{"id":2688,"date":"2016-02-05T08:23:42","date_gmt":"2016-02-05T00:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/?p=2688"},"modified":"2016-02-05T08:23:42","modified_gmt":"2016-02-05T00:23:42","slug":"its-prost-v-senna-again-and-this-time-the-racing-really-is-electric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/its-prost-v-senna-again-and-this-time-the-racing-really-is-electric\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Prost v Senna again \u2013 and this time the racing really is electric"},"content":{"rendered":"

Memories of the battle Prost vs Senna in the 80s flashing back …<\/p>\n

The following article is taken from\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0.<\/p>\n

\"Brazilian-driver-Lucas-di-009\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Brazilian driver Lucas di Grassi competes in the Formula E ninth round in Moscow earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Photograph: Maxim Shemetov\/Reuters<\/p>\n

E<\/span><\/span>verything seems familiar. Piquet, Prost and Senna are all just millimetres off the ground in state-of-the-art racing cars, their breakneck speed round the track being watched by millions. But something is missing: the roar of engines.<\/p>\n

This is Formula E, the nascent form of motor racing coming to Battersea Park in London next weekend for the conclusion of its inaugural championship. Staged in 10 cities and featuring Nelson Piquet Jr, Bruno Senna (nephew of Ayrton) and Nicolas Prost (son of Alain), the championship is a showcase for the potential of the electric car. But despite the famous names, and the $100m that Formula E CEO Alejandro Agag says it has cost to launch, many people may know little about a competition that held its first race in Beijing only last September.<\/p>\n

This, however, will change, Agag believes. \u201cWe are having an amazing response because of one factor \u2013 we race in the city centres,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we were racing on a track 50 or 100km from London, no one would come to the race. Instead we already sold over 50,000 tickets [for London] because we bring the show to the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Agag, who has a background in Formula 1 sponsorship, admits that when the idea of creating a world championship for electric cars was floated, few thought it would succeed. But races in Miami, Monaco and Berlin all sold out. Agag said Formula E is already producing \u201csignificant revenues\u201d. \u201cMany people didn\u2019t think we were going to make it,\u201d he said. \u201cThe first race was a surprise for many. Now we have great momentum, great sponsors; it\u2019s a fantastic achievement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike Formula 1, Formula E offers drivers a level playing field on which to compete. The cars, which have a top speed of 140mph, and are capable of accelerating from 0 to 60mph in three seconds, are all built by the same consortium. During the 11-lap races, drivers racing on all 10 teams will make a mandatory pit stop to change vehicle.<\/p>\n

This homogeneity is attractive to fans who fret that motor sport has become dominated by the wealthier teams. As Nicolas Prost, a driver for Renault, told a recent TedGlobalLondon<\/a> audience, the difference in Formula E is made \u201cby engineers and drivers, not by money\u201d.<\/p>\n

To others, though, the real attraction of Formula E lies not in the spectacle, but in what it promises to deliver to the wider world. Sir Richard Branson, owner of the Virgin Racing team, currently in sixth place in the championship, believes the sport will push the development of electric road cars, with significant consequences for global health. \u201cWe spend a lot of time these days looking to a world that is carbon neutral by 2050, and unless you have sports like Formula E we will never get there,\u201d Branson said in an interview posted on the team\u2019s website. \u201cIt\u2019s a tremendously exciting aim and Formula E will pioneer technology that will be used on normal road cars. I hope 10 years from now the smell of exhaust from cars will be a thing of the past, much like the smell of cigarettes in restaurants.\u201d There is an irony at work here. A new version of a sport that helped glamourise smoking is now helping normalise the idea of cities free from petrol fumes.<\/p>\n

As the Virgin Racing team explains in its mission statement: \u201cIt is now proven that pollution in cities is directly linked to the increase of cancer and other lung diseases. It is critical that we move the pollution from tailpipes away from cities to the power plants where electricity is generated.\u201d<\/p>\n

This, Agag argues, was the reason Formula E was established. \u201cWe saw that it was time to reinvent motor sport in a sustainable way. Now, for anything to be relevant, you have to be doing something for the environment, the planet. Our aim is for all the cars in the world to be electric one day. We think that by showing them racing, you can change people\u2019s perception of electric cars.\u201d<\/p>\n

