
Ford’s electric car engineers go crazy with 1,400hp Mustang Mach-E - elsewhen
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/07/check-out-this-bonkers-1400-horsepower-ford-mustang-mach-e/
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xhrpost
I wonder if the street racers and car mechanic hobbyists of the near future
will become electrical engineers to effectively do the same thing. Instead of
installing better spark plugs or cylinder heads, enthusiasts start playing
with capacitor improvements and voltage tuning?

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jessriedel
How much are electric cars limited by raw torque and power? My impression is
that a stock Tesla (pricy, but far from "supercar" prices) already has enough
torque that it can turn the wheels past the point where they lose traction
even up to quite high speeds. (Anyone know what speed?) If so, then the car's
performance in that regime is limited not by engine power but presumably by
things like the aerodynamics, sophisticated anti-slip electronics, and chassis
movement.

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Judgmentality
What really limits electric vehicles for racing is weight and batteries.
Weight is always bad, and batteries are heavy. And batteries can overheat,
which means going into limp mode. The overheating seems to be getting solved
relatively quickly, but the weight of batteries isn't going to come down
drastically any time soon.

They're just different - electric is better in a lot of ways and gasoline is
better in a lot of ways. I don't think you'll see electric cars doing
endurance racing anytime soon.

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cryptoz
I'm not a racing or really car enthusiast, but, don't races have pit stops
where mechanics change out the tires and such? Tesla's old 90-second battery
replacement tech could be used here. Just thinking out loud.

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Judgmentality
90 seconds for a pit stop is an eternity.

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kllrnohj
Just for those that don't know, pitstops these days are under a few seconds.
See for example:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAd_t4wibM0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAd_t4wibM0)

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Judgmentality
That's slightly misleading, as that pit stop didn't include refueling. Adding
fuel will add about ~10 seconds to the pit stop. But you're still comparing
~10 seconds with ~100 seconds, which is an order of magnitude difference, when
many actual races have been lost over 2 second delays in pit stops.

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clickbyclick
Eventually, ALL automotive production records will be held by EVs, only
question is when.

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kmonsen
Not long range, unless you allow for gimmicks like changing batteries that
will not be available for the general population.

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reducesuffering
The 200k Tesla Roadster is expected to have 600 mile range. What ICE car
exceeds that? Most ICE are at about ~450 mile range, Model S is at 400 now.
There's going to be a lot of battery improvements over the next couple decades
pushing EV range far past ICE.

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loeg
My mid-2010s Subaru SUV has ~550 mile range, and fill-ups take ~5 minutes.

Semis can have 2000+ mile ranges.

I am also excited to see battery densities increase, but so far the way we're
getting comparable range in EVs is by allocating a greater proportion of
weight to fuel. And recharging is still relatively slow.

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magnetic
> And recharging is still relatively slow.

I know not all EVs are Tesla, but it's interesting to see where charging is
going (others will follow suit).

Supercharging v3 gives you 1,000 miles of range per hour of charge (approx. if
you're in the 20-80% SOC range I think). If you take a 6 min bathroom (or
other) break every 100 miles (roughly every couple of hours), you can
replenish those 100 miles during that break.

Personally, I find superchargers "too quick", as I tend to stop for lunch with
my family when I supercharge, and I find myself having to rush to finish lunch
so I can get the car out of the charger for someone else to be able to use it.
I wish there was an option to say "charge slower and give that juice to the
other guy" (many/most current supercharger "pods" have to share the current
flow with another car).

[https://www.tesla.com/blog/introducing-v3-supercharging](https://www.tesla.com/blog/introducing-v3-supercharging)

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loeg
> Personally, I find superchargers "too quick", as I tend to stop for lunch
> with my family when I supercharge, and I find myself having to rush to
> finish lunch so I can get the car out…

Pumping gas, I usually do not have time to even squeegee all the windows; I've
never wanted to stop for lunch while getting gas.

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rbanffy
The routine is different. You fill the tank, then park and get lunch. If you
recharge while parked, the recharge time should approximate the duration of
your lunch stop. Abundance of chargers may remove the urge to take the car out
of the recharger before you finish lunch.

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natch
Ford is really good at blowing smoke about EVs lately. Like their truck pull
demo where the camera shot they released showed only one angle, leading to
speculation that there was a massive power cord tether hidden behind the bulk
of the truck.

But I appreciate that traditional car makers are finally getting it that
people want EVs that are not just golf carts. Too bad this is just another
demo but let’s hope they make some of it real.

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anonymousCar
First makes 5.9M cars per year and is planning 50k Mach e. That's 0.8% of
their line electric.

VW seems to be the only major manufacturer that's really going all in on
electric and it's only after wringing their hands from the emissions scandal.

The old automakers seem to only want to do this in the face of bankruptcy.

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panpanna
Didn't Volvo say they would go 100% electric before 2023?

They are not as big as VW, but that sure should "all in" to me..

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pixxel
Looked up to see who owns Volvo, just out of interest. Ford purchased in 1999
and sold to a Chinese firm in 2010.

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panpanna
Note that both development and production still happens in Europe.

I did some digging for my next car and this is what I found: The Chinese owner
established newer companies for the Chinese market mostly in China which use
their engineering. One of them is a pure EV company.

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AtlasBarfed
I've been saying for a year now that EV will be death for hypercar price tags.

