Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 403 posts

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#261

Post by jillesvangurp »

nemo44x wrote: post #75

Auto racing will just never be the same. I don’t even think EV racing will evolve the sport. The golden days of auto racing involved real innovation like creating super chargers, turbos, certain efficiencies, and improvements in potting, etc. There was a time when we just didn’t know what could be done to build an engine that could run near the edge without blowing. I don’t think EV will ever have its equivalent. Jus…

People still race horses, just saying. I don't think the entertainment value of driving loud and exciting cars will massively change but it's rapidly becoming a nostalgic thing.

What is changing is that ICE based car racing is becoming merely an expensive hobby rather than a business relevant thing for engine manufacturers to be spending money on. The money is solidly in the EV market. That's where essentially all of the money and profits are.

Now that even super cars are electric and generally outperforming their ICE predecessors on things like horse power, torque, 0-60 acceleration, etc. the glamour kind of is evaporating rapidly for F1 racing. Yes the range of these things sucks. But then their petrol equivalents were never known for their range either. The point is raw performance for however long the engines, tires, and fuel last. Electric at this point is superior on pretty much all fronts.

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#262

Post by rocqua »

fomine3 wrote: post #121
nemo44x wrote: post #75

Auto racing will just never be the same. I don’t even think EV racing will evolve the sport. The golden days of auto racing involved real innovation like creating super chargers, turbos, certain efficiencies, and improvements in potting, etc. There was a time when we just didn’t know what could be done to build an engine that could run near the edge without blowing. I don’t think EV will ever have its equivalent. Jus…

Agreed. EV is relatively simple tech and current restriction is battery's capacity for price/weight/volume. I don't think EV components can get much improvements from racing like ICE engines.

Better kinetic harvesting seems like the main thing to be gained.

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#263

Post by ajsnigrutin »

travisjungroth wrote: post #255
Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expenses. Currently the top spenders are Ferrari and Mercedes. Both spend somewhere around $330 million (US) per year (and Mercedes has spent a total of $1.4 billion over the course of these current engine regs developing their car -- that's just development, not race expenses.). This is a beyond insane figure, but it's worth it to them for the marketing. Meanwhile smaller teams -- the teams you need to actually fill…

Seems harder to regulate spending in racing than other sports. In baseball, it’s pretty much all in athlete salaries. I bet most (if not all) teams have a single player that makes more than the whole coaching, analytics and scouting staff put together. And all these salaries are public. But in racing, so much spending is “off the field”. Seems tough to audit and easy to cheat.

The problem here is also the research costs.

Things, that were only in racing cars years ago, appear now in production cars. Basically, Mercedes can afford to try new things in racing, because it will bring them money in the long run, by selling those new features in their "normal" (road) sports cars. Even if we limit the research costs, some other Mercedes team will work with (eg.) engine optimizations for their production sports cars, and those findings will also find their way to racing.

Even with mainstream car makers (which most of the companies there are), it's easier to develop racing stuff, if you then sell a bunch of very expensive, very fast street-legal cars, than if you sell mostly "normal, working people cars".

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#264

Post by axegon_ »

I think there's more to it than the carbon-free tech for Honda(or any other manufacturer for that matter). F1 is getting eaten from the inside with politics and corruption. It takes a lot of effort to stay out in front. For the past half a decade no one has managed to give Mercedes a run for their money and expecting something to change with the new regulations is a huge leap of faith. Meanwhile costs and complexity is through the roof. Remember when a year or two ago Porsche was considering to supply engines for F1? Sure, they don't have a good record as far as F1 goes, but let's not fool ourselves - the engineers at Porsche are absolute gods when it comes to making small capacity, high power engines and hybrid systems. And realistically the main reason why they decided not to move forward was the huge leap of faith considering the exact complexity and costs I mentioned earlier. So there's a good chance the whole thing isn't paying off for Honda.

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#265

Post by lodovic »

GuB-42 wrote: post #61
JshWright wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, Formula E?

Formula E is entirely unlike how F1 was. The big one is that all drivers drive the same chassis and battery, and with strict regulations regarding the engine. Pilots may as well all drive the same car. They also added Mario Kart style boosts. This is a game, mostly intended to provide entertainment and show off the pilot skills. F1 was as much about constructors as it was about pilots, and in fact, being a pilot was…

Formula E is so slow that they do all their races in street circuits, so they appear to go faster. Totally boring.

