
Volkswagen Axes All Non-Electric Racing Programs Worldwide - clouddrover
https://www.thedrive.com/news/31162/volkswagen-axes-all-non-electric-racing-programs-worldwide
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svara
Note this refers to the activities of Volkswagen Motorsport GmbH [1], which
races VW brand cars (and sometimes Skoda apparently?). It does not apply to
Volkswagen group as a whole, which would have included Audi, Porsche,
Lamborghini and many more brands.

[1] [https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/press-
releases/ready-...](https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/press-
releases/ready-for-the-electric-futurevolkswagen-is-focusing-its-motorsport-
strategy-on-e-mobility-5614)

~~~
886
+1

This move barely makes a dent to the automobile or racing industry.

VW doesn't really have extensive racing programs comparing to other marques
like BMW, Mercedes, and of course VW group's own Audi and Porsche.

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GoForthAssemble
Agree. Big meh in the sport. Eco considerations aside it's amusing that
they're using this as a platform. Racing is largely not about the powertrain.
And emissions are... whoops we made them up.

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taneq
How very far we’ve come in the last 15 years that “racing is largely not about
the powertrain” and that an electric racing car is unremarkable.

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olivermarks
The VW EV record breaking pikes peak car was amazing. A friend was a marshall
on the track and she told me no one was allowed to touch the car for an hour
after the run until they had grounded the static successfully. My feeling is
this announcement is largely pr since VW aren't a force in motor racing and
that EV's are really only good at drag racing up to 140 mph and hill climb.
The high stresses of racing exhaust batteries within a few laps. Perhaps some
racing R&D will help solve this major EV issue.

~~~
clouddrover
> _The high stresses of racing exhaust batteries within a few laps._

Formula E races run for 45 minutes plus 1 lap. They are street circuits though
which helps the cars:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQUd-C2DJyk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQUd-C2DJyk)

> _Perhaps some racing R &D will help solve this major EV issue._

Ultra-capacitors for fast in-race charging is a way forward. Nawa is trying to
get their capacitors into Formula E:

[https://newatlas.com/nawa-technologies-carbon-ultra-
capacito...](https://newatlas.com/nawa-technologies-carbon-ultra-
capacitor/54972/)

~~~
exDM69
Does Formula E still have the driver change cars mid race because the
batteries are depleted? That's what they did in their first few years.

I don't watch it, not because there would be anything wrong with the cars but
the tracks they race on aren't great.

~~~
Ralfp
They no longer do this. In yesterday’s race Felipe Massa finished with 0.5% of
charge left, but most of competition was at 3%.

It’s a league with a lot of overtaking, small circuits and confusing
realisation - its super hard to know who’s who on track without prior research
because they never display which car number is who during race - something
that’s a must have when most of the grid is black and red variation. Also
because circuits are small and street tracks, there is a lot of camera hopping
which makes it hard to get idea of the pace.

I feel they should do three races 35min+1 lap on proper race track instead,
but maybe theres reason against it?

~~~
chrisdhal
They've wanted to concentrate on street circuits in cities. Traditional series
(F1, IndyCar, etc.) generally have troubles getting permission to run city
street circuits (and yes, I know they exist for both of those, just saying the
permits are hard to get, at least initially) in some part due to noise. Since
the FE cars are essentially no noise, they have tried to go to cities that may
not have other races.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of street circuits, but the FE races tend to be
pretty good. I too would prefer to be on "proper" tracks, but that hasn't been
the goal of FE, at least for now.

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Animats
That makes sense. It refocuses the engineering talent.

We don't really need any more technical breakthroughs for electric cars. Just
volume. Batteries are getting cheaper as production volume increases, and
faster than expected. Down 80% in the last decade.

What the world needs is a $20,000 electric car comparable to the Toyota
Corolla, the best selling car. VW might be able to do it.

~~~
dmix
> We don't really need any more technical breakthroughs for electric cars.

I'm curious if people will miss the deafening sound of the raw engines to the
point it hurts the business, at least for live shows. I'm not a racing fan
(beyond occasionally going to local Indy races) but I've seen a lot of
comments online complaining about the whirring sound of hybrids.

