To have all of it working together in racing mode is a really big job and we had to develop a lot of strategies completely from scratch. The possibilities with that technology are breathtaking.
What kind of infrastructure or onsite track do you envisage to make these cars reliable?
I don´t see any problem in reliability as for now. Of course, the charging structure for the batteries is a challenge, but surely we
need to reconsider everything around the races as well, not only the drivetrain itself. Parc fermes with inductive charging possibility, Pit Lanes with inductive charging, there are so many possibilities and challenges around EV propulsion and it doesn´t even have to be battery powered. EV technology will change the entire motorsport world!
Currently, the cars work with two motors, which I suspect would give an advantage in
cornering. You’ve mentioned that four motors is on the cards – do you plan to introduce torque vectoring technology?
The 2 Motor solution (each axel a Motor and a LSD) is very comparable with an actual internal combustion engine powered race car from the handling point of view and instead of having a mechanical center differential we use the superb possibilities of the E-motor controllability to freely decide upon the delivered torque on each axle.
For the 4 motor project we are in a 3 years government funded project to develop torque vectoring control strategies for exactly the case where you have a full sequential torque control possibility with 4 individual motors. In that project we have a cooperation with the department of vehicle dynamics at the Technical University of Vienna and are mid-way with the project start having taken place in january 2016.
Torque vectoring is where huge potential can be unleashed especially in high performance and racing applications of EV dirvetrains.
You plan to introduce energy recovery. How effective to you think this will be in a rally environment?
We have it already in the Hiper MK1 however at the moment only by driver input. In rally conditions an automatic energy recovery function is particularly difficult to develop because of the always changing surface conditions (weather, debris,…). However this makes it particularly interesting, as the technology we work on, which is also related to the torque vectoring research project, could be extremely useful for road car torque and safety systems like e.g. VSC especially in “low-mu” (mu = friction coefficient) situations.
One would expect a substancial increase in torque with the electric drivetrain. Do you think this will have a significant impact on the spectacle of Rallycross?
As we know electric race cars polarize the audience a lot, which happens always when new, entirely different technologies are introduced. Take Audi in LeMas for example. The diesel motor doesn´t exactly sound nice generally, but still made a fantastic “career”. Today we enjoy cars with power but more over we like the noise, tomorrow I am sure the spectators will be impressed by the massive torque/Power output you mention, but also the futuristic noise of high performance electric motors.
You’ve mentioned that the torque output would potentially make a co-driver sick in a rally sprint situation. Would de-tuning these cars be an option is such circumstances or place an impetus on the abilities of the co-driver?
I am not worry, as well as drivers adapt to these cars also co-driver will do and the de-tuning on Rally cars will come automatically with the energy management.
The format of rallycross seems well-suited to electric technology - enabling crews to change battery packs without impacting on the competition like in Formula E?
Fairly saying RX is 110% perfect for E-Racing but also other E competitions will manage sooner or later that the batteries change or charging has no effect in the race.
Images: STARD