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#266

Post by speedgoose »

axegon_ wrote: post #264

I think there's more to it than the carbon-free tech for Honda(or any other manufacturer for that matter). F1 is getting eaten from the inside with politics and corruption. It takes a lot of effort to stay out in front. For the past half a decade no one has managed to give Mercedes a run for their money and expecting something to change with the new regulations is a huge leap of faith. Meanwhile costs and complexity…

I think the main reason was the diesel gate. Volkswagen canceled the project.

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#267

Post by rocqua »

mdoms wrote: post #150

I have a theory that F1 is motorsport for people with no interest in motorsport. You can't possibly watch it for the racing, in a series where 90 minute races routinely end with over 25 seconds between each podium car. Where the fanbase fanatically opposes things like simplified powertrains, simplified aero and control parts, which would all result in far better, closer racing but would (in their minds) erode the pre…

I watch F1 for the drama, the story. It is not a fair battle test of drivers. It is an epic struggle between drivers, teams, manufacturers, and even the F1 organization itself.

It would be nice if the racing were closer. Because closer racing means more of a struggle. But taking away the difference between teams would take away more of the narrative.

Is Verstappen staying with Red-bull now that Honda is gone?

Is replacing Perez with Vettel a good idea. Should it maybe have been Stroll that got replaced?

Does Sainz regret his move to Ferrari next year?

Will Albon get demoted again, will Gasly get promoted again?

Will Williams be stripped for parts and sold now that it is taken over by private equity?

Who would win between Hamilton and Verstappen in a fair fight?

How good is Russel actually?

In a 'fairer' system few to none of the above questions would be as compelling. The last two would even get clear answers, which I think takes much of the fun out of it.

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#268

Post by exDM69 »

whatever1 wrote: post #170
nemo44x wrote: post #75

Auto racing will just never be the same. I don’t even think EV racing will evolve the sport. The golden days of auto racing involved real innovation like creating super chargers, turbos, certain efficiencies, and improvements in potting, etc. There was a time when we just didn’t know what could be done to build an engine that could run near the edge without blowing. I don’t think EV will ever have its equivalent. Jus…

There is also another downside. With an EV you never get to “bond” with the machine. You don’t get the sound feedback from the engine, you don’t get to “feel” its struggle to produce work. Same goes for the spectators. 90% of the incentive to watch live a car racing event is to get to hear the roaring sounds. Not sure what can be done in the EV world to approach that.

> 90% of the incentive to watch live a car racing event is to get to hear the roaring sounds

Modern F1 cars are quite silent. I went to a Grand Prix last year, and the loudest trackside noise I heard all weekend was the sound of punctured tyres slapping against the road when the drivers were limping it to the pits.

F2 engines were a bit louder, but not by much. Ear protection was not needed.

Formula E sounds kinda cool in its own way, the sound is like some sci-fi space craft from the Star Wars universe passing by.

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#269

Post by rocqua »

TeeMassive wrote: post #127

Call me cynical but I doubt all those companies claiming they'll go "green" or "100% electric" in X years really do that for the environment or are really serious about it. There is no economical reason to do so dude to the fact that electric cars cost too much, mainly due to the batteries for which the price can only increase if there is a market of a billion users. And except for the high end market which Tesla occ…

I think that there is a decent chance this might happen. If at the highest decision making levels we finally start taking global warming seriously, this kind of move makes a lot of sense. Similarly, we are moving towards a situation where the majority opinion could actually turn against ICEs.

It seems highly forward thinking to me. There are big barriers sure, but there are also some really big forces that will be pushing this. There are also some relevant tipping points that might happen, where it makes sense to make electric the default just because so many other things are already electric.

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#270

Post by axegon_ »

speedgoose wrote: post #266
axegon_ wrote: post #264

I think there's more to it than the carbon-free tech for Honda(or any other manufacturer for that matter). F1 is getting eaten from the inside with politics and corruption. It takes a lot of effort to stay out in front. For the past half a decade no one has managed to give Mercedes a run for their money and expecting something to change with the new regulations is a huge leap of faith. Meanwhile costs and complexity…

I think the main reason was the diesel gate. Volkswagen canceled the project.

Nah, diesel gate was 2009. The idea for supplying engines to F1 was after Porsche retired from LMP1 in 2017 or 2018. Afaik the idea was to substitute LMP1 for the outrageous costs involved(despite their 3 consecutive world titles) and put the effort into building F1 engines.
Post reply on HN