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Comment by justin66 | Hacker News Reader

The driver of this car, Max Chilton, deserves a lot of credit for really going for it with a very fast car that looks pretty squirrelly.

With regard to taking records away from the VW ID.R, a much more interesting benchmark would be its performance at Pike's Peak. I don't imagine they're ready for that yet.

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Why is Pikes Peak much more interesting? The altitude there would seem to give its electric and fan properties even more of an edge.

Not OP but Pikes Peak would be more interesting because it is infinitely more interesting than Goodwood. And it’s much longer so would be much more difficult technically for an ev to perform well.

The differences are mainly intangible but the events are just not in the same league

Pikes peak doesn't present any challenge to it in terms of length at all. Its designed to do ~30 minute track sessions and Pikes Peak is only 8 minutes.

Not my area of expertise at all, but I would imagine 8 mins on a track is easier than 8 mins climbing a steep mountain road.

Just as a very unscientific benchmark, looking at the instant fuel consumption on my car shows that driving slowly up a mountain road (i.e. to a ski field) consumes about 3 times the fuel as flat driving at highway speeds.

That is going to make a much bigger difference to a regular car than a race car, which runs at much higher power levels and is going to spend most of its energt accelerating or pushing air even when going uphill.

It's an infinitely more sophisticated race course, if you are interested in that sort of thing.

More to the point, in terms of testing an electric car there's a stark difference in the amount of storage (and therefore, mass) needed to climb Pike's Peak and to climb the hill at Goodwood. If VW had to beat the Speirling's time at Goodwood tomorrow, they'd make the run with less battery storage. I honestly don't know if the Spierling could even be set up to make it all the way to the top of Pike's Peak. Their stock car surprisingly has, on paper, more battery storage than the VW (60KWh vs 40KWh) but they need to spin those giant fans...

I would not want to make any guesses about how Spierling's ground effects would perform at a much higher altitude. I'll be the first to watch if they set it up as a proper race car.

edit: intriguingly, a Top Gear article suggests the VW ran at Goodwood with a smaller than normal battery. No idea how the Spierling was setup. Pike's Peak, or a sprint race at any proper sports car track, would be a more realistic test for both cars. I actually don't have any doubts about who would win that, short of some very real development on Speirling's part...

The McMurty as normally configured is good for 30 minute track sessions, and I haven't heard anything about it having a small battery for the day, nor did the weights being quoted indicated it was a small battery. A smaller pack could also reduce power potentially so they might not be able to do that for a net win.

>I actually don't have any doubts about who would win that, short of some very real development on Speirling's part...

It is a team that figured out how to absolutely shatter the goodwood record that VW had set, seems strange you are so confident they can't figure out Pikes Peak.

Hey, are you there right now? Do you know if the Gen3 Formula E car Mahindra brought set a time?

> seems strange you are so confident they can't figure out Pikes Peak.

I meant what I said: they would need some real development to make that car into something that could win at Pike's Peak. I'm pretty sure VW spent seven figures preparing their car for that race. Don't get me wrong, I hope these guys do it.

If they're taking publicity seriously, they'll do something at Nürburgring once they've made their street legal version available. Of course it would be interesting to see how the current car performs there as well.

Pikes Peak (especially in an electric car where altitude doesn't matter) is primarily a test of the driver. 156 corners in 12 miles is incredibly hard to learn and there are almost no safety barriers (or reference braking points). The goodwood hillclimb is simply not in the same category of complexity or challenge as Pikes Peak, which stands alone as the toughest and most dangerous hillclimb event in all of motorsport.

Pikes Peak is also extremely bumpy and was only paved all the way to the top in 2011. A car like the Speirling relying on fans for downforce would really struggle to maintain grip throughout a Pikes Peak run as each bump would cause a momentary loss of aero (not dissimilar to this season's F1 porpoising issue, just bigger and worse)

> Top Gear article suggests

Do you also get your health information from anti vaxxers and space news from moon hoaxers?

There is no need to be a douche. For that matter, that they ran with a smaller battery is quite easily verified elsewhere if this information worries you somehow...

https://insideevs.com/news/354805/volkswagen-id-r-returns-go...

Just a friendly reminder that using Top Gear as a source on anything EV related is literally less trustworthy than claiming that vaccines cause autism because Jenny McCarthy said so.

My God, who cares? It's literally something you can google in fifteen seconds if you doubt it.

Squirrelly indeed! Max was definitely leaving extra room and not going for every last 1/100 sec. - It made a record but he still left some on the table - would probably want a lot more seat time and data on the car before pushing it harder - it looks like a handful - and tons of fun!

I wouldn't ever expect them to fight to the last hundredth at Goodwood - that's why Max's obviously high commitment was sort of fun in and of itself. Having learned today that VW prepared a special ID.R for Goodwood, and based on some of the conversation here, I have to admit that I'm surprised at how seriously many seem to take the times set there. It made some sense with the vintage cars that I associate with being gingerly driven around the track for an adoring crowd, but at the end of the day, there are much better tracks if you're trying to prove something about a new car.

Yup! While we wouldn't expect it, the intensity here and at vintage races can be very high. Those guys are definitely on the side of "it was built to be raced, don't leave it sitting idle as a garage queen". Other than leaving an extra inch or two of racing room, they go at it hammer and tongs, even with essentially priceless unique vintage racecars. A few hundredths left on the table, but not many... Glorious fun!

The Goodwood estate holds another event later in the year, it's a retro vintage weekend at the racing circuit called Goodwood Revival. They race priceless vintage cars and most of them are raced very hard and occasionally some do crash.

Have a look on photo / video sites for "goodwood revival crashes" to get an idea. It's a fantastic weekend and seeing these old classics doing what they were designed for is wonderful.

I'm aware of the Goodwood Revival. I'm just surprised that racing new supercars up the hill is being taken with the same level of seriousness by some fans.

When I was watching the run I presumed he was keeping to the centre of the track to ensure the fan didn't lose suction and reduce the downforce. It relies on a constant smooth surface, so crossing the edge of the tarmac and especially going onto the grass would undoubtable reduce that.

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