Racecar Engineering - Carbon enemy

Racecar Engineering have shared the following article.

Carbon enemy

The push for all-electric transport is not ambitious, it’s unachievable

The Motorsport Industry Association’s Energy Efficient Motorsport (EEMS) conference at the National Motor Museum in Gaydon in March had a little extra bite to it this year. The conference was not necessarily about the direction in which motorsport should be travelling; instead speakers focused on government regulation that does not meet with reality.

Their targets, and methods proposed to reach it, are simply not achievable in the real world, while technology already proven in racing, such as low-carbon fuels, or that which is coming, such as hydrogen as a fuel source, are not even being considered.

The message from the conference was that we are resource limited. Government targets in the United Kingdom and Europe ban the sale of new internal combustion engine cars by 2030 and 2035, respectively. The focus is to replace all cars with battery electric vehicles,
but there is not enough raw material to meet this demand. There is not enough mining capability to dig the elements out of the ground to build the number of batteries required,
and so instead we have to look at how to make the resource we do have go further.

This means producing more batteries, but smaller in size, which points towards hybrid
vehicles. Having more cars change to hybrid, either plug in or mild, will have a more positive net effect than a smaller number of fully electric vehicles. Once that becomes an accepted fact, the next stage is to introduce sustainable, low-carbon fuels to replace petrol and / or diesel.

Such fuels are already in use in racing, with the FIA World Endurance Championship, FIA World Rally Championship, IndyCar and many more using their own products. They are not carbon free, nor necessarily perfect, but they are proof the technology exists, and deserves
proper investment and development.

There is a strong case for hydrogen too and, as we detail elsewhere in this edition, there is plenty of development going on in that sphere. The work is not only being undertaken by some of the big automobile manufacturers, but also by smaller, more agile companies that are willing, and able, to take risks. Storage remains the big issue here, whether as a gas or liquid, and that takes energy, but there are alternative solutions starting to emerge that deserve to be given due consideration.

Again, the technology is not mature, yet, but it could be with the right backing and investment.

There is some sympathy from the European Union in Brussels, and from countries that have strong motoring industries. They are pushing the zero-emission target, rather than focusing solely on electric. Not only does that mean we can make the available resource go further, but also that there is a long-term future for ICE, which will then encourage investment in low-carbon, or zero-emission solutions. If it is deemed there is no future for ICE, there will be no investment, and, without that, possible realistic solutions cannot be properly funded.

Pascal Vasselon, head of motorsport strategy development at Toyota Gazoo Racing, is leading the company’s research on alternative powertrain solutions. During his presentation at EEMS, he highlighted the fact that more than 75 per cent of cars in Asia are over 15 years
old. In the US, the figure is over 40 per cent. Not only do the electric cars to replace them
have to be available, they have to be affordable and, more importantly, there needs to
be a market for them.

The logical move, then, is to delay, or abandon entirely, the proposed bans on the sale of ICE only cars, and refocus the target onto lower emissions, pushing towards carbon-free mass transport. The overriding message from the EEMS conference was that it would be better to do something now, rather than push for something in the future that is physically unachievable. Having more cars running with lower emissions now is better for society as a whole than having a few cars with zero emissions in the future.

How does all this link to racing? Very simply, it means the sport either needs to be a hotbed of development, which is expensive, or a disruptive technology source, except the regulations currently don’t allow this. There are still places that do, such as Pikes Peak, which is becoming increasingly attractive for testing new technology, but mainstream racing is still chasing big audience numbers.

Formula 1 has new hybrid regulations in place for 2026, while Le Mans will have its hydrogen category in 2029. The reduction in carbon is happening, but it is slow progress and needs to happen quickly.