Quote:
Originally Posted by Viffermike
Right.
And, to all of you high-displacement multicylinder purists who don't believe electricity has a place in performance cars:
Exhibit A: Any current F1 car.
Exhibit B: Porsche 919 / Toyota TS050 / Audi R18 (WEC cars).
Exhibit C: Porsche 918 / McLaren P1 / Koenigsegg Regera / Ferrari LaFerrari
For decades, F1 and World Endurance cars have represented the bleeding edge of tech. Much -- not all, but much -- of that tech trickles down to consumer cars. I've gotta say: if those series are using it now, and the majority of the world's hypercar makers are either using it or about to (rumors of a Bugatti Chiron hybrid are still rampant), it is 100 percent inevitable.
Get over gas only, homies.
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Homie, you should study your automotive history better.
Racing has become electrified because of rule changes, not in the quest for performance. That is a fact.
LeMans prototypes are hybrids because the rules changed to (at this time) only allow a certain amount of energy (Joules) to be consumed per lap. In order to meet this fuel sipping mandate, teams have resorted to hybridization - for the same reason as the Prius exists.
F1 cars again had first the kers and now the hybrid propulsion unit foisted upon them. Not one of them wanted it, and not one of them embraced it for performance. They simply had to comply with the new regs.
It is only now, a decade later, that the F1 cars finally are a bit faster than in the V10 era. But if you allowed unlimited design changes in that sport, you would not see any electrification at all, because lower weight trumps everything, and a battery simply doesn't have the same energy storage density as gas.
That's just physics.
You also point out to the current crop of hybrid super cars. These only exist to draw a connection to the F1 and LMP efforts, respectively. It's called marketing.
Like someone else said, I'd rather that my M3 weighs 500lbs less and sticks with a gasoline engine. When I go to the track I don't want to have to plug it in between sessions and worry about how depleted my battery is and how it will affect performance in the next session. Because that is what was happening with an i8 this past weekend at Summit Point Shenandoah.