EV's In Sims - Discussion

Thanks D.
I will have another look, I did fire up the beta version and the ui is better, if I find an electric beast I run it at historic spa!. first. love the track in the mad ass proto's
if not Raceroom if I have disc space.

Just watching 'sporty stuff' tv channel GT4 racing, Misano track. safety car every other lap for last 30 mins so boring. Although gt3/4 are popular in sims, there's no spectators on tv. (covid?)

 

I like watching and playing GT4 class. It's too bad that it isn't more popular, imo.

 

I tried my best to enjoy Formula E, but it just sucks.

Overall the races are bland, even though the cars race at 0.1 secs from each other all the time.

I really don't mind the lack of sound. I believe what really throws me off are those terrible track layouts and overall look. They all look the same fking tunnel, there is no space for anyone to go wide and stuff. There is no curb riding, no gravel traps, no grass to slide into. Makes Tilke look like a genius.

There is no strategic decision making either. Don't tell me that pathetic 'attack mode' gimmick adds anything of value to the race. Fan boost is another bs they do.

Unfortunately, for me, Formula E is as boring as GT3 racing to expectate. I'd rather watch FIA karting championships (which I actually do), much more thrilling.

Edit: now that I thought about it, I actually find more fun to watch amateur karting races than Formula E... KGV often broadcasts their events, instead of tuning in to F-E I actually go to Youtube to watch amateur rental kart races lol

 

I don't like FE either. Too much wrecking for my liking.
Fcy happens way too often inGt4 races which is a shame cuz it provides close racing and it can be fun. The last 3 times I tried to watch it half of the races were under sc and the races are only 1hr long.

 

I'm a huge advocate for moving away for fossil fuels for transit but agree that EVs are boring for racing so far. No gears is a real killer. Unless some sort of synthetic fuel can sustainably replace the fossil fuel kind, EV racing may be our destiny though. Good thing we'll have Renato and Reiza crew help us relive these lucky days.

 

SEMI-OFF TOPIC: What really turns me down about e-cars racing is that it's not being done because of how good would be to put these vehicles to race, but just because there is a huge political action behind. As if manufacturers, racing teams and entities were just signaling virtue instead of do the more exciting choice.

ON TOPIC: That feeling being putted aside, I want to start to contribute to this discussion saying that don't really think that electric cars don't fit for racing, but the exactly opposite. See cars as the VW I.D.R, the Mustang MARCH-E or even a street car as the Model-S Plaid and fells spot on:

Look at these cars... can anyone here call himself a motorsport or sim racing fan and don't get at least a little excited about these girls?

As it is, in a way or another, already a current thing in RL motorsport and the machines are reaching a very decent "WOW-level" it's not anymore a question if "will it get into our simulators" (unless with specific category focused product, as ACC or an F-1 game, as examples) but "what will get in". Considering that AMS2 is a wide focus simulator (that I still defend that it must have a bike DLC... not joking about it, even if "automobilista" and "motociclista" are two different things I simply can't care more about the so called semantics lol) and that this engine supports it, Reiza already passed the time to do it.

 

Some Formula-E cars have gears (or all of them... the quantity differs from team to team).

 

Yeah but you guys are pretty well organised and cutting edge with some things. Our infrastructure and govts are basket cases. Just last week I read that one state govt was going to spend $25 million to put an extra flag on top of the Sydney Harbour bridge. Is just outrageous. A lot of our beauracracy here is just nonsensical and could not get laid in a brothel

 

Cost, range and recharging points are the things that I am pessimistic about. Australia is a big country and you could travel for 500-1000km and not come across a service station at the extreme end. Our electricity grid is already not able to cope with current demand and has not been able to for at least a decade. There had been no real mention of upgrading the grid but they just expect millions of vehicles to plug in and everything will be fine?
Our electricity prices are already expensive and some people struggle now with those bills but with so much more infrastructure required to account for all these EVs and with the greed of corporate Australia there is a very real concern that people may not be able to turn their lights on or the aircon in summer.
I just don't see it being feasible here. I was part of a conference for work a few weeks back and asked the question of this to the presenter and he said he did not see mass uptake of EVs being feasible here. He said with our resources alternative fuels is more likely, which aligns with my thoughts on it all.

