Delft's roll-out of the new electric racecar

[DMuusers]

DUTRacing is very proud of the new car the DUT12.

http://dutracing.nl/uncategorized/roll-out-4.html

[JulianH]

Great stuff, once again.

DUT-Rollout: The moment when your 170kg electric aero-car turns into a tank http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

See you in Silverstone!

[mech5496]

Daniel I was waiting for your rollout but I was surely not ready for that weight figure... I remember back in November I was talking with some of your guys (I think Daan van der Wiel and Erik van den Berg) in FSG electric workshop at Euromold, saying that I do not like the "turn" into the overall concept, thinking that an electric 4wd car was far from Delft's well-known (and proven) lightweight concept. Thanks for proving me wrong! Seriously, that figure is really really impressive... Any impressions from the new car yet? Should be ballistic.... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[DMuusers]

Well we're still in shakedown phase. Troubleshooting and implementing torque vectoring. The estimation is that we will do 0-100kph in under 3 seconds, but we haven't tested that yet. Only time will tell.

[bob.paasch]

Last fall in a post on these forums I predicted an e-car win at 2012 Silverstone. Given the recent roll-outs from Zurich and Delft, FSUK could very well be a 1-2 finish for the electrics.

I'm very glad FSG still has two separate classes. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[TMichaels]

Bob,
FSG has two separate classes, because we think that these two concepts can not be directly compared in a fair way (without applying artificial disadvantages) and we aim to keep the classes separate in the future. Otherwise the competition could end up forcing teams to build an electric car to be able to win.

Back to topic:
Impressive weight, guys! I hope that there have not been sacrifices with respect to reliability.

[murpia]

Originally posted by TMichaels:
Bob,
FSG has two separate classes, because we think that these two concepts can not be directly compared in a fair way (without applying artificial disadvantages) and we aim to keep the classes separate in the future. Otherwise the competition could end up forcing teams to build an electric car to be able to win.

Hi Tobias,

Previously, I felt that FSG's segregation of technologies was artificially promoting EV's, somewhat like the tax breaks for EV's in the real world.

If you really think that EV's have reached the stage where they will win, then my previous criticism is reversed - you are artificially promoting 600cc gasoline vehicles.

I think FSUK will struggle initially with a single class, and take much criticism over it. Long-term the open rules should allow the technically best solutions to come forward. I think this will be some form of hybridisation, whether that's EVs with Supercap 'boost' storage, or downsized gasoline with Flywheel KERS, or fuel-cell with batteries, or whatever. When that happens will FSG allow hybrid cars in any form?

Another worry is whether that leaves behind the low-budget / low-skill / low-experience teams, who often struggle even within the confines of the 600cc FSAE 'classic' rules. Maybe there should be a spec powertrain option, such as a carb'd quad-bike engine & transmission?

Regards, Ian

[JulianH]

Well Ian, I guess the solution to keep two classes is correct.

Of course we want to race with the combustion cars, but if you merge the classes it will get problematic.

Let's say the electric cars will dominate FS UK (hopefully http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif) than you could either restrict the power (70kW e.g.) or punish them in the economy scoring.

But then maybe the combustions will have an advantage...

What will happen is the same thing after Seat destroyed the WTCC with their diesel engines. Nobody knew how to combine petrol and diesel engines to have a fair challenge.

I still think, that a single cylinder wing car has potential to beat everything that moves... But put wings on the Delft car and you have a 160kg winged 4WD with 85kW. If the Torque Vectoring works, I guess you can't beat that.

[Dunk Mckay]

Dammit, they;ve done it again. I think merging the classes is a nice idea in theory, really make syou think about why you would want to do one or the other. it's yet another major design decision you have to make. The trouble is balancing the scoring systems. The only way to get it bang on fair is trial and error really, lots of cars running at competitions. The troubleis that while C-carsdesigns continue to evolve (or stagnate depending on your point of vue) at the same rate, E-cars will probably evolve faster, at least for the first few years as teams become more familiar with what works well and what doesn't. Not to mention the steps forward being made every year with battery and power cell technologies (think graphene), all bound to make E-cars even more power dense in future.

