Rally Discussion and Bar Talk Thread

[PLuto]

Manufacturers as well as public try to extrapolate what people will buy and manus will make in 10 years based on a few months of sales differences.

That can bring totally crazy results both ways. Some people (often outside of automotive) predicted that everyone will only buy EVs in 5-10 years. Similarly some people (often those that have 0 EV experience) predict that there won't be any EVs in 5-10 years.

The result will be somewhere in between. If regulations stay about the same I expect something like 50/50 for BEV vs others (incl Hybrids) in Europe in 10 years. Here in Norway it's 80/20 for quite some time now and I don't see it changing more than 5-10 percent either way.

What is mentioned in the Dirtfish article is that right now (last 3 months) EV sales globally have slowed down, so some manus found out that they might not have anything (new) to offer outside of EVs in the very near future and are re-routing some money to other drivetrains. Whether that is temporary fix or permanent is close to impossible to predict at the moment.

With current technology of batteries, charging, infrastructure etc, it is nonsense for EV to be majority on the market. This is very simple. If the technology will change or there will be big development, then we can talk about changes... And yes, I have also experience with hybrids and electric cars. And I hate them

[becher]

There are more factors but the most important one (especially whe you count the whole stage) is the power you can take away from the brakes, i.e with normal brakes the heat you can dissipate. Recuperation takes away huge amount of heat.

Ah yes I was only thinking of out right stopping power.

[WRCStan]

They just market it as HF, in a very same manner that Skoda market their product as "Fabia RS Rally2" despite actual road-going Fabia RS not existing since 2014, same as Ford with the "Fiesta RS WRC" without actual RS version of Fiesta ever existing.
What an audacity.

Not really, they are spot on. A road going Fabia RS is the Rally2. That's what it means, that's where the sport, the tech, the specs are... If your Fabia isn't rally ready, it's not an RS. And you can absolutely go and buy one.

[mknight]

With current technology of batteries, charging, infrastructure etc, it is nonsense for EV to be majority on the market. This is very simple. If the technology will change or there will be big development, then we can talk about changes... And yes, I have also experience with hybrids and electric cars. And I hate them

One of my favorite quotes:

"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

"Current technology" is a notable part of the discussion. EV sold today has basically the same technology as 10 years ago... except it evolved massively.
Yes there has not be a massive step in range/charging, but there have been lots of tiny steps. Together these added up so that nowadays mainstream cars have 500 km real range in summer and some 400 in winter (real winter, not 1 week of snow and barely below zero) and charge half the battery in under 15 mins.

The only real limit for EVs becoming mainstream is the price. The high prices are partly caused by manufacturers themselves cause they all started with big SUVs with lots of power that they could make good margins on.

Found a graph for you to explain while I have issues with people living in CZ explaining how EVs don't work:

https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/e...e-vedou-244690

CZ with 3% EV sales in 2023 (3rd lowest in EU, though the two last have 2.9 and 2.7% which is basically the same). Norway is not on the chart cause it is not in EU, but the rate is over 80% for some time. (The rate of EVs to total number of vehicles on the road is over 25% and increasing)

Yes EVs are comparably cheaper in Norway due to the tax system, which removes the price issue. (Though in practice it mostly means people buy better cars than they did before for the same price.)
Still it doesn't change that it can be used to see if all the other EV "issues" are a big problem....and they aren't.

[Mirek]

Ah yes I was only thinking of out right stopping power.

Actually I was not very precise there. Recuperation helps greatly with stopping power because it creates torque opposite to the movement of the wheel and doesn't generate any heat on the brakes. That means that it's an additional braking power on top of what the brakes themselves can do.

[Mirek]

One of my favorite quotes:

"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

"Current technology" is a notable part of the discussion. EV sold today has basically the same technology as 10 years ago... except it evolved massively.
Yes there has not be a massive step in range/charging, but there have been lots of tiny steps. Together these added up so that nowadays mainstream cars have 500 km real range in summer and some 400 in winter (real winter, not 1 week of snow and barely below zero) and charge half the battery in under 15 mins.

