of attainable grip under the prevalent conditions.
Last edited by groundhog; 08-21-2018 at 07:50 AM.
08-21-2018, 09:50 AM
#32
IMHO, pack sizes are getting to a reasonable point now. That is, somewhere between 40 and 80-100 kWh for 150-300 miles of range in a decent sized car. (Trucks and SUVs need more capacity for equivalent range.) The thing that is happening, but of course never fast enough, is dropping the battery cost. Many have opined that once pack costs drop below about $100/kWh, EVs will be fully cost competitive with ICE vehicles and then some. It was leaked that GM was buying Bolt EV batteries from LG for $145/kWh a couple years ago. Rumors are that Tesla has even lower unit costs thanks to their Gigafactory.
Cobalt availability is an issue. But researchers are finding ways to reduce the need for cobalt. And eventually the cobalt will be recovered by recycling old packs. In fact that is one of the key reasons to recycle packs.
Question: The closest my Porsche has been to a track in the 31 years I've owned it has been the Laguna Seca parking lot. (1998 Monterey Historics/Porsche 50th anniversary bash for one.) But if one were tracking a car and pushing it to the max - wouldn't it be more important to hear what your tires and suspension are doing, rather than a screaming engine and transmission covering up what the rest of the car is trying to tell you?
Cobalt availability is an issue. But researchers are finding ways to reduce the need for cobalt. And eventually the cobalt will be recovered by recycling old packs. In fact that is one of the key reasons to recycle packs.
Question: The closest my Porsche has been to a track in the 31 years I've owned it has been the Laguna Seca parking lot. (1998 Monterey Historics/Porsche 50th anniversary bash for one.) But if one were tracking a car and pushing it to the max - wouldn't it be more important to hear what your tires and suspension are doing, rather than a screaming engine and transmission covering up what the rest of the car is trying to tell you?
08-21-2018, 11:20 AM
#33
Burning Brakes
Answer - performance driving literally comes down to one factor, the amount of grip you can extract from your tires. A well driven car will have similar lineal g (under brakes) and lateral g (through corners) reflecting maximum grip attained under brakes (tires stop cars, brakes provide brake torque) and around corners. The concept is known as the friction circle something most accomplished drivers understand.
Heavy cars e.g. a Model S can generate great traction and grip in everyday driving situations (at low speeds the mass of the car on the contact patch aids grip) - however on track at speed, the weight of the car overloads the tire contact patch, ultimately causing the tire to over heat and thus lose grip. In this situation the dynamic coefficient of friction at the contact patch is dropping quickly - the same obviously applies to a heavy ICE car e.g. Bentley Continental GT.
Heavy cars e.g. a Model S can generate great traction and grip in everyday driving situations (at low speeds the mass of the car on the contact patch aids grip) - however on track at speed, the weight of the car overloads the tire contact patch, ultimately causing the tire to over heat and thus lose grip. In this situation the dynamic coefficient of friction at the contact patch is dropping quickly - the same obviously applies to a heavy ICE car e.g. Bentley Continental GT.
Thus when you race a car, whether it be round a circuit or at a road rally you actually try to feel the level of grip - which means you don't want to understeer, oversteer or skid/lock brakes under hard braking. The limit of grip manifests itself as a slight twitchy feeling through both hands and butt (feathering). If you are watching a very fast driver you will notice how smooth they are - no locked brakes or over steer histrionics. They seem slow but are in fact fast because they are using the tires to the maximum level of attainable grip under the prevalent conditions.
08-21-2018, 11:47 AM
#34
The problem that I feel many of these electric car optimists are missing is that changing the propulsion system of a car / more importantly, a sports car which is purchased for pleasure, completely and dramatically alters the driving experience. I am not convinced that it will be changing for the better.
I agree for daily transportation for the average person living in the average area who can't tell the difference or doesn't care going Electric makes perfect sense. However, for sports cars which are primarily emotional, removing the ICE effectively removes the emotion and puts into question the reason for having a sports car in the first place.
I agree for daily transportation for the average person living in the average area who can't tell the difference or doesn't care going Electric makes perfect sense. However, for sports cars which are primarily emotional, removing the ICE effectively removes the emotion and puts into question the reason for having a sports car in the first place.