 

Its like that in the US too. The government is off spending billions of dollars to pay contractors to break perfectly good roads and then allowing them to go on strike through poorly written contracts. They refuse to rebuild the roads until they're given more money, Its stupid.

Columbus Ohio has multiple 4-6 lane highway that have been limited to 1-2 lanes for over a year now. My home town is probably 30% gravel roads now where the contactors ripped up all the asphalt, and then disappeared off to some higher paying job while waiting on a "certain type of asphalt", and that's before the unions got involved...

People can see the turds heading for the fans, and they're trying to get all they can before they hit. And you want these same idiots to modernize the power infrastructure to support mass adoption of EV's? Not a chance.

 

Imagine if your government spent U$20.000.000,00 to turn the beautiful thing on the left to that in the right:



Yeah... that are the same people that would tell you what to do in a pandemic, what to think about the climate and that at the end of 2030 all the cars MUST be EVs. And imagine that all the country is treated as this plaza.

PS: Yeah... the political party that is in charge of this city's prefecture is a huge "climate defender" that tell people that the climate changes will kill we all... and their solution was to cut all the trees, cover all the native soil (and, yes, the trees also were natives) and uses a floor material that heats as a fridge. "YEAH, FKNG SCIENCE BTCHES!!!!!" lol

 

The idiots are not the politicians, but people that don't hang politicians and still pays their taxes and comply with all this circus.

"There is no way to someone with a soul to born in Brazil and don't, eventually, become an Anarchist" - FRAGA, Daniel

 

So the solution is keep heating up the planet so that no one survives?

Most of the N hemisphere is baking and much of it is on fire. So what's your solution? Not being bitter. Asking what is now a very pertinent question.

 

As long as someone has a good point, that person shouldn't have to resort to polemic arguments. I'm not directing this statement to anyone in particular, although several previous posters have shown examples of polemic argumentation.

For me, EVs are about improved energy efficiency and better waste management compared to combustion engines. Dragging climate change into the conversation is like discussing how to manage a fever rather than discussing the infection that the body is responding to. Just like a fever is a symptom of an underlying infection, climate change is a symptom of wasteful energy management (although other factors also play a role). Therefore, I don't think this thread should be about climate change, as it is a secondary effect, and also an effect that happens in the real world and not in the simulated world.

Let's talk about energy efficiency. Technology develops along an S-shaped curve – at first an exponential improvement, but then it flips in the second half of the development cycle into a state of diminishing returns. Both combustion engines and electric motors have been in development for over a century and are now well into diminishing returns territory. Electric motors are more energy efficient than combustion engines, but fuel is currently a significantly more efficient energy-to-mass storage method than batteries. Therefore, for applications such as racing and aviation, combustion engines still have the upper hand. But the crucial point here is that on the energy storage front, it seems that batteries are still in an early stage of the development cycle, so EVs are projected to surpass combustion engines on all fronts related to energy efficiency.

The automobile may have replaced the horse as a dominant form of transportation, but we still have horse racing. Even though cars are more energy-efficient than horses. Similarly, the EV may replace the combustion engine, but we'll likely have combustible engine racing also in the future.

I see that my post is getting long. I wanted to discuss several improvements EVs have when it comes to racing, but I'll be brief and mention that better torque management (and torque vectoring) gives improvements in a similar way to how gear shifting technology has improved across racing history, or electronic driver aids for that matter. In some ways these changes are better, in other ways they lack the nostalgia factor. And hey – I'm one of the most fervent proponents for getting 1950s and 1960s F1 car classes into AMS2 in order to complete the F1 historic roster, so I feel this nostalgia factor quite strongly.

The great thing in a wide-discipline sim such as AMS2 is that we get the option to choose between these technological differences and we're not locked into a specific discipline with specific technology. I suppose the disadvantage could be if say the Career mode forces you to drive a discipline that you don't enjoy in order to progress the game, but that problem isn't exclusive for EVs, it could be for oval racing, dirt racing… this is the same old discussion just in new clothing.

Another aspect of EVs in sims is that it reminds some people of uncomfortable political discussions in real life. And one common reason for playing games is to escape into a virtual world and forget for a while what's uncomfortable in real life. So just like it may feel uncomfortable to race F1 and be reminded of human rights abuse and colonialism, it may feel uncomfortable to race EVs and be reminded of the treehuggers-vs-coalburners idealistic debate. But unless the sim actively tries to enforce an ideology on you (e.g. showing you a "by driving in this sim instead of IRL you've saved CO2 equivalent to X acres of rainforest" message), the problem lies in the attitude of the driver, not in the available disciplines you can choose to race in a sim.
Good luck and have fun!

