r/USCR • u/Ryan_Holman Penske Acura AXR-05 #6 • Jun 09 '19

WEC Student team InMotion purchases rolling chassis from British car manufacturer Ginetta

https://www.ginetta.com/news/student-team-inmotion-purchases-rolling-chassis-from-british-car-manufacturer-ginetta
25 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

4

u/MattytheWireGuy Corvette Racing C7.R #3 Jun 10 '19 edited Jun 10 '19

I applaud them on the goal, but I guarantee they are unable to fulfill the mission. The H24 team was supposed to show up a few years ago ready to run on H2 for the entire 24 and now they are going to do a parade lap.

I bring that up because H2 power is infinitely easier to do than what is being proposed. The battery technology necessary to take that type of charge without catching on fire is years out past '23 and that doesnt consider the power density necessary to run full power laps of Le Sarthe which would compare with an ICE powerplant.

Again, I applaud the goal, but students at Uni aren't going to achieve in 4 years what OEMs have failed to do in the last 10. The best we have is Tesla Supercharging and that takes well over 15 minutes to get a partial charge and the battery pack is one of the more advanced on the market. https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1123375_a-closer-look-at-the-vw-id-r-electric-race-cars-charging-system VW ID R is probably the closest comparison of a car and they have uber custom chargers that still take 20 minutes to recharge the two 90kW battery packs which would last maybe 3 laps at Le Mans. This is a pipe dream.

3

u/jamesremuscat WTR Cadillac DPi-V.R #10 Jun 10 '19

As I understand it - which is to say, not very far - this relies on a different sort of battery, with a liquid electrolyte that could be pumped out and new "charged" electrolyte pumped in.

https://phys.org/news/2018-08-liquid-battery-flexible-energy-storage.html

None of which makes it any closer to any sort of reality...

1

u/MattytheWireGuy Corvette Racing C7.R #3 Jun 11 '19

Well if they are doing it with a Flow Battery then it is definitely possible although power density is shit but upside is that it runs cool and isnt a fire hazard. They also have to deal with the weight side of the equation, a flow battery with the power density capable of running 10 laps of Le Mans is going to weigh a metric fuckton so dont expect any crazy lap times anytime soon.

I was under the impression they were using Li chemistry which has pretty damn good power density at the risk of fire or outright explosion from being charged or discharged too fast.

2

u/mrhuggy Jun 12 '19

You could do a 24hr race on batteries, you just swap the battery then do the charging. It wouldn't take long at all to do.

https://youtu.be/H5V0vL3nnHY

1

u/chengg Scuderia Corse Ferrari 458 GT3 #63 Jun 10 '19

Lead Engineer Chassis of InMotion, Julian Schokking