An electric race car drove around Daytona for the first time

The annual 24-hour race at the Daytona International Speedway in Florida began on Saturday afternoon. And this year’s race has been very good so far – although there are still almost seven hours left to run as I write this. This year is the 59th race in a race that has become, at least unofficially, the start of the racing season of the year for many. But on Friday, the 3.5-mile (5.6 km) course tried something new when an electric racing car came on the track for a few demonstration laps – the first time a racing EV did. With any luck, it can be a harbinger of things to come, as sport organizers explore the potential of a series in the United States in the years to come.

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 of heavily modified road cars, but with electric motors. In that case, that road car was a Hyundai Veloster N. Hyundai has contested the (non-electric) category of the TCR with the Veloster N, but they all have 2.0L internal combustion engines driving 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 paired electric motors so that each rear wheel is powered by a pair of motors. Peak power is an impressive 670hp (500kW) – as much as the new hybrid prototypes that will run at Le Mans starting this year – drawing power from a 68kWh battery provided by Williams Advanced Engineering (which is also supplying Formula E batteries for that third generation car in the series).

This makes it a challenging car to drive fast, according to Augusto Farfus, a professional driver who is working with Hyundai to develop the Veloster N ETCR car and who did the demonstration laps in Daytona on Friday.

“The biggest difference is the noise, of course; we drive a car that is practically silent. You can just hear the tires. And for me the biggest difference, besides the weight of the car – you get used to it quickly – are the two rear wheels, which are not connected at all. So we have four engines, two on the left rear and two on the right rear, but there is no rear differential like you would have in a normal race car, “Farfus said Ars.

“It is a new challenge for the driver, because each variation you have in the application of the brake, in the balance of the car on the brakes, becomes a big problem. You don’t have an engine brake, which overcomes some of these problems in a normal combustion car. So, for me, this is the biggest difference. You approach curves extremely fast, because 500 kilowatts accelerate the car quite fast, so you end up approaching a curve in complete silence and super fast, “said Farfus.

ETCR races promise to be action-packed, too, with sprint races (6.2 miles / 10km) planned for the Pure ETCR series that is due to start in Europe later this year. “You have to drive the car very hard. There is no power management at the moment – there is no sustain and deceleration or energy savings as we see in different electrical formulas. So this puts extra pressure on drivers and engineers, because we have to develop a real racing car with a real attack speed racing spirit every lap, “Farfus told me.

When Pure ETCR starts this year, the Veloster N ETCR will be joined by EV competitors from three other brands: Seat, Alfa Romeo and MG. IMSA, the organization that sanctions the Rolex 24 in Daytona (and top-level sports car racing in the United States), is not quite ready to announce a series of ETCRs in North America, but IMSA President John Doonan , seemed optimistic when asked about the prospects for such a happening.

“We want to be the platform. We want to be the opportunity in the markets that make the most sense for partner manufacturers so that the work that Marcelo [Lotti, president of World Sporting Consulting and the driving force behind both TCR and ETCR] and his team made it a reality is the first step. It is now 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 excited and honored that this is the first time that a fully electric racing car will make a demonstration lap – certainly not in competition, but we are thrilled to be part of it today. When an automaker uses one of our platforms to count a story from a marketing perspective, or from a new technology perspective, that’s right in our overall company strategy, “Doonan told Ars.

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