The only real limit for EVs becoming mainstream is the price. The high prices are partly caused by manufacturers themselves cause they all started with big SUVs with lots of power that they could make good margins on.

Found a graph for you to explain while I have issues with people living in CZ explaining how EVs don't work:

https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/e...e-vedou-244690

CZ with 3% EV sales in 2023 (3rd lowest in EU, though the two last have 2.9 and 2.7% which is basically the same). Norway is not on the chart cause it is not in EU, but the rate is over 80% for some time. (The rate of EVs to total number of vehicles on the road is over 25% and increasing)

Yes EVs are comparably cheaper in Norway due to the tax system, which removes the price issue. (Though in practice it mostly means people buy better cars than they did before for the same price.)
Still it doesn't change that it can be used to see if all the other EV "issues" are a big problem....and they aren't.

The EV sales are mostly about government subsidies. Without them it's just a toy for rich people. Subsidies are tax money. Tax money are money paid by every citizen of the state.

Even with subsidies the electric cars are too expensive for majority of state citizens. Due to that far majority of EVs are being bought by wealthy people who don't need these subsidies.

The circle closes with an unfortunate fact that the poor in reality sponsor cars of the rich.

That is completely wrong and a great example how government policy shall never ever look like. Period.

[Mirek]

Direct quote:



"Can do" - is able to run or finish.

Nothing about speed.

You know that 1990 group A car would get beaten by 1986 group B car. 2013 Fiesta WRC would get beaten by 2008 Focus WRC on most rallies etc.

Ironically the epic looking and sounding group B car would also get beaten by even WRC car from 2003 on most rallies due to much better suspension and traction.

Speed does only matter inside own class, spectacle matters more. In terms of EVs the car could be more spectacular out of corners especially slow corners but will obviously lose time in faster corners and braking. (Kinda exact opposite of an S2000).

If EV rally car can deliver more spectacle than current Rally2 it won't matter if its only marginally faster. Some 0,5-1s/km faster than current Rally2 should be possible even by your rough numbers.

To make Rally EV spectacular it needs to have much more power even at the expense of much more weight. Not be "similar" to petrol cars. So more like the NitroRX cars than the 360 hp RX2e cars.


With regards to the numbers you don't seem to take away the extra weight of the petrol engine as well as some related bits like center diff and much bigger gearbox. But if we instead assume a bigger battery the weight difference would likely be about the same.

For comparison current Taycan and Ioniq 5N will do over 50 km (over 2 laps) at Nurburgring at max push before the batteries overheat with battery capacity to spare. In a racing car cooling could obviously be increased.

You are cooking a soup of water.

[becher]

Actually I was not very precise there. Recuperation helps greatly with stopping power because it creates torque opposite to the movement of the wheel and doesn't generate any heat on the brakes. That means that it's an additional braking power on top of what the brakes themselves can do.

Well yes, but is that power even usable? I struggle to put it together in english, but if you where to increase the stopping power a lot, wouldn't the braking force be much to high compared to your friction force that the tyres can handle?

[becher]

The EV sales are mostly about government subsidies. Without them it's just a toy for rich people. Subsidies are tax money. Tax money are money paid by every citizen of the state.

Even with subsidies the electric cars are too expensive for majority of state citizens. Due to that far majority of EVs are being bought by wealthy people who don't need these subsidies.

The circle closes with an unfortunate fact that the poor in reality sponsor cars of the rich.

That is completely wrong and a great example how government policy shall never ever look like. Period.

Yep the common tax payer is subsidizing luxury BEV SUV for rich people and the manufacturers are even allowed to advertise the cars with the subsidized price. Madness. It's horrible from a social point.

[Mirek]

Well yes, but is that power even usable? I struggle to put it together in english, but if you where to increase the stopping power a lot, wouldn't the braking force be much to high compared to your friction force that the tyres can handle?

Yes because you can brake more while not risking overheating of the brakes. One braking and one stage with hundreds of brakings in close sequence is different thing.