Tuesday 14 May 2019

Inductive Reasoning


I was watching the Formula E Monaco race over the weekend - the first time I've watched an electric car race. I noted that there's a section of the track which activates a temporary 25kW boost to the cars when they go over it.

From Wikipedia:

With the fifth season, a feature called "Attack Mode" was introduced in which drivers receive an additional 25 kW of power by driving through a designated area of the circuit off the racing line. The duration of the boost mode and the number of boosts available are decided only shortly in advance of each race by the FIA to stop teams from anticipating its use and incorporating it into race strategy. All Attack Modes must be activated at the end of the race, but do not need to be used up (i.e. if a final Attack mode is activated in the penultimate lap, the driver is not penalized for having it still activated at the end of the race.)


At first I thought it was an induction charging mechanism built into the track, but it's not, it's simply a trigger point; however, induction charging strips built into motorways could be an alternative for electric road cars instead of having to spend time connected to a charging point at service stations. Expensive to introduce, but an incentive to use electric cars on longer journeys and could facilitate lighter electric cars.


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