08-21-2018, 12:32 PM
#35
Rennlist Member
Thread Starter
the Model 3 should not be compared to a sports car - it should be compared to it's market - and it's not that much heavier than a BMW 3 series - I think in the next 3-5 years we will have weight parity for the sedan/SUV market - sports car will be another matter - if you want to drive fast weight is everything and we're not quite there yet for sports car weight - but with in 10 years it is feasible that you'll have sufficient range and battery densities that we should be able to do a lighter EV than an equivalent sports car for a reasonable range (not sedan range but reasonable) - equal or lighter gross weight will address the handling issues - and the EV will be superior given their lighter weights - the next issue will be the battery's stamina and cycle time - track cars are expected to perform at near maximum spec for long durations - while I believe range and energy densities will improve - I don't foresee battery stamina improving (full discharge rates for hours on end) and rapid charging of EV between race sessions will require massive infrastructure at the race tracks or modular batteries that are pre-charged for a race day and you use multiple batteries cause you can't charge them fast enough between practice, qualification, and race…
weight will get addressed - cause that makes everything better - both non-track use and track use
it's running an EV at near max spec for charge/discharge - and cycle time between finishing one session and starting the next
currently you can run your 911 from full gas to empty at nearly max performance - spend 15 min servicing the car - and then go right back to running it full spec - Porsche and other manufactures have spent decades improving ICE based systems for this exacting and grueling application (LeMans was established for this exact purpose - 24 hour Enduro run until you drop to improve cars across the board)
and those improvements trickle down into the consumer version of the products…
EV weights are a temporary problem that we won't be talking about in due time…but we will continue to talk about "max performance" and battery charging times and infrastructure required for fast battery charge times for a while in the future…and track/race applications will tax the battery charge/discharge limitations for the foreseeable future.
weight will get addressed - cause that makes everything better - both non-track use and track use
it's running an EV at near max spec for charge/discharge - and cycle time between finishing one session and starting the next
currently you can run your 911 from full gas to empty at nearly max performance - spend 15 min servicing the car - and then go right back to running it full spec - Porsche and other manufactures have spent decades improving ICE based systems for this exacting and grueling application (LeMans was established for this exact purpose - 24 hour Enduro run until you drop to improve cars across the board)
and those improvements trickle down into the consumer version of the products…
EV weights are a temporary problem that we won't be talking about in due time…but we will continue to talk about "max performance" and battery charging times and infrastructure required for fast battery charge times for a while in the future…and track/race applications will tax the battery charge/discharge limitations for the foreseeable future.
08-21-2018, 07:07 PM
#36
so what I've heard is it's not just the battery - for some people it's also the visceral/audible experience of the ICE engine - i.e. there's nothing better than the correct sound from a well tuned 9k RPM flat 6 ;-)
so we've got the battery as a liability (but I surprised myself in the the RWD model 3 isn't that much heavier than a BMW 3 series)
and we've got the lack of exhaust noise for the visceral power experience?
is there anything else?
so we've got the battery as a liability (but I surprised myself in the the RWD model 3 isn't that much heavier than a BMW 3 series)
and we've got the lack of exhaust noise for the visceral power experience?
is there anything else?
08-21-2018, 08:50 PM
#37
I have to say, as high as I am on the Taycan, that new ring video that just surfaced gives me serious pause. And it’s not just the fact that it doesn’t look that quick or nimble. It’s that halfway through the video, after watching it take the same hairpin over and over alone, it took one with what I believe was either a Cayenne Turbo or a Panamera Sportback behind it. And the sound was wonderful by comparison. Listening to Taycan tire squeal was like someone running their nails down a chalkboard. Then the ICE vehicle comes and makes this glorious noise.
Last weekend a friend of my wife’s came over. She fancies herself a car girl and drives a BMW 4 series, so I offered to take her for a spin in both the new cars. First the Tesla Model 3 Dual Motor. The trick there is to nail it from around a 35 mph roll and take it up to roughly 80. The throttle response snaps the neck back when you floor it, then it just keeps building with no letup- legit fast through that speed range. The other move that impresses is to floor it around a turn from a stop- it just grips and goes. She was blown away...
Then I took her for a ride in the GT3 Touring. Even warming up it’s talking to you. Head up the hill to the tunnel, crack the windows, find a gap then nail it. Flat shift through three gears... The sound saturates. Reverberates down the length of the tunnel. At 9k rpm the mind flashes snapshots of LeMans. I think she screamed, but noise was lost in the moment.
Afterwards she said that the Tesla almost had her convinced that it could be enough- she’d even considered trading her BMW. The Porsche made entirely clear what she’d be missing. She couldn’t stop talking about it for the rest of the evening. Or the next day. Or the next weekend.
I’ve owned two electrics and I’ve both enjoyed and greatly respected both. But I’ve never approached the emotional bond I’ve felt with the best ICE cars, and if I’m honest I don’t believe it’s possible. I hope Porsche can prove me wrong, but...
