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Comment by ianstallings | Hacker News Reader

and the pit stops don’t just involve swapping tires or batteries, but switching cars.

This is not what racing is about. Racing is about making sure you not only go the fastest around the track, but it's about endurance of the car itself. Particularly in what amounts to a manufacturer race where it's all about the car.

I love this idea otherwise. Electric cars are getting better and better each day.

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This is a spec series, and every team will expect reliability. Endurance in top flight racing is a given. Races are well with in the endurance of the cars. Technical failure is way less than driver failure.

Besides, the car swap is an interim thing to get them going. In time, it will go.

Im very looking forward to this.

Endurance in top flight racing is a given. Races are well with in the endurance of the cars.

Dr. Ferdinand Porsche is popularly reported to have said "The perfect race car should fall apart the second it crosses the finish line."

Point is, there is always a trade-off between speed and reliability. If you get to the finish line well within the bounds of your reliability every time, you are sacrificing speed.

But it is less of an issue if the cars are all almost identical.

My issue with this is that the pit stops will be so long and variable (it's not mentioned in the article, but the driver must sprint 100m to switch cars, and a 6 point harness is non-trivial to buckle and tighten,) that it will nullify any sort of on-track advantage, which is the actual interesting part of racing.

I agree on the car swapping thing. Still, this Formula e concept is in its infancy, both from a technology and business perspective. If this new motorsport takes-off, with big manufacturers & sponsors backing it, I can only expect positive technological breakthroughs.

>This is not what racing is about.

Why? Swapping cars isn't that much of a jump from the real world solution Tesla is proposing with the battery pack switches. Remember not so long ago F1 had a team car which was essentially switching to another car in case of emergency too.

Different series, different rules. Auto racing is a wide and varied world. I see no problem with car switching being part of a series. It might be heresy in F1, but this new series will come with its own interesting kinks.

Besides, the car swap is an interim thing to get them going. In time, it will go.

Im very looking forward to this.

>>>>> Racing is about making sure you not only go the fastest around the track, but it's about endurance of the car itself.

Agreed.

This also involves a TON of strategy to make sure your car can make it the distance. If you can swap out cars, it would seem a great deal of the strategy goes out the window - no?

And can you imagine the onus this puts on the driver? Right as they get to become one with the car, knowing how it will react to their every move, they change him to a new car. And no two cars drive alike when it comes to racing. You see this in two+ car teams.

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