- - -

I still maintain, however, that should, or rather when the rules allow it, the best concept would be a 350-450 single car with and electric drivetrain powering a 4WD car. Efficiency could potentially skyrocket, and with individual motors on each wheel you could run an E-diff along with all the other electronic aides. That car would be immense IF, and it's a big if, you could get all the electronic systems working perfectly.
Think of the boost off the line with power coming from engine at full output as well as the power cells!. Yes, yes, I know, traction limited, but it is 4WD. Get yourself some uber sticky tyres and away you go!
Aero...remains in question, I'd say only add it for added downforce if it doesn't have any drag penalty and has very little wieght penalty, for efficiency sake.

[Canuck Racing]

Originally posted by DMuusers:
DUTRacing has done it again; a 4WD electric racecar of 144kg!

Doesn't matter until they finish an endurance with it.

[JulianH]

Originally posted by Dunk Mckay:

Aero...remains in question, I'd say only add it for added downforce if it doesn't have any drag penalty and has very little wieght penalty, for efficiency sake.

Dunk, you are right if you are talking about combustion cars.

But take Karlsruhe for example: eCar, pretty heavy (220kg, I guess), big wings (if they choose to run them).

They are driving with 7,4 kWh which is about 75% more than Delft.

Now let both of them finish endurance with everything they have and let Delft win the Economy Scoring at FS UK:

Delft: 100 Points,
Karlsruhe: 80 Points.

I guess Karlsruhe would win about 3 points in Accel, 5 Points in SkidPad and 10 Points in AutoX with the wings (not against Delft against their own non-wing-version...) and than it's just a split of a second which you have to win to tip the scale for you.

But of course the theory is always easy http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Cheers

[TMichaels]

Hi Tobias,

Previously, I felt that FSG's segregation of technologies was artificially promoting EV's, somewhat like the tax breaks for EV's in the real world.

I do not understand why you thought that way. Maybe you thought that we wanted to "protect" the ecars from being directly compared to the smokers, but this has never been our intention. We still honestly believe that these two classes can not be directly compared in a fair way.


If you really think that EV's have reached the stage where they will win, then my previous criticism is reversed - you are artificially promoting 600cc gasoline vehicles.

We are promoting nothing. Why would we? What should be our aim?


I think FSUK will struggle initially with a single class, and take much criticism over it. Long-term the open rules should allow the technically best solutions to come forward. I think this will be some form of hybridisation, whether that's EVs with Supercap 'boost' storage, or downsized gasoline with Flywheel KERS, or fuel-cell with batteries, or whatever.

FS/FSAE was not created to fight a war of technologies. FS lives in a bubble, designed to provide a suitable environment for student-built race cars. Putting classes together starts a development race which consumes resources, but will not really lead to a better education of the students. Most teams will probably suffer from having too many design options and end up following roads to dead ends. Other teams will just fall behind due to financial or sponsorship problems. With separated classes a team with very limited resources can still be successful with a combustion car as this is less expensive than an ecar.
Not to mention that once the "perfect" concept has been found, everyone will just start to copy. There goes the learning effect...


When that happens will FSG allow hybrid cars in any form?

Never say never, but most certainly not. As said before, FS/FSAE is not there to promote specific technologies or to find out which one is superior. The results of FS/FSAE are not valid for the real world. Ecars for example can stand up against Ccars, because the Endurance is only 22km. Raise this to 30km and the ecars will fall behind. The setting in FS is artificial and I know better than to say: Solution x worked great in the winning car of team Y. Let's put it in production cars.


Another worry is whether that leaves behind the low-budget / low-skill / low-experience teams, who often struggle even within the confines of the 600cc FSAE 'classic' rules.
That is what will happen, if classes are merged, in my opinion. The gap will increase, only the strong will survive.