1500 HP for an ICE is a multimillion price tag 1500 HP for an EV in 5-10 years
will be 1/10th that.

The design of this underlines that. the 1500HP is from just serially adding
motors to the axles. It didn't involve a 10 year development cycle for a W-12
quad-turbo'd megaengine.

They pulled 7 motors off the shelf and attached them.

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in3d
“But if you want to chase lap records or quarter-mile times instead, it'll do
that, too—it just requires a few suspension tweaks like changing to shorter
control arms that allow for less extreme steering angles.”

Not happening. The most important thing is not mentioned: weight. The
production version can be 1000 lbs heavier than a regular Mustang. This model
can cut some of it but more will be added in batteries to get more power. And
then there is nothing you can do on the track - can’t fight physics.

Not the first time I see such misleading claims about cars made by tech sites.
Linking to articles written by car magazines would be better - they wouldn’t
believe the PR so easily.

Edit: I should mention I’m talking about the lap times more than the 1/4 mile
times.

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bitexploder
My Tesla Model 3 weighs over 4000 lbs and still cranks out 3.2 second 0-60 and
turns out competitive laps on the track in its class (BMW M3, etc) For
reference my giant ford raptor only weighs like 1000 more lbs. it’s not as
nimble in turns, but it makes up for it with on demand torque coming out of
corners. Also, Mustangs have never been true sports/track cars in their mass
consumer versions. They do make more trackable mustang variants, but I can
still see a market for a stupidly powerful pony car.

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rootusrootus
It's been a number of years now since a garden variety Mustang GT became
faster than an M3 around a road course. Now we have things like the PP2 and
the Camaro SS 1LE that are nipping at the heals of really high end performance
cars. Gone are the days when pony cars couldn't turn.

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bitexploder
It’s true, but they were a literal decade behind in their suspensions. IRS was
a big deal for pony cars. And GT is probably not the most commonly owned trim
level. I say this as a person who has bought a new Mustang every ~5 years
since I have been able to drive (~24 years). Guess tech catches up eventually,
but it was a sore point until around 05 to 08 when they really started taking
the suspension and handling seriously.

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rootusrootus
Oh, I'm with ya, I've owned seven Mustangs over the years. Up until 2005 they
were pretty archaic, using that chassis that dated from the 70s.

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edm0nd
In between the new Bronco and the new F-150 launching soon, Ford looks to have
some interesting new vehicles in the near future.

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AWildC182
Yea, it seems like the whole off-road community has been drooling over the
bronco as a possible jeep alternative. They seem to have finally figured out
that there are some wide open markets out there.

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mywittyname
The Wrangler is hard, hard, hard to compete with. It's had several
competitors, and none of them survived. They don't survive because Wranglers
are _terrible_ daily drivers. But Wranglers aren't terrible because they're a
Jeep, they are terrible because of the compromises Jeep needs to make for the
Wrangler to maintain offroad credibility.

Thus, most people tolerate Wranglers because A) they enjoy it, B) they like
the image driving one projects. It's really not any different from a Dodge
Viper, it's a terrible car that people drive mainly for image, or because
melted shoe soles and burned legs are worth it for the fun.

So what happens is, Toyota/Ford/Chevy/Suzuki make a "better" competitor. But
hardly anyone buys it because it's a terrible daily driver, and it doesn't
have the image of a Wrangler for people to overlook it.

Even Jeep sells mostly comfy SUVs.

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spaetzleesser
All these super high powered electric cars are neat but I think this is going
totally the wrong directions. This could be used as an opportunity to rethink
cars in general and hopefully switching to smaller and more efficient cars.
Instead cars are becoming even bigger and heavier. In terms of environment
this is also a bad trend. EVs don’t pollute while driving but the energy still
has to come from somewhere.

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t0mbstone
For true mass adoption and real progress to happen, you have to overcome the
notion that electric power is for "sissies".

It's a real problem that is very prevalent, especially in more rural areas.

I agree with you that building a bunch of electric supercars isn't the ideal
long-term plan, but you have to admit that Tesla's roadster and their very
fast cars have had an enormous impact when it comes to driving adoption and
combatting the negative perceptions around electric cars.

Psychology is a huge factor when you are talking about progress and convincing
an entire population to switch their way of thinking.

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beamatronic
Good things happen when car engineers "go crazy"! Meaning, management lifts
their BS restrictions.

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kllrnohj
> Meaning, management lifts their BS restrictions.

Like needing to make money? Many of these cars never see production not
because of "BS restrictions" but because they can't be feasibly produced for
an amount that they think they could sell the car at. This is the equivalent
of a hacky prototype. It has a value, and that value is endorsed by management
as well.

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thesh4d0w
I appreciate the dash shows the actual min/max cell voltages (min 3.96 max
4.01v in one of the pics)

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robotresearcher
What would you do with that information?

(not snark: I'm genuinely interested)

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gedy
That does not look much like a Mustang, more like they are going for a Tesla
Model X

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holri
Probably the wrong optimization in times of climate crises.

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raiyu
You can make electric cars very fast if don't mind that they can run at full
throttle only for a few minutes ;)

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frankbreetz
>>a requirement was an hour of continuous use followed by an hour of high-
speed charging, then another hour of continuous use.

Seems good enough for most people daily drivers

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thisisnico
This is good enough for a race track!

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beamatronic
I'm sure that a very fast battery swap mechanism can be implemented, for pit
stops. If you can do that, you don't even need that fast of a recharge. Nobody
tried to retread their tires, after all - you just get new ones.

