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Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

arstechnica.com

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

#341

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

PedroBatista wrote: post #298
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a few years battery electric vehicles will get to the performance levels of current F1 hybrids, but by that time the mantle of the pinnacle of auto-racing will have been taken by FormulaE I strongly doubt that Formula E will be a drop-in replacement for Formula 1. It's a completely different (and unfortunately so far very boring) replacement for Formula 1. If anything my guess is that once they figured out the b…

These days the only thing more boring than formula 1 is formula e. It’s the political correct one, we all know what everyone is thinking but nobody tell :)

Right now maybe, but in 30 years I'm sure electric vehicles are going to be more interesting than ICE ones.

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

#342

Post by logicOnly »

knute wrote: post #328
davewritescode wrote: post #321

I just want to point out that this headline is wrong and out of date already. After pulling out of F1, Honda has announced that they're going to be an engine supplier for Indycar. Technically, it's a different division of Honda (Honda USA) but this greenwashing of why they left F1 leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They're leaving because they're not successful and they're dumping a bunch of money in the sport. Edit: I…

Also because the F1 audience is strongly concentrated in Europe, where Honda's market share is miniscule. Contrasted with Indycar, which is US-based, where Honda has a much larger presence.

Interesting to hear about a major international company reducing their investments in Europe.

"European pessimism" is this weird common knowledge about the decline of Europe. It's been written about in I, Robot. There is population decline but their GDP numbers look on-par with the United States.

It's the major/minor events rather than numbers that seem to push this mindset of inevitable decline.

Is it bad government policy? Or culture?

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

#343

Post by anticensor »

gpm wrote: post #76
snuxoll wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Formula E also has a monopoly on FIA sanctioned all-electric single seater racing for 25 seasons, so F1 cannot go full EV until 2039 at minimum unless contracts get renegotiated. Will be interesting to see what happens to F1 as a result, Indycar as well. Petrolheads can whine about electric racing all they want, but engine suppliers are losing interest in making gas engines when the consumer market is in a shift away…

Could the Formula One Group just abandon the FIA or is that also forbidden by contract?

They would lose all their financing :=

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

#344

Post by piva00 »

logicOnly wrote: post #342
knute wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also because the F1 audience is strongly concentrated in Europe, where Honda's market share is miniscule. Contrasted with Indycar, which is US-based, where Honda has a much larger presence.

Interesting to hear about a major international company reducing their investments in Europe. "European pessimism" is this weird common knowledge about the decline of Europe. It's been written about in I, Robot. There is population decline but their GDP numbers look on-par with the United States. It's the major/minor events rather than numbers that seem to push this mindset of inevitable decline. Is it bad government…

I think you are reading too much into this, Honda is just not as big in Europe as they are in the US, investment in F1 is a major investment for any car company, even more manufacturing engines that won't translate to their future engineering advancements in consumer products so it's a matter of investment in technology vs brand awareness/exposure, which for Honda in Europe doesn't make sense.

To extrapolate that to a decline of Europe in terms of "European pessimism" is... Quite a leap.

Even more as there is no definition of what "decline" you are meaning here, if it's for green technology I can definitely tell there isn't a decline in Europe, if it's cultural that is a much bigger topic (and much fuzzier) to talk about.

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

#345

Post by kube-system »

davewritescode wrote: post #338
kube-system wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After pulling out of F1, Honda has announced that they're going to be an engine supplier for Indycar. Honda has been a supplier for engines in Indycar for decades

You're correct, but as far as I knew they hadn't committed to building a new engine for the hybrid rules coming in 2023. As of yesterday, they had committed long term. Thanks for pointing it out, I'm not an indycar fan and I just saw the announcement that they were building a new hybrid. The point still stands, Honda isn't leaving F1 to focus on green tech, it's leaving because they're burning money and not seeing an…

>Honda isn't leaving F1 to focus on green tech, it's leaving because they're burning money and not seeing any return.

Really, both are technically true. But you'd be a pretty bad PR representative if you phrased your announcement to emphasize the latter.

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

#346

Post by aloukissas »

davewritescode wrote: post #321

I just want to point out that this headline is wrong and out of date already. After pulling out of F1, Honda has announced that they're going to be an engine supplier for Indycar. Technically, it's a different division of Honda (Honda USA) but this greenwashing of why they left F1 leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They're leaving because they're not successful and they're dumping a bunch of money in the sport. Edit: I…

Yup, right on. Mercedes Petronas has been destroying everyone.

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

#347

Post by nihonde »

piva00 wrote: post #344
logicOnly wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting to hear about a major international company reducing their investments in Europe. "European pessimism" is this weird common knowledge about the decline of Europe. It's been written about in I, Robot. There is population decline but their GDP numbers look on-par with the United States. It's the major/minor events rather than numbers that seem to push this mindset of inevitable decline. Is it bad government…

I think you are reading too much into this, Honda is just not as big in Europe as they are in the US, investment in F1 is a major investment for any car company, even more manufacturing engines that won't translate to their future engineering advancements in consumer products so it's a matter of investment in technology vs brand awareness/exposure, which for Honda in Europe doesn't make sense. To extrapolate that to…

I think you’re right. Honda isn’t even very popular in Japan. Distant second place behind Toyota, I think. Their mindshare here seems even less.

When I lived in America, Honda was much more of a trusted brand there. Detroit went after them hard via the Takata defect, so I’m not sure about now.

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

#348

Post by redwall_hp »

sumanthvepa wrote: post #78

F1's problem is that it is a technological marvel that is simultaneously obsolete. Like the XB-71 Valkyrie project of the US AirForce, the technology powering modern F1 hybrid power trains is just outstandingly brilliant. However, just like the XB-71 was made obsolete by the advent of ICBMs, the hybrid power train's future for road cars has been overtaken by the advent of Tesla and battery electric vehicles. The meta…

Not really. Electric vehicles are absolute junk for racing still, hence the underwhelming nature of Formula E. Battery based vehicles are insanely heavy and lack the ability to corner. That's not going to change anytime soon.

You're not likely to see an electric WRC car either.

Real racing isn't going fast in a straight line. It's decided in the turns.

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

#349

Post by spaetzleesser »

mhh__ wrote: post #166
spaetzleesser wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a lot of crazy development in the 80s and early 90s with carbon fibre, aerodynamics, turbos, automatic gearboxes and active suspension. I think from mid 90s on a lot of innovation got killed by regulation.

There is orders of magnitude more engineering-hours put into a car these days but it has to be through very narrow directions. Ideally you want rules that allow smaller teams to come up with mad ideas and not big teams but it's not feasible for the sport. This is why they have finally managed to bring in the cost cap.

I think the mad ideas are missing from F1 these days. They put a lot of effort into polishing small details but what made F1 exciting in the past were big things like six wheelers, ground effect, turbo vs non turbo, active suspension and so on.

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

#350

Post by SkyMarshal »

imtringued wrote: post #232
sumanthvepa wrote: post #78

F1's problem is that it is a technological marvel that is simultaneously obsolete. Like the XB-71 Valkyrie project of the US AirForce, the technology powering modern F1 hybrid power trains is just outstandingly brilliant. However, just like the XB-71 was made obsolete by the advent of ICBMs, the hybrid power train's future for road cars has been overtaken by the advent of Tesla and battery electric vehicles. The meta…

The largest problem is that it's incredibly easy to build a car faster than any human can reasonably control. This has lead to so many accidents and rule changes that F1 racing is a wholly artificial sport in terms of engineering.

It would be really interesting to see a version of F1 with self-driving AI, to see if that would allow them to exceed the design limits imposed by human drivers.
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