An electric race car drove around Daytona for the first time

The annual 24-hour race at Daytona International Speedway in Florida kicked off Saturday afternoon. And this year’s race has been pretty good so far – although there are almost seven hours to go as I write this. This year is the 59th edition of a race that, unofficially at least, has become the start of the racing season of the year for many. But on Friday, the 3.5-mile (5.6 km) road track tried something new, when an electric race car hit the track for some demonstration laps – the first time a race EV has done so. With luck, it could be a harbinger of things to come as the sport’s organizers explore the potential for an American series in the coming years.

This was not a single-seater with open wheels like the cars that race in Formula E. Instead, it was designed for a new category called ETCR, for electric touring cars: think heavily modified road cars but with electric powertrains. In this case, that car was a Hyundai Veloster N. Hyundai is contesting the TCR (non-electric) category with the Veloster N, but they all feature 2.0L combustion engines that power the front wheels.

The ETCR rulebook is much less restrictive, and as a result the Veloster N ETCR is a much more exotic thing, with not one but four electric motors paired so that each rear wheel is powered by a pair of motors. Peak power is an impressive 670 hp (500 kW) – as much as the new hybrid prototypes that will race at Le Mans from this year – and draws energy from a 68 kWh battery pack sourced from Williams Advanced Engineering (which also includes Formula E batteries. car of the third generation).

That makes it a challenging car to drive fast, said Augusto Farfus, a professional driver who is developing the Veloster N ETCR car with Hyundai and who drove the demo laps at Daytona on Friday.

“The biggest difference is of course the noise; we’re driving a car that’s almost completely silent. You just hear the tires. And for me the biggest difference, besides the weight of the car – you get used to it pretty quickly. – are the two rear wheels, not connected by anything. So we have four engines, two rear left and two rear right, but there is no rear differential like you would have in a normal race car, “Farfus told Ars.

“It’s a new challenge for the driver, because every variation you have in braking, on the balance of the car on the brakes, becomes a big problem. You don’t have to brake on the engine, which is some of these problems. solves a normal combustion engine car. So for me this is the biggest difference. You approach the corners extremely fast, because 500 kilowatts the car accelerates quite quickly, so you approach a corner in complete silence and super fast, “said Farfus.

ETCR races also promise to be action-packed, with short (6.2 miles / 10 km) sprint races planned for the Pure ETCR series starting in Europe later this year. “You have to drive pretty fast. There is currently no energy management – there is no lift and coast or energy savings as we see in various electric formulas. So this puts extra pressure on the drivers and the engineers, because we have to develop a real race car with a real sprint spirit to attack every lap, ”Farfus told me.

When Pure ETCR kicks off this year, the Veloster N ETCR will be joined by EV racers from three other brands: Seat, Alfa Romeo and MG. IMSA, the organization that sanctions the Rolex 24 in Daytona (and top sports car races in the US) isn’t quite ready to announce a North American ETCR series, but IMSA President John Doonan sounded optimistic when asked about the prospects of such something happening.

“We want to be the platform. We want to be the opportunity to enter markets that make the most sense for the manufacturer, so that the work Marcelo [Lotti, president of World Sporting Consulting and the driving force behind both TCR and ETCR] and his team have done to make this a reality is step one. Now it is our responsibility to work with our existing manufacturers to see what they would like to do to take advantage of the opportunity, ”said Doonan.

“We are delighted and honored that this is the first time that an all-electric race car has completed a demonstration lap – certainly not in competition, but we are delighted to participate today. As an automaker, one of our platforms to be a telling a story from a marketing point of view, or from a new technology point of view, fits right into our overall business strategy, ”Doonan told Ars.

Listing image by LAT Images