Maybe there should be a spec powertrain option, such as a carb'd quad-bike engine & transmission?

Spec parts destroy creativity in my opinion and harm the educational aspect.

[Dunk Mckay]

Originally posted by JD944:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Dunk Mckay:

Aero...remains in question, I'd say only add it for added downforce if it doesn't have any drag penalty and has very little wieght penalty, for efficiency sake.

Dunk, you are right if you are talking about combustion cars. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well I was talkig about what would classify as a hybrid, some might say range extender (it's not, that suggest main power source is batteries) I would call it electric drivetrain. As far as I'm aware it's completely untested in FS/FSAE, so predicting how well it would actually work with/without aero (ignore the paper) is just impossible. People struggle to even agree on aero for current cars!

Back to Delft's car; I'd be interested to know what sort of F/R power distributions are used. I'm guessing it's managed for different conditions, but are there different configurations for different events? What about the presence/potential/capabilities of KERS systems?

[TMichaels]

Back to Delft's car; I'd be interested to know what sort of F/R power distributions are used. I'm guessing it's managed for different conditions, but are there different configurations for different events? What about the presence/potential/capabilities of KERS systems?

There probably is not a static F/R power distribution. As long as there is grip, there should be power probably influenced by other factors such as yaw rate, longitudinal and lateral acceleration etc.

What exactly do you mean with KERS? KERS itself is a very general term for any system that might somehow recover kinetic energy. Are you talking about regenerative braking?

[Dunk Mckay]

Well regenerative breaking primarily. Although any other type of KERS system that could be put to good use on such a car is worth discussing as well.

[TMichaels]

If I remember correctly there were at least 50% of the teams in last year's FSE Endurance that re-generated energy during braking. The top scorer re-generated about 3.6MJ, while only using rear motors.

This can easily be topped, when using front motors properly.

[mech5496]

I remember Zwickau guys claiming that one main advantage of 4wd (besides torque vectoring) was the large amount of energy which could be regenerated due to the front motors. Another interesting aspect is that you can make both inner motors to brake during cornering, both regenerating some energy while aiding cornering itself. IMO the big downside is increased complexity and excessive weight; on the latter Delft guys did a great job on proving me wrong!

[Z]

Originally posted by TMichaels on another thread:
BTW. The SI unit (which should be mandatory for engineers)...

Originally posted by TMichaels on this thread:
... re-generated energy ...
The top scorer re-generated about 1kWh.
Groan... mumble... more groan... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_frown.gif
[Sarcasm Mode = On]

Tobias,

What is this "kWh"?
The context suggests energy, but isn't "kW" a unit of power??
And is that "h" the very non-SI unit of time, the one that's used on bus timetables???

[Entering Full Rant Mode]

Why is it that engineers are incapable of using standard units? Why does my electrical power comnpany sell me energy in units of "kWh", while the gas company sells me heaters with power outputs measured in "MJ/h"!? (It's true!!!) And don't get me started on the engine engineers and their units for BSFC! Especially, those quaint colonial units! Geez, given that BSFC is highly dependent on the type of fuel, and so on the fuel's energy content, the proper unit is a pure ratio (eg. ~0.25 for SI, and ~0.40 for CI)!

[Slowly calming down]

Why is it that the only members of our society that use the proper units for energy are fat women? Yes, ask any Rubenesque sort that you meet, and they can tell you the exact "KILOJOULE" content of every chocolate bar, savoury snack, whatever.

KEY...LOW...JOOL. Try it. It is really not that hard.

And if you have lots of them, for instance to push your car to town and back, then MEGA (= really good) + JEWEL (= something very precious).

Come on engineers, if fat chicks can do it, then surely you can too.

