Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead • Hacker News Board

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

#351

Post by mansoor_ » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

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…

Unless someone managed to increase the energy density of battery tech by two orders of magnitude, I don't see pure EV reaching hybrid powertrain performance on most metrics (with obvious exceptions i.e. responsiveness).

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

#352

Post by mansoor_ » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

hvidgaard wrote: post #336

oarsinsync wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mercedes win, not because they also produce the engine, but because they pour nearly half a billion euros into the car It takes more than just throwing money at the problem to win. Otherwise, Red Bull (paying for two teams in full) and Ferrari would be doing a lot better right now.

Mercedes, excluding the engine development, outspend both of those teams. All three outspend the rest of the field by quite some margin.

You can't possibly know that? Ferrari's F1 spend is not public knowledge.

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

#353

Post by mywittyname » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

neor wrote: post #213

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…

I tend to agree with you. The current V6 Turbo engines with advanced Energy Recovery Systems were introduced with two major ideas in mind; 1. It would make Formula 1 engines relevant for road cars. 2. It would attract new manufacturers to the sport. 1. Failed miserably; there is 0 road relevance for F1 engines. 2. Failed miserably; only Honda entered the sport and they are pulling the plug now. Juicy detail; they ext…

1. Find a way to become road relevant again. I'd say the only way to do this is to skip Electric as Formula E is doing this already and go for hydrogen fuel.

F1 cars have more in common with jets than road cars and hydrogen is a dead end technology.

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

#354

Post by TheCondor » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 2:24 PM UTC

exDM69 wrote: post #241

jimbokun wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any good books on F1 technology, data processing or otherwise?

Try Adrian Newey's ghost written memoir "How to Build a Car". It's not a deep dive into technological tidbits, but has got some interesting details about the technology and the development of his cars. To those not familiar, Adrian Newey, currently at Red Bull Racing, is the most successful race car designer by almost any metric. His first championship winning cars were designed in the 1980s (for American racing seri…

How did you digest that book? I admire the heck out of his accomplishments but he seems like maybe not such a great person. Not sure he’d be an interesting dinner guest. All the anti-social stuff of a top sportsman but in a position where he simply doesn’t age out of it and have to be a normal person. Not a bad guy, per se, but not someone who’s life you want your to emulate.

Very interesting read, especially about the dynamics. Winning teams have a focus, they don’t run well by committees (look at Ferrari) the difference between a championship and average season is often in the margins and the spaces between the “rules.”

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

#355

Post by bart_spoon » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #260

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…

> 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…

> If anything my guess is that once they figured out the battery problem so they can go on bigger courses, they will introduce electric vehicles in the Formula 1 and start phasing out Formula E.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Formula E has an exclusive contract with the FIA to be the only series that uses fully electric vehicles until 2039. Formula 1 could only switch to electric vehicles with permission from Formula E, or through some kind of merger. If anything it seems more likely that Formula 1 is the one that gets phased out.

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

#356

Post by ashtonkem » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 2:34 PM UTC

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’ve made up an entire narrative that isn’t supported by the situation. Honda just doesn’t sell cars in Europe, and therefore doesn’t want to spend a ton on a sport that’s primarily popular in Europe.

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

#357

Post by ashtonkem » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 2:36 PM UTC

redwall_hp wrote: post #348

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.

> The metaphorical comparison with XB-70 ends when performance is concerned. F1 hybrids are still far superior to pure battery electric vehicles. So F1 is essentially stuck in the upper-left corner of the price-performance envelope. They are too good to move to pure electric, but their tech is obsolete for road cars.

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

#358

Post by romanoderoma » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 2:43 PM UTC

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…

Honda investments in Europe is almost insignificant and their market share is below 1%.

Honda leaving Formula 1 will have zero effects on the amount of investments in Europe, not to mention it won't have any significance regarding companies reducing investment in Europe.

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

#359

Post by nomad543 » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #117

nomad543 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla didn't kill anything, electric battery technology is old and simple, any car maker can quickly switch to battery. In fact, battery vehicles are orders of magnitude easier to build than ICE vehicles. You talk as if Tesla had invented something extraordinaire. Stop drinking the kool aid.

Can you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? It just degrades discussion and also discredits the true information that you may have to add. Edit: you did it at least three times in this thread ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24683823 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24683862 ) are also not cool. Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended sp…

Flamewar? Maybe you have an extremely low tolerance to anything remotely offensive. Amusingly just last week, people here on HN were bashing the Thai people for supposedly having low tolerance to rudeness when the moderation on HN is apparently much more sensitive.

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

#360

Post by romanoderoma » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

salty_biscuits wrote: post #165

bradlys wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shouldn't F1 cars be about finding the peak of a X engineering problem. For electiric's it's not as much about speed but battery. Maybe having hyper-miler distance races that aren't speed oriented is the sort of pivot F1 should be doing? I know it's not sexy like a fast car moving nimbly among the pack but if car companies can get their tech focused on getting the most distance from a battery then there's the cross…

Plenty of people watch the tour de france, which is basically low powered slow racing. The strategy involved in exploiting aerodynamic gains in the pack is kind of fascinating. Trying to sell it as the same thing is kind of dumb though.

they aren't slow by any standard.

in 2005 Tour De France was completed in 86 hours and 15 minutes at the average speed of ~42km/h

that's very fast for bikes (and probably more dangerous than driving f1 cars, that's what makes it fascinating for cycling fans).