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Comment by jmartin2683 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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).

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.

Oh yeah F1 teams will magically outdo the energy density that chemists, physicists, and material scientists have spent decades achieving with battery technology.

I think F1 teams would figure out how to change batteries fast and recharge them off-track. Mechanical replacement is the only way to rapidly renew the energy density without new chemistry (like you allude).

Just imagine that the same manufacturers who are in F1, are in FE. And they haven't figured it out.

The technology is there already if money isn’t an object which is what being part of F1 will do.

If nothing else, replacing a better in under 4 seconds seems completely doable.

That's one hell of a claim. 24 Hours of Le Mans was this month. How long until that's even feasible to complete in a BEV?

Additionally, Goodwood has a 150mph speed limit, so the pinnacle of petrol cars can't even attempt it.

To be fair, the petrol cars refuel every 45 minutes or so. I don't think a battery could make it this far (especially if they were swappable), but I imagine periodic battery swaps would be feasible.

I imagine that eventually batteries could be recharged wirelessly, just by driving on certain patches of road, ala F-Zero. :)

We'll probably get there even for road vehicles in the next few decades.

That would be incredibly inefficient, with any sort of road clearance, and incredibly expensive. I don't think it would ever make sense to put that much copper down into the road, unless it's to power something like a third rail.

> sufficiently supplied with everything it needs to function

That's a large caveat in a performance context, as the battery that does that equates to "for 10-20 minutes" at the moment. But exciting none the less!

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.

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.

Yes, but it's still true that the cost of forgetting to charge is just way too expensive (currently).

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.

It's funny that every boomer is an emergency trombone repair person, but in the real world people just start every day with a full battery.

Well, you're being overly protective here. I think this problem should NOT be downplayed, because it can create a whole new industry in the future - automated charging or self charging or whatever. It's simply that the BEV market isn't big nor mature enough to allow scalable (widely-compatible) solutions.

> It's simply that the BEV market isn't big nor mature enough to allow scalable (widely-compatible) solutions.

I don't have the latest statistics from here, but I just read that in the neighboring country over 80% of the new vehicles (90+% of the private vehicles) this year have been BEVs. It's a solved problem.

Perhaps there are better charging networks over there? If you're in the US, you're basically restricted to Tesla, if you want to travel freely.

As long as you limit "performance" to the context of "racing" and not "extreme environments" or "heavy industry"...both having mission-critical "performance" requirements where EVs utterly fail.

What are you talking about? Electric cars are completely uncompetitive in the majority of races. EVs have a handful of high-profile victories, which are noteworthy precisely because they are rare. It is doubtful they will ever be competitive in endurance events (like Le Mans) without radically new designs.

>There’s no metric by which an electric motor, sufficiently supplied with everything it needs to function, doesn’t embarrass them.

There is no way a snail, sufficiently supplied with a speedboat, doesn't embarrass Michael Phelps.

Power and cooling are the hard parts. You can't just take them as given.

If you wanted to run the 24 hours of Spa on electric cars even with perfect Regen you'd have to bring a spare nuclear power station.

considering how paltry electric vehicle range is...

Yeah, only 650km. So paltry. And if you actually owned an EV, you'd know range isn't an issue, even on road trips. ;)

> range isn't an issue, even on road trips.

I own an electric vehicle, and range is an issue, since I don't have access to the Tesla charging network. I have to take my gas car when traveling to my mom's house (California to Colorado). Even within California, I've been stuck in remote places on level 2 chargers too many times to take it more than 40% from home, without some serious planning.

I assume you own a Tesla? ;)

Yeah, every EV has a 650km range.

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