There will probably still be combustion cars just for the fun of it. But
agreed re: the larger firms not getting as much R&D value from doing it.

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AmericanChopper
Hybrids are fine, there’s not a huge amount of complaint about them in F1. The
fully electric engines do sound quite horrible though.

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billfruit
I think the electrical motor whine has its own charm, to which viewers will
get attuned to in some time. Anyway most people watch races through televised
video, which doesn't convey the sounds of the racetrack with any much
fidelity, the sound of F1 broadcasts are rather dull too.

~~~
AmericanChopper
The full electric motors don’t sound great on either the track or the tv
sadly.

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artpop
Things are changing rapidly now (including the climate). Buckle up.

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abledon
nice to see them putting their money where their mouth is.

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whalesalad
Well that is one way to avoid issues with emissions testing – I guess their
new strategy is to run far away from internal combustion engines. They're
already in the process of rolling out what is supposed to be the next best
thing to Tesla's supercharger network so it makes sense.

~~~
Gibbon1
One silver lining of the diesel emissions scandal. Some people actually going
to jail lit a fire under VW's management.

~~~
r00fus
Governments should take notice. The "corporate veil" should not be a carte-
blanche to crimes (especially the stochastic kind with small but significant
reductions of millions of lives or the entirety of human population).

~~~
netsharc
Seems like the laws only apply to foreign corporations, though. If you're
Koch, feel free to pollute the air and rivers after funding the appropriate
(re-)election campaigns.

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tobias3
Porsche is part of Volkswagen and they didn't axe Porsche motorsports non-
electric, did they?

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clouddrover
Porsche added Formula E. They finished second in their first Formula E race:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQH0R97XAt4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQH0R97XAt4)

~~~
JshWright
Bah... spoilers... (was planning on watching this tomorrow)

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darksaints
Are they abandoning all forms of endurance racing? Batteries have made
incredible advances in the last decade...likely to the tipping point for
consumer cars and even some forms of racing. But they don't have the ability
to compete on range, and due to physics limitations, likely never will.

Fuel cells are likely going to fill that gap in commercial and industrial
markets, but I can't see them taking over in racing. You can either get high
power density PEMs running on complex systems to support pure hydrogen fuel
requirements, or low power density SOFCs running on simple hydrocarbon fuels.
Neither is going to work well for racing.

~~~
ummonk
What about hydrogen ICE? Very green on the consumption side and probably can
have decent power density. (Though hydrogen obviously requires somewhat larger
fuel tanks than hydrocarbon for the same energy).

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r00fus
This is a bigger move than I thought they'd do. Props to VW.

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imeron
I do wonder if racing cars for a brand has any meaningful PR value. I mean is
there anybody out there buying Mercedes because they won the F1 championship?

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read_if_gay_
I suppose it’s much like a halo product, which also won’t make you go out and
immediately buy a Mercedes of course, but as with all advertising it may plant
a seed.

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40four
Fun to read about the continued development of the ID.R! When I saw the
footage of it absolutely crushing Pikes Peak, my jaw hit the floor.

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smallhands
what is ID.R please explain?

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40four
Sure, the article only briefly mentioned it, but it's in the picture at the
top. I went down a rabbit hole with some links I found at the bottom :)

It debuted at last years Pike's Peak race, It's quickly turned into one of the
best electric race cars in the world. It broke the overall record at Pikes
Peak, and is the only car the ever reach the top in under 8 minutes. It also
recenly set the electric record on the Nürburgring.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_I.D._R](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_I.D._R)

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kAJaGAMWjHM#](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kAJaGAMWjHM#)
(VIDEO)

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viburnum
They had a dominant run in WRC for a while there.

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ianai
Do people have any expectations about the quality of their BEVs?

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pxi
Some people have turned "ICE vehicles" into a disparaging remark. I prefer to
call them 'koala crematoriums' (please consider donating to any of various
koala rescue funds).

~~~
soperj
Should refer to all cars, since they all pollute, electric just pollutes
relatively less. Still need all the cement infrastructure and everything else.
Ride a bike. Use public transport.