They have their work cut out. The first battery-powered vehicles were produced in the 19th century but they have yet to become popular \u2013 despite the fact they that are far more efficient than conventional forms of propulsion. A car with an internal combustion engine has an average energy efficiency of 25%, because large amounts are lost on vibration and noise. Pure electric cars, however, have an average energy efficiency of 80%.<\/p>\n

Agag believes Formula E can drive this message home, especially by reaching out to the younger generation. Formula E includes a feature called \u201cFanboost\u201d, that gives spectators a chance to vote, via the website and social media, for drivers to receive a five-second surge of extra power during their race. Petrolheads will shudder at such innovation, but Agag is unapologetic about who it is aimed at. \u201cIt makes it really interactive. The young fans love it. We want to convince the kids to buy electric cars.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just kids in the western world, either. \u201cGeographically, city locations are key for us,\u201d Agag said. \u201cWe want to make it global so we have to be everywhere. We look at different cities \u2013 some in Europe, some in Asia, some in South America. We\u2019re also looking at Africa and maybe Australia. We want as wide a coverage as possible.\u201d Ultimately, the aim is to turn the championship into a laboratory that will yield benefits for the motor industry as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of lessons that can be learned that can then be applied to road cars,\u201d Agag said. \u201cAfter nine races we already have so much data on the regeneration of energy and energy recovery and that is something that can be applied to batteries that are now being manufactured for road cars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Improving the battery life of electric cars is the industry\u2019s holy grail. Tim Lawrence, head of global manufacturing at PA Consulting Group<\/a>, which advises some of the largest motor manufacturers, acknowledges that \u201cthe marketing and the hype around the Formula E circuit will help develop momentum in the electric vehicle market\u201d and build on the recent high-profile launches of electric cars produced by the likes of BMW and Tesla.<\/p>\n

But Lawrence suggests that whether the industry succeeds willl depend on how it tackles \u201cbattery range anxiety\u201d. Many electric car batteries can now be fully charged in less than an hour, but they still cannot power a vehicle for a reasonably long distance. \u201cBattery range is the biggest challenge,\u201d he said. \u201cCurrently it\u2019s something like 100 to 130km. You really need to get over the 200 mark.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the moment, electric cars account for only between 1% and 2% of the market. This is not where manufacturers thought they would be by now.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdoption has been very slow,\u201d Lawrence said. \u201cThe Nissan Leaf has sold only something like 10,000 cars across the whole of Europe. I\u2019ve been talking with Renault and Peugeot over the last 12 to 18 months and it\u2019s been highly disappointing for them. Their expectations were much higher than the market has delivered.\u201d How governments embrace the new technology will be equally, if not more, important than whether motor sport helps to popularise it, Lawrence believes. \u201cSome countries, such as Norway, offer significant tax incentives. As a result, their [electric car] adoption rates have been much higher.\u201d<\/p>\n

But few struggling carmakers, which remain ambivalent about electric vehicles, are likely to welcome such initiatives when they have petrol and diesel powered vehicles to sell. \u201cAt the moment a lot of economies are recovering from a long recession,\u201d Lawrence said. \u201cCarmakers are very much in the mindset of selling product rather than pushing technology.\u201d Indeed, it would be a brave CEO of a motor manufacturer who bet heavily on an electric future when other forms of sustainable propulsion, such as hydrogen, are entering the market.<\/p>\n

And perhaps this is where Formula E can really help shape the future, for only in the first year of the championship are the cars identical. From next year, manufacturers will be allowed to start modifying designs. And the year after, they will be able to fit their own choice of battery. In time, the championship could become the battleground where technologies compete to see which can best replace the combustion engine. \u201cI would like the FIA [motor sport\u2019s governing body] to include anything that can power an electric motor 100%,\u201d Agag said. \u201cSo it could be hydrogen, it could be super capacitors; we are looking at everything.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Memories of the battle Prost vs Senna in the 80s flashing back … The following article is taken from\u00a0here\u00a0. Brazilian driver Lucas di Grassi competes in the Formula E ninth round in Moscow earlier this month. Photograph: Maxim Shemetov\/Reuters Everything seems familiar. Piquet, Prost and Senna are all just millimetres off the ground in state-of-the-art […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6477,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6477"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}