- Recently, New York City hosted the first ever
internationally recognized car race in the city.
Which is crazy just kind of on it's own,
but it was also historic for another reason.
It was the first ever all electric
car race in the city, as well.
Qualcomm, the technology partner for the event,
was kind enough to invite me to the race being held
here in Brooklyn to get a behind the scenes look
at this relatively new motor sport.
I actually found it super fascinating
and of course, I brought a camera.
So, I asked you guys on YouTube
if you wanted me to do a quick video on the event
and got a resounding yes. So, here we go.
[Hip-Hop Music]
First up, real quick.
Let's talk about the series as a whole.
This year the series consisted of 12 races
in nine different countries around the world.
There were 10 teams and each team has two drivers.
There's one race, or E-Pre, as it's called per day
and during that race, the top 10 drivers
are each given points based on this system here.
[Hip-Hop Music]
In addition to these points, three points is given
to the person who gets the pole position during
the qualifying lap before each race,
which essentially a race where everybody goes around
the track one time to do the fastest flying lap.
This also determines where they sit on the starting grid.
Then, there is one point given to whoever
does the fastest lap during the actual E-Pre race.
At the end of the series, the championship
is made up of each driver's score and then,
there is a team score that is comprised
of the two drivers on that team added together.
And that's basically the entire gist of the scoring system.
Simple. Easy to follow.
I like it.
Which then brings us to the cars and the race itself.
The cars can go from zero to 60 in about 2.9 seconds
with a top speed of 140 miles an hour.
And they get there a lot quieter
than their Formula One brethren.
They have instant torque thanks to those electric motors.
And that's also, of course, the reason
why they make a lot less sound.
Unlike Formula One, you can actually
be right next to the track without the need of earplugs
and in fact, you can even have a conversation
with somebody next to the track without having
to raise your voice too much, which is, it's kind of nice.
Now, that's not to say that they don't make any sound,
which I actually think would be super awkward, frankly.
The sound they do make is actually
like a high pitched whine.
[Sound Of Cars Passing By]
In fact, it kind of reminds me,
and I don't know if you've ever seen these,
but those track cars that you used to play with as a kid
that had the little trigger remotes as they went
around on the track, over and over again.
And I don't mean that in a bad way.
To me, it sort of resembles what electricity might sound
like, if it were actually audible.
If that makes any sense.
And it's definitely so exciting
every time the cars go by, too.
So now, a little bit more about
how the event itself goes down.
Before the race, drivers are given two practice laps.
One for 45 minutes, followed by one for 30 minutes
before they do the actual E-Pre race for the day.
During the race, the drivers have
to be mindful of their batteries.
Think like Formula One and how they have to be
mindful of their use of gas, right? Same thing.
So they could either be more aggressive
and probably have to pit a little earlier
or they can conserve their power and pit a little bit later.
Either way, there is one mandatory pit
about halfway through the race,
simply because the batteries end up dying
and they end up having to swap cars.
Now, you might be wondering,
why don't they just charge the cars
or maybe swap out the batteries?
Well, it turns out that charging the cars
would take a decent amount of time and make the race
a lot longer and that's kind of boring.
And then, the swapping of the batteries
is actually for safety reasons, I was told.
It's just super high power batteries and to be able
to swap those out super quickly in a big rush.
Probably not the safest thing to do.
Once they do swap cars though,
they then head back out on the track
to finish the last half of the race.
The race I attended itself, the E-Pre,
was about an hour and a half hour long, in total.
By the way, when they do end up charging the batteries,
they do it in a little bit different of a way
then say having your normal generator
sitting there and powering and using gas.
They use glycerine generators.
Glycerine is actually a by-product
from producing bio-diesel.
And it burns a lot cleaner than diesel
and any other form of gas.
So, it just kind of goes to sort of illustrate the length
these guys are trying to go to
to make this just a much cleaner sport.
Now, besides the glycerine generators
and the fact that it's kind of a fun sport to watch,
at least I think so, when I attended.
There's a lot more going on behind this
motor sport that I think is important.
In the same way that car manufacturers
develop all this crazy technology for Formula One,
that eventually, slowly makes its way into production cars,
Formula E can do the same thing for the much more fledgling
and much more needing, frankly, electric car industry.
From those glycerine generators,
they're a huge push towards ending the criticisms
about how electric vehicles still require a lot
of gasoline and all this other fossil fuels
and carbon costs or not necessarily offset
by those cars which is not entirely inaccurate normally,
to things like the fact that the race organization
themselves partner with DHL to try to figure out
how they can transport things and piggyback off
of the already existing transportation
that's happening like things that are already going
to the country that they're already having a race in,
so they just piggyback on that.
All to try and minimize the footprint.
So, the fact that Qualcomm themselves have
even within the span of this race being around
has managed to get their wireless charging
that they use on a lot of these cars.
The output power they've managed to double already all while
making the actual pad that goes on the car much smaller.
And of course that's not even including all of the tech
that each manufacturer has actually put into
the cars to make the electric motors a lot
more faster and just more efficient.
Listening to the panel that was happening
the night before the race, they even mention that
they have tech already that they can actually
wirelessly charge the cars during the race.
Now not at full speed yet, but at a decent speed, they said.
The crazier part of this is that they also mentioned that,
technically speaking, they could keep
those cars charged at the same level.
So in other words, they won't lose any charge
while using that track wirelessly charging.
Which means they can technically run indefinitely,
which sort of blows my mind.
Add to that, that during that same panel discussion,
they did mention that they actually have a few cities that
are very interested in allowing them to actually tear up
the asphalt in that city and put in the wireless charging
in there, so that they can then use that for the race.
The coolest part about that though is that then
when the race is done and they leave,
the city then has that infrastructure
to then use for their own public transportation.
Which of course they might not be
able to do without the race's help.
Now, even though this was really a fun event to attend
and it was pretty fascinating.
The thing that fascinates me a little bit more is the idea
that the more you look at this motor sport, the more you
realize that maybe,
just maybe,
it can actually produce some real
positive change in the world.
Crazy.
There you guys, E-Pre and Formula E.
Let me know what you guys thought about this
in the comments below about the race itself,
about me doing videos like this.
Curious what you guys think.
Always love to hear from you. So let me know.
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As always though, thanks for watching.
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