Advancing Technology: The Electric Racecar

Last year, I attended the first Formula E race in Long Beach. I don't recall how I knew about it. I arrived in time to see the High School team race, and participate in the excitement before and after the race. Pretty cool, I thought. The idea was to give the high schools a starting point, then let the teams go from there.

This year's race is on Saturday, April 2nd, all day long, in Long Beach, CA.

Today I am finding out about the Formula E race and about the racecar development that the High School program parallels. It's not about the race. It's about the opportunity for inspiration for technology that the race provides.

The race is run by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile. This is the same agency that governs the Formula One races.

The FIA Formula-E Championship is a design challenge for a new level of electric car development.

The format is inspired.

The race teams needed a place to start, so the FIA Formula E team gave them one. The Spark-Renault SRT_01E was the year 1 car adopted in 2015. I quote heavily from the FIA Formula E website:

"In the first season of Formula E, all 10 teams used identical single-seater cars – designed and built by Spark Racing Technology (Spark-Renault SRT_01E) together with the expertise from McLaren, Williams, Dallara, Renault and Michelin."

It is a car of ultra light, ultra strong materials, designed to withstand the FIA crash tests which parallel Formula One crash tests. It is a collaboration of many of the same companies that design and build the Formula One racecars and their components.

But year 1 was (literally), just the beginning.

This year, teams and manufacturers have been permitted to develop their own cars.

"For season two, Formula E becomes an open championship allowing teams, and manufacturers, to develop their cars. This will begin with the development of new powertrain solutions - incorporating the e-motor, inverter and transmission – with future regulation changes allowing for battery development."

We all want to know about the battery.

How fun is this? It has to be fast, it has to be powered by battery, which development has limited electric car range and therefore the development of all-electric automobile solutions. If you build the need, will someone then find the solution?

But there are more questions, that poking around at the FIA Formula-E website brings out.

• It's a Formula race. How fast did the 2015 cars go? In Long Beach? Anywhere?
  
• How many teams evolved their own powertrain solutions this year?
• Did I miss my chance at documenting the "real" 2015 race? (I know I did).
• How fast do the new cars go?
• Were there any crashes in the 2015 race?
• What does that battery look like? Is it ginormous? What's it made of? How far will it take the Electric Racecar?
• Is any of this technology applicable to consumer electric cars? Oh, maybe not today.... but someday?
  

Pretty exciting stuff!

If you want to check out the High School team videos that I took, here's a "before the race" video. Here's the race itself.

Trish Tsoi-A-Sue is a creative facilitator in the Long Beach area. Certified in LEGO® Serious Play, she is the President of ETES Inc, and creator of Makersville, a community of makers. Trish is the Ambassador for the Long Beach LEGO® User Group, a group of AFOLs and Teen Fans of LEGO® (TFOLs). Join our facebook group! Some of her random experiences are recorded on her You Tube channel, Squigglemom! Please subscribe! She often writes about LEGO, her birth country of Trinidad and about Makers and Making things.