A big part of the difference is the VW was a full-on prototype. The SuperVan, SuperTruck and Super Mach-E are all silhouette racers designed to at least resemble their street variants. There's so much you can do with a clean sheet of paper to design a car with gobs of downforce that don't induce a gigantic drag penalty and reduce unnecessary weight. That narrow greenhouse puts more air on the rear wing and creates less frontal drag. ??Ford wants to break Volkswagen’s 2018 overall record (any powertrain) but the Super Mach-E needs to cut almost a Full Minute off the Super Truck’s 8:53.
The Volkswagen I.D. R was ridiculously light and stupid fast even with less than 700 hp.
It is likely the sanctioning body's identification number. It's how they tell the cars apart for timing and scoring purposes. ??
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Yes, Ford brings the rig (no DC chargers at this track). They must have had that in the pit garage (which I didn't see). I think it's just an off-the-shelf 60 kW DC charger hooked up to a portable diesel generator. Also didn't get to see the cooling, but I think it's pretty similar to the past cars. Probably a big chiller unit box with hoses.The CCS-2 port configuration is interesting. Did Ford bring their own charging rig or does the sanctioning body have CCS-2 rigs on site? Did you get to see the cooling rig at work? ?
They actually towed a big bank of batteries to run the DC Fast Charger. Kyle did a long video on the Super Truck last year that goes into how they do it. Unfortunately, the giant battery pack weighs 12,000 pounds so they can't tow it with a Lightning. They do use a Lightning for some other stuff like tire warmers.
Very cool. Couple of questions:Ford had a small event with the car yesterday, Mach-E VLOG and myself were in attendance and we were able to take a closer look. I got some photos for you.
First thing you notice is the car is extra wide, and both the front and rear wings are MASSIVE to generate the 6900 lbs of downforce at 150 MPH.
It's the biggest rear wing I've ever seen. Probably about 7 feet wide, Patrick for scale:
They really want to beat their previous records, so the suspension is a completly different design than the SuperVan and SuperTruck. They went to an inboard suspension like a F1 or Indy car:
In terms of the electrics, it's a tri-motor with a peak output of 2250 hp, but they have to derate it to 1421 hp and 833 lb-ft for the hill climb, otherwise they might run out of battery. Top speed is also limited on the run for the same reason. The battery is 50 kWh LiPo (like what RC race cars use), and they use up the entire 50 kWh getting to the top of Pike's Peak (they said SoC is 2% at the top)! That would be an efficiency of only 0.25 mi/kWh! Keeping the weight down is important the hill climb, so they made the battery as small as possible to reach the finish line. The battery, motors, and power inverters are all bespoke and made just for this vehicle. The motors do support regen, but it's not very efficient compared to our cars (optimized for performance).
Battery modules are packed into the floor of the floor of the vehicle:
It has a CCS2 charge port (European built), and can be recharged in about an hour with a 60 kW DC charger. The ports on the left are for external battery cooling and 12V power I believe.
They did a couple laps on the track for us, I was totally blown away by the sound. It's sounds like a Learjet on approach when it goes by. I did not expect that! That's from the aerodynamics package extracting a ton of energy out of the air for downforce, and the resulting high-energy vortices generated in its wake.
Overall a very "wicked" car as Mark said. While this one-of-a-kind performance demonstrator will not enter production, some of the learnings from the design phase and the software developed for thermal modeling, aerodynamics, and performance verification tests could be used for future Ford EVs. Let's see if they win on Sunday.
Sound on:
1. Because the car was built in Europe, and they use CCS2 there.
The frunk question was to be humorous. I didn’t know that it was built in Europe. I thought it would have been built by SVO (or whatever they’re called now) in Dearborn?
Thanks for all your posts and videos.
He's at the top of the Open category by about 26 seconds and there aren't any other competitors that will challenge that time for the rest of the day.
Being second to Simone Faggioli who is in the Unlimited class is to be expected on the shorter course. The Super Mustang Mach-E (and the SuperVan & SuperTruck) really did well on that upper section where gas cars really start to lose power due to the altitude. There's no way to predict how the race would have turned out if it was the full length, but winning the Open class by 26 seconds is pretty darn good.
BTW, if you are curious what a windy day looks like at the top of Pikes Peak, here is a sample from when @Liv and I drove up on Friday. Today was supposed to be even worse!
Is this a staged race? I know nothing of it. I did drive up pikes peak many years ago
