back to article 'Leccy racer whacks petrols in Oz race

An Australian EV bearing the name ELMOFO has beaten petrol-powered competitors in an officially-sanctioned race – twice. Ahead of the FIA Formula E race in China in September, a battery-powered car managed three feats at a meet for the NSW SuperSports State Championship: it won two out of three heats against petrol-powered …

  1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge
    Coat

    Torque

    570 nanomoles?!

    1. Evil Auditor Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Torque

      nah, that'd be "nM"

  2. Joe 48

    Impressive

    Sounds really nice. Very odd with no gear changes though.

    1. dan1980

      Re: Impressive

      Sounds perfect, then.

    2. clanger9

      Re: Impressive

      Blimey, that is one quick car!

      Radical V8s are jaw-droppingly quick off the line to start with - the way it screams past the V8s from the start is very impressive...

  3. jake Silver badge

    That's nice.

    Can one of it's siblings get me, the wife & a couple of whippets, towing a three-horse-slant trailer (empty on the way out, full on the way back), from Sonoma to Solvang California and back in under half a day?

    Until then, don't call me. I'm not interested, I live in the real world. Energy density in batteries will never be useful for over-the-road transport, outside of "look at me" vanity crap.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: That's nice.

      I agree. I'm also curious as to whether the title should be "More powerful electric car beats less powerful petrol car". Which isn't news really.

    2. phuzz Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: That's nice.

      Is there *any* race car that can do any of that?

      If you're looking for an electric vehicle to carry lots of people, dogs and cargo, at least compare your current car to something like this: http://www.smithelectric.com/smith-vehicles/models-and-configurations/

      Which doesn't have the range you need, but can probably do everything else. Unlike a race car.

      1. Vic

        Re: That's nice.

        Is there *any* race car that can do any of that?

        The Bowler Wildcat might...

        Vic.

    3. monkeyfish

      Re: That's nice.

      But a hybrid could. And if you have a second household car that (typically for second household cars) rarely travels outside of the immediate surrounding area where you live, a full electric makes a lot of sense.

      Ah, but you assume that because your use case doesn't work with a full electric, clearly it cannot possibly fit anyone else's. Dick.

    4. MJI Silver badge

      Re: That's nice.

      I am trying to work out if this is sarcasm or not, I do hope so.

      1. Martin Budden Silver badge

        Re: That's nice. @ MJI

        I am trying to work out if this is sarcasm or not, I do hope so.

        Nope, jake doesn't do sarcasm. Pompous self-aggrandising fictitious claptrap yes, sarcasm no.

    5. Alan Edwards

      Re: That's nice.

      > Sonoma to Solvang California and back in under half a day?

      Assuming your use the rest of the time is within the electric range, buy a Focus Electric (or Leaf, whatever) and hire a Suburban for the weekend when you need to drag the horse trailer around.

      The fuel you didn't buy the other 363 days will probably pay for the hire...

    6. NumptyScrub
      Trollface

      Re: That's nice.

      quote: "Can one of it's siblings get me, the wife & a couple of whippets, towing a three-horse-slant trailer (empty on the way out, full on the way back), from Sonoma to Solvang California and back in under half a day?"

      It also wouldn't be able to replace my network of freight locomotives, and I couldn't use it in place of my hovercraft fleet either. When will people realise that electric racecars just aren't useful outside of a racetrack?

      1. Robert Helpmann??
        Childcatcher

        Re: That's nice.

        When will people realise that electric racecars just aren't useful outside of a racetrack?

        About the same time they realize that race cars in general are not useful outside a racetrack.

    7. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: That's nice.

      Even your average everyday car wont do that, no matter what it was powered by. It is too light. The only sort of vehicle capable of such a thing would be one of the full sized pickups (just) or a truck. Your tow vehicle should be twice the weight of what you are towing, there aren't many vehicles that people use everyday that weigh more than 4 tons (my guesstimate of the total weight of your rig fully loaded is 2 tons minimum) in fact the vast majority if cars don't even tip the scales at more than 2tons.

      This is a race car not a tow car for abusing your horses by sending them on a 340Mile journey couped up in a tiny box just so that you can amuse yourself by riding around a Danish based theme town.

    8. Parax

      Jake, You'll be wanting one like this?

      I think this one meets your needs, anything else?

    9. Asylum Sam

      Re: That's nice.

      Your response brings to mind the Babbage quote, only with the nationality reversed.

      <quote>Propose to an Englishman any principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the English mind is directed to find a difficulty, a defect, or an impossibility in it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible: if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple. Impart the same principle or show the same machine to an American or to one of our Colonists, and you will observe that the whole effort of his mind is to find some new application of the principle, some new use for the instrument. </quote>

    10. Graham Marsden
      FAIL

      @jake - Re: That's nice.