08-22-2018, 12:20 AM
#38
Burning Brakes
Well... A lot of people still enjoy riding, and even racing, horses too. There is nothing like the soothing "clip-clop" of a horse taking you through the countryside, or of a bunch of them at full gallop in Kentucky Derby.
Driving a (decent) EV is addicting in its own right. Kudos to Tesla for pulling EVs out of the 'weird mobile' category and into a realm where they are competing with the best ICE vehicles in almost all respects. That was one of the original tenents of the company by its founders, and why they had no less than Lotus help them with the Roadster. I've met Marc Tarpenning, and heard him talk about this. They would have VCs drive up in their latest sports cars, take the T-Zero or a Roadster prototype out for a spin, then wonder 'what happened' when they got back into their ICE cars - because their cars then felt so slow.
It is sad in a way that the whole EV thing got co-opted by the enviro/anti-car folks early on. Because if ones goal is max performance, there is a lot to take advantage of with at least a partially electrified drive train. This is why I'm really curious to see what the likes of Porsche and Jaguar can bring to the table.
Driving a (decent) EV is addicting in its own right. Kudos to Tesla for pulling EVs out of the 'weird mobile' category and into a realm where they are competing with the best ICE vehicles in almost all respects. That was one of the original tenents of the company by its founders, and why they had no less than Lotus help them with the Roadster. I've met Marc Tarpenning, and heard him talk about this. They would have VCs drive up in their latest sports cars, take the T-Zero or a Roadster prototype out for a spin, then wonder 'what happened' when they got back into their ICE cars - because their cars then felt so slow.
It is sad in a way that the whole EV thing got co-opted by the enviro/anti-car folks early on. Because if ones goal is max performance, there is a lot to take advantage of with at least a partially electrified drive train. This is why I'm really curious to see what the likes of Porsche and Jaguar can bring to the table.
08-22-2018, 02:14 AM
#39
The primary reason behind what you describe is the fact that most of those people equate acceleration with performance, and have no idea what a high performing sports car is really like. The average Tesla owner thinks they drive a ‘performance’ car because it has a fast 60 foot.
08-22-2018, 10:45 AM
#40
Well... A lot of people still enjoy riding, and even racing, horses too. There is nothing like the soothing "clip-clop" of a horse taking you through the countryside, or of a bunch of them at full gallop in Kentucky Derby.
Driving a (decent) EV is addicting in its own right. Kudos to Tesla for pulling EVs out of the 'weird mobile' category and into a realm where they are competing with the best ICE vehicles in almost all respects. That was one of the original tenents of the company by its founders, and why they had no less than Lotus help them with the Roadster. I've met Marc Tarpenning, and heard him talk about this. They would have VCs drive up in their latest sports cars, take the T-Zero or a Roadster prototype out for a spin, then wonder 'what happened' when they got back into their ICE cars - because their cars then felt so slow.
It is sad in a way that the whole EV thing got co-opted by the enviro/anti-car folks early on. Because if ones goal is max performance, there is a lot to take advantage of with at least a partially electrified drive train. This is why I'm really curious to see what the likes of Porsche and Jaguar can bring to the table.
Driving a (decent) EV is addicting in its own right. Kudos to Tesla for pulling EVs out of the 'weird mobile' category and into a realm where they are competing with the best ICE vehicles in almost all respects. That was one of the original tenents of the company by its founders, and why they had no less than Lotus help them with the Roadster. I've met Marc Tarpenning, and heard him talk about this. They would have VCs drive up in their latest sports cars, take the T-Zero or a Roadster prototype out for a spin, then wonder 'what happened' when they got back into their ICE cars - because their cars then felt so slow.
It is sad in a way that the whole EV thing got co-opted by the enviro/anti-car folks early on. Because if ones goal is max performance, there is a lot to take advantage of with at least a partially electrified drive train. This is why I'm really curious to see what the likes of Porsche and Jaguar can bring to the table.
Trying to compare an ICE to a horse is an absurd comparison in my opinion.
The fact of the matter is that when the automobile replaced the horse it was almost instantly better in every practical way just the same as every machine that replaced animal / human power during that time. This represented in a huge leap in human mobility and transformed the way people live worldwide.
Unlike the machine vs. animal power the EV cars have not been instantly better and do not represent any major shift in the human mobility and at the present moment offer more drawbacks than gains.
Not convinced? At this moment there isn't a single top performance EV that can beat a top performance ICE car in any type of road racing situation and that's simply because the technology is far behind the ambition.