 

Excellent post, all valid points.
On the racing front, F1 is developing a new type of fuel which reduces nearly all emissions from combustion engines. When ready, it is meant to be used in road cars till those have to be replaced by EVs. Hopefully other types of racing cars can use the new fuel as well.

 

This is the way I look at this. Regardless of anything humanity does or does not do, the climate is changing. We know this, and it has been changing since the dawn of time and life on this earth. My home used to be under hundreds if not thousands of feet of ice during the ice age. We maybe able to effect it slightly one way or the other, and I wholeheartedly agree that we should be doing things to help the environment, like recycling, wild life reserves, state parks, and getting plastic out of the oceans, but the idea that we can control the environment is just stupid IMO. We've been told for the last 50 years that we have 10-20 years to live and if we don't act immediately the earth will just die and yet time and time again, nothing has happened except economic ruination. (Which honestly, I think was the point all along)

If we really can control the environment by controlling the global climate through greenhouse gases. What banning ICE cars does, is throw a bottle of water on a state wide forest fire. Give everyone a earth a Hellcat and free fuel and tires for the rest of their life, and it won't do as much damage as a couple of poorly run and regulated Chinese super factorys. So apart from just stopping people from enjoying their lives and taking away the freedom of personal transportation, (as well as making it easier for the government to regulate as they control the power grids in most countries) what good is all this environmental nonsense?

I'll tell you, it money. We have ground society to a halt in the name of environmentalism. Want to build a bridge to replace the one about to fall into the river? Sure, just do this 25 year environmental study that cost millions of dollars first before applying for permission from the state, and the you have to do the same thing with different approved people for the federal government. Want to add a 2nd track to your railway? Same thing, you have to spend billions in getting through all the environmental red tape to the point you will NEVER make your money back.

It's hampered big business to the point of nearly 0 investment or upkeep in their infrastructure and utterly destroyed medium sized businesses to the point they all but cease to exist in the US. All that's left is the skeletons of big businesses, the tech giants, Healthcare, and the handful of small businesses and start ups that somehow survived covid. Its literally crushing the average working man and often the business itself to death.

So what should we do? Well how about this? Instead of strip mining the earth for lithium and building a whole bunch of overpriced, over regulated, soon to be environmental hazards, and completely halting all investment in industry globally minus China, we focus on building technology to adapt to our changing environment? Carbon recapture technology does exist, and worst comes to worst, we could plant a couple million more trees. We should have boats dragging surface nets across the ocean and picking up as much plastic as possible for recycling. We should expand our natural parks and make life easier for the struggling farmers and hunters who tend to the land not dominated by nature. It's simple common sense stuff that doesn't require a complete change the world's economy and doesn't require a entire infrastructure rebuild to support.

But nooooo... EV's are the 1 and only solution that will save mankind. Not hydrogen, or biofuel, or synthetic fuel, (or even nuclear if you want to talk about a power grid wide solution.) Nope, shoot Bambi, strip mine her home, and build Tesla's because that's all the environmental red tape will let us do and actually make money. (And even that is questionable...)

 

Let me add on something to that too. Someone needs to explain to me how keeping the same car for 20 years is somehow less environmental savvy than leasing the newest POS that comes out every 3 years. Like, you realize spent used cars don't get recycled directly right? At best, they get stripped, crushed, and them melted down into their core components to be used again, all of which require a MASSIVE amount of energy.

At worst they sit on a lot for years and years and years motionless being useless to anyone and everyone. Throw in batteries and cars that are inherently more expensive due to their construction, and you end up with lots of HUNDREDS of Nissan leafs with 60 miles or range for $10,000 that only the stupidest will buy.

I know people at my work that are on their 2nd or 3rd electric car in 8-10 years, Yet somehow, if I buy a diesel truck and put a million miles on it in 20 years, I'm the bad guy?

 

It doesn't matter how many owners the car had. Once you buy another new car, your old one is sold on second hand market. That car can reach 15-20 years mark through different owners and that's the same as going through a single owner. From ecological point of view there's no difference at all...

 

Well that means we are all idiots then