this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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As a fan of Formula E, I can say with certainty that it's the most faux-progressive sport I've ever seen.
I love the actual product, but loathe the attempts at feigning some sort of progressivism that always manages to put on blast the fact that its founder was a center-right Spanish politician.
Also, Hazel Southwell is literally right there.
Yup. FE is about fast cars racing down narrow streets. "Racing to save the planet" is such lame marketing with no real substance, especially considering that each FE car produces more emissions throughout the season than F1 or NASCAR due to expensive manufacturing. And the real potential for innovations has been crushed by blocking development of batteries and powertrains.
Hazel is actually the main person who's made me so critical of FE since 2020ish. I'd love to see her in a full time position for the sport, even for one of the teams. However she has stated several times that she loses money by going to FE events, even when it's paid for. It's fuckin sad, but the only motorsport that makes me feel included and welcome is rally.
Are you able to expand on this? What's unique to FE's manufacturing that it could be more impactful than F1? I can only assume it's something to do with the batteries, but F1 also uses batteries for the hybrid system, albeit smaller than FE's.
Correct, it's the batteries and powertrains. F1 uses hybrid powertrains, but at the end of each year cars 'transferrable parts' are often sold from one team to another, put in car museums, or scrapped.
FE has a similar process, except nobody wants to put a big dumb battery in a museum, and nobody wants to buy a used battery for their cars (I think they're not allowed to). So whenever a part isn't being used, it's always scrapped. This can include buying a brand new battery for each race, as any depletion may cause a driver to become disqualified for going over the 600kw limit. A new battery every race, even if recycled, is still incredibly wasteful. In comparison, F1 batteries can be used for a whole season.
They're lying about reusing tyres too. Teams often purchase extras and get fined for it, because it's really dumb to race a whole season on 4 sets of tyres.
Thanks for the reply. It definitely sounds like there should be a limit on the number of batteries used per season then. There must be a reason for doing it though - are they just not as performant once they've been through a race weekend?
Yeah basically. Whenever a battery is used, its capacity is slightly reduced over time. If you ever watch a FE race, they're finishing the race with like 0.1% battery remaining, because at 0% they're disqualified. So since they're racing for millions of dollars, it's only sensible to spend thousands to improve their chances of not getting disqualified.