08-22-2018, 11:42 AM
#41
More important: consider what’s holding the performance of your favorite ICE road car back today. Pick a car, let’s say it’s a Carrera GTS for argument’s sake. That’s could easily be higher performance technically. We know they have a 700 hp GT2 engine on the shelf, but even that could be bored to 4.0 and boosted further, etc. Pick a power number and the technology exists to make it, so what’s holding them back? Two main technical factors: regulations and drivability. Porsche can’t make a fleet of GT2s from a Corporate Average Fuel Consumption point of view, and that’s in fact why the GTS is Turbo in the first place. That much power would also make the car far too challenging for most drivers.
Technically the ICE can’t be used to it’s full potential. The fact that engineers can make gasoline engines that make 3 hp per pound makes no difference- in today’s environment we won’t see them in road cars. And when you look at the technology needed to overcome the limitations they face electric stands out. A 1000 hp electric car is likely more efficient day to day than a 10 hp one. The 4wd systems are perfectly suited to deploy large amounts of power in an accessible way, allowing more drivability for a given power level.
So the technology is is already good enough to make the GTS faster in many ways. Not all- autobahn endurance is certainly going to be an issue. But this isn’t something that can’t yet have an impact. Which will be the point that the upcoming roadster tries to make.
08-22-2018, 12:38 PM
#42
08-22-2018, 01:38 PM
#43
Exactly, I was referencing cars that can be purchased and NOT a "money is no object" purpose built publicity stunt that the I.D.R. made of pikes peak. That car is nothing more than the VW group ( Porsche) pushing it's massive electric car investment down consumers throats with a car who's specs were nothing remarkable by any stretch and in one of the only situations in the world ( high altitude , short distance sprint event) where that car would have had a chance.
08-22-2018, 02:17 PM
#44
Burning Brakes
Trying to compare an ICE to a horse is an absurd comparison in my opinion.
The fact of the matter is that when the automobile replaced the horse it was almost instantly better in every practical way just the same as every machine that replaced animal / human power during that time. This represented in a huge leap in human mobility and transformed the way people live worldwide.
Unlike the machine vs. animal power the EV cars have not been instantly better and do not represent any major shift in the human mobility and at the present moment offer more drawbacks than gains.
The fact of the matter is that when the automobile replaced the horse it was almost instantly better in every practical way just the same as every machine that replaced animal / human power during that time. This represented in a huge leap in human mobility and transformed the way people live worldwide.
Unlike the machine vs. animal power the EV cars have not been instantly better and do not represent any major shift in the human mobility and at the present moment offer more drawbacks than gains.
It is interesting though, to read historical auto magazines from 100+ years ago. You'll often see very detailed analysis of the costs of maintaining animals vs mechanical beasts. It wasn't an immediate transition.
Not convinced? At this moment there isn't a single top performance EV that can beat a top performance ICE car in any type of road racing situation and that's simply because the technology is far behind the ambition.
I agree that regulations, such as CAFE, on ICE cars are, for better or worse, smothering them. Look at todays ICE cars. V8s are nearly gone - excepting pony and very expensive performance cars. V6s are disappearing as well. And they are pushing out I-4s like crazy with turbocharging and various exotic engine tech. Not to mention the complex eleventy-five speed transmissions behind them. All this just to get back to performance levels that were easily met with larger displacements, but worse CAFE. It works - for a while. But every time something inevitably breaks, the repair bills are $,$$$.$$. (Or in the case of my now traded in MB, if the dealer did the work, potentially $$,$$$.$$.)
I don't road race or track my cars. However a week ago I drove my Model 3 up to San Francisco taking the 'back way' on one of the Bay Areas great drives: up Highway 9 to Skyline, Skyline to Alices Restaurant, down La Honda to the coast, and up Highway 1 to San Fran. I hit it reasonably hard. It was 'one pedal' driving the entire way though the twisties. In my 944, I'd be shifting like crazy, or in my old MB, working the +/- shifting constantly, to try to maintain the same pace. The Model 3 just did everything I wanted with no drama.
Now on our second plug-in car (Gen 2 Volt - which my wife mostly drives, and my Model 3), I can't see myself buying a new pure ICE car ever again. I could see buying another PHEV (i.e., with a Volt-like powertrain) to replace our SUV though.
08-22-2018, 03:04 PM
#45
Tesla's primary reason for building the new Roadster is to eliminate your argument above. Within the respective classes where high end electrics exist they are already quicker than ICE in the majority of use cases, ie see my model 3 review: for a mid size sedan in its cost bracket it's more than quick. The tech for a true sports cars like the Roadster is ready, we're simply waiting for the cars. I'm quite certain when it comes it will eat my GT3 for lunch in nearly every way. And I'll still have no interest in buying one. My wife on the other hand...