Please, please, please Tobias. You're an influential person, please start a trend. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Z

PS. Yes, I awoke this morning with a radio reviewer talking about the new (ridiculously priced) Nissan EV that had a "battery pack with 24 kilowatts, err..., uhm..., PER hour, which can get you about ..." (halfway to town!).

[Zac]

can we use fat chicks as a unit of measure? we already have rch being used on some engineering drawings.

[TMichaels]

Z,
you got me, but you are pushing at an open door. You just saw what happens when a true believer of the SI units is surrounded by people/companies not using them properly. So no need to rant. I do not need to be convinced, I was just lead into temptation (and probably too tired, long nights preparing for FSG2012).
I edited my post of course. Case closed.

[Offtopic]
BTW: Did you know that one "light foot" is about 1ns? Quite convenient, I will start using it http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

@Zac:
Great idea. Now we need some people volunteering to form a committee standardizing the fat chick to be used. After that we only need to convince the guys in Paris to find a way of stuffing a genuine fat chick into the vault that contains the genuine metre and sincerely hope that the genuine metre is not eatable in any way.

[Z]

Originally posted by TMichaels:
BTW: Did you know that one "light foot" is about 1ns?
That's how I explain it to my kids. Holding hands out... "About that far, in a billionth of a second!"

(Oops, off-topic. Sorry Delft.)

BTW, with such a lightweight and powerful car, you should go really well in the Dutch National Hillclimb Championship! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

Z

[DougMilliken]

Originally posted by TMichaels:
You just saw what happens when a true believer of the SI units is surrounded by people/companies not using them properly.
Do you really measure all angles in radians (SI)? Seems somewhat irrational<grin>...

[TMichaels]

Originally posted by DougMilliken:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by TMichaels:
You just saw what happens when a true believer of the SI units is surrounded by people/companies not using them properly.
Do you really measure all angles in radians (SI)? Seems somewhat irrational<grin>... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Usually I do. But this is probably related to being an EE. I don't measure physical angles, I measure phases and it is way easier to calculate with them in rad.

However, I agree that it is hard to measure physical angles in rad, but it is still easier to calculate (in fractures of PI) in rad in my opinion. Now we are really off-topic.

[Thrainer]

Daniel, congratulations for the nice car. What is the weight distribution between front and rear? I assume it's not as rear-heavy as DUT11.


Originally posted by bob.paasch:
Last fall in a post on these forums I predicted an e-car win at 2012 Silverstone. Given the recent roll-outs from Zurich and Delft, FSUK could very well be a 1-2 finish for the electrics.
I agree with you when looking at the cars' potential, but believe that testing time will be crucial. FS is very early in the year for most European teams, while Monash is probably bringing their 2011 car well-tested and tuned. I'm also sure some European combustion cars will have been tested a lot more than most electric cars. We'll see which team is ready in just three weeks from now.

Dunk, I don't think a serial hybrid is very competitive in FS. It's been done in Formula Hybrid and the result is a lot heavier than its BEV competitor.

What I think is happening with the electric cars is two different concepts concerning battery size. In 2010, most if not all electric cars carried 7-9 kWh. Now teams like Delft, Zurich and Eindhoven are using smaller batteries, e.g. the topic of this thread, DUT12 with just 4.2 kWh. Other teams like KA-RaceIng are still using a battery with more than 7 kWh. If this is for reasons of power or capacity, I don't know.
The result of this is: Strategy in endurance is very important now. In 2009 with a combustion car, we (Zurich) drove endurance flat out and scored very well. In 2010 with the electric car, we figured out we could save 25% energy be running 4% slower. Depending on the scoring formulas of the event, you either want to drive a slow or a very slow endurance for maximum points.
I am afraid we will see DUT12 and umbrail run flat out only in acceleration and autocross, but endurance will be run very strategically at a predifined pace. We've seen that from Delft last year already, with great success. It will be interesting to see if teams with different concepts (4WD, aero, large or small battery) come up with different strategies for endurance.

Regards
Thomas