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Volkswagen has done it. The German automaker's ID R electric race car has not only broken the record for electric cars in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, it's also broken the record for all classes by setting a blistering time of 7:57.148 during the 2018 running held on Sunday.
also would be interested to know what if any thermal management they did to the battery under the "race" load - you can drive a LiON battery hard - and it will heat up - it will discharge just fine even under extreme heat - but the problem is when you go to charge it the next time you've damaged the LiON battery such that it will not accept as much charge as it used to - the reason to manage battery temperature is to increase/maanged the total number of charge/discharge cycles and keep the total capacity as close to original as possible - if you don't care about the number of cycles, or maintaining capacity thermal management can be much more lax…
I'd be very very curious to understand the race team's goals with regards to the battery's life…and if there was any breakthrough in thermals for the battery in this car - or they considered a one-and-done race event and they optimized the car's performance by ignoring battery thermal management - which is fine for a purpose built race car, but doesn't represent an advancement in terms of how to manage sustained high demand applications in the context of a LiON battery.
got it - my Model X doesn't show me that - and my P85D is a pre-ludicrous (I only have Insane mode - LOL) - I'm guessing battery is one aspect, but honestly 10-15 seconds of high load isn' that much wear on the battery - I'm thinking drive train more so than battery is the warning (although Tesla does list the battery) - honestly this doesn't void the warranty and Tesla covers battery and drive train for 8 years/unlimited miles - so I'm not that concerned. - I think this is similar to the warnings about launch control in the Porsche manuals.
No Cup cars, but it did beat the fastest GT3 race car, a 911 GT3 R, by about 1:40m. Not a massive surprise considering the disadvantages on the mountain compared to an electric prototype in terms of CoG, torque, aero, altitude sensitivity... tyres of the I.D. R were probably on another level also.
Some big names in the series, driver and constructor.
Personally, I wish they would augment the sound somehow. That high pitched whine is awful. Doesn't have to sound like ICE...maybe just a woosh? Dunno. New cars coming next year with batteries that last whole race, let's see what they've got.
yeah I know there are electric race cars - I saw an electric Radical at thunder hill over a year ago and talked to the crew/driver who had it there - but so far they have mostly raced among themselves - this is one of the first times I've seen pure electric go against ICE in a pure open competition - still very exciting for EV development - I personally however doubt there is any demonstration here for EV stamina since they were probably not constrained by battery management for longevity of the battery…still it's an amazing accomplishment and I'm very very excited.
I think that we are on the cusp of a massive revolution in the automobile.
Many similarities exist between the demise of the horse and buggy & the transition to ICE. Now the transition to EV...
Having driven a few E cars, I am totally excited to learn about the constant advancement in the technology.
I just hope the new autonomous vehicles can avoid potholes and report pothole size to the authorities responsible for fixing them. ;-)
06-26-2018, 04:43 PM
EV race cars are coming…
