Formula E pushes back its 600 kW mid-race charging plans til next year
Formula E, the electric open-wheel racing series, has pushed back plans to introduce a mid-race 600 kW charging session until next year. The series had planned to have a short charging pit stop during races this year, but supply chain issues have delayed the implementation of the plan.
This year, Formula E introduced a new, faster “Gen3” car, which is lighter and more powerful than last year’s car. The new car includes a high DC charge capacity, which helps to enable stronger regenerative braking but also unlocks the potential of mid-race charging.
The series planned to introduce mid-race charging this year, with cars taking one “pit stop” per race to do a charge of around 30 seconds. While 30 seconds doesn’t seem like a lot of time as far as EV charges go, the Gen3 cars have such high charge rates that every second can make a real difference.
At a charge rate of 600 kW, that means a 30-second charge can deliver about 5 kWh of energy, which is 1/8th the size of the Gen3’s 39 kWh battery pack. So the cars can charge more than 10% in just 30 seconds.
Formula E says the technology is