      I bet you told Wilbur and Orville that they were wasting their time too...

    11. dan1980

      Re: That's nice.

      @jake

      Although everything that needs to be said probably already has been, I would like to add my own pennies.

      The point I would make, primarily, is that this car is not designed to test or advance the science of battery energy density.

      Petrol/diesel is a phenomenal fuel source from the point of view of energy density and internal combustion engines have been developed over many decades to take advantage of that energy to provide excellent performance.

      Unfortunately, there are a few fairly downsides to it. It is also a limit resources that is not getting any more plentiful, much of what is left is to be found in countries whose ideologies do not accord with our western ones and, it is rather bad for the air quality*.

      The ideal propulsion system for a vehicle should have the following properties:

      • Plentiful
      • Cheap
      • Good energy density
      • Good performance
      • Available for all nations and not able to be hoarded and exploited by a select few

      While conventional fuel will always provide good energy density and thus good performance, it is steadily decreasing in availability and affordability.

      Electric power - in whatever guise - one the other hand, is increasing in all these areas - it is increasing in performance, increasing in energy density, increasing in availability and increasing in affordability.

      Different groups and different projects and companies are focusing on different areas. Sports car makers are proving that pure electric power can match and even exceed traditional power in certain applications and they are widening all the time. Researchers are developing new battery technologies to increases density, reduce cost, improve reliability, decrease weight - sometimes all at once.

      To say, flat, that "energy density in batteries will never be useful for over-the-road transport" is not only stupendously short-sighted, it is largely missing the point.

      As things stand, right now, electric vehicles and even hybrids are on average more expensive over the life of the car than a petrol/diesel car. As batteries become more efficient, more durable and cheaper (which is exactly what is happening) and petrol becomes more expensive (which is exactly what is happening), this equation slides towards electric power.

      You may find that electric cars will actually be the saviour of 'traditional' fuels, preserving dwindling oil reserves for those applications that are harder to address with electric power as it stands - like air travel or heavy lorries. That seems pretty "useful" to me.

      * - Whatever your position on 'global warming' or the environment in general, there is no denying that car exhaust is less than stellar for humans to breath in.

  4. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

    Come back

    when a leccycar wins the Le Mans 24hours

    1. MJI Silver badge

      Re: Come back

      They do in the Scaletrix version

    2. Bastage

      Re: Come back

      The top LMP1 competitors are all running hybrids.

  5. loudsx

    What's with the video?

    Your showing a race at Sydney motorsport park, yet the article is about a race at wakefield park?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What's with the video?

      The article says the video is from an earlier meet. Added "Sydney" to text to make this clearer

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: What's with the video?

        But still looks like I'm watching a computer simulation :-)

        The speed of motion and the video compression blur the sidelines and scenery so much that just doesn't look quite real.

        On the driving style, back in the day when I played Pole Position or Revs, running over the kerbs was always a massive speed penalty yet whenever I see a FPP from a race car they seem to ride the kerbs and run-offs at every corner.

    2. Martin Budden Silver badge
      Go

      Re: What's with the video?

      And for those outside Oz who are unfamiliar: Wakefield is a *serious* racetrack. A win there is a proper win. Good on the team!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What a handful

    That car oversteers too much even with hot tires. The better cars in front just left him behind as a result.

    As far as the EV saga is concerned, there are places where EVs make since but they are currently only useful for city driving. Larger trucks could make electrics work but nothing is free and recharging costs money just like buying petrol. About all EVs have going for them at the moment is perceived reduced emissions but when you look at the toxic battery production and disposal, EVs are not the savior they are made out to be.

    1. theOtherJT Silver badge

      Re: What a handful

      Well, no, they've got instant torque and gearshiftless acceleration going for them too. Also that whole "one moving part" thing in the drive train is nice, that ditches a ton of associated efficiency losses.

      Like most things the problem is a matter of how to move energy around from where we make it to where we need it. What this proves is that we can turn electricity into car-like motion really quite effectively as long as the power source holds up.

      Now what we need is to sic a whole load of researchers on the bits where the technology isn't there yet. Fast charging, long life, high capacity batteries would be excellent for everyone, not just cars, but it's pretty much "pick any two" at the moment.

      1. MeRp

        Re: What a handful

        "pick any two" - except, don't pick fast charging... because even the fastest charging are not fast charging when compared to refueling an ICE vehicle.

        1. theOtherJT Silver badge

          Re: What a handful

          There are some experimental battery technologies in the lab that can take a full charge - even a pretty hefty charge - in about 30 seconds. The problem is they tend to do it a couple of times then pack up, thus rather failing the "long lasting" bit.

  7. Jacques Kruger
    Pint

    What a handful indeed

    Imagine the speed if that car had a driver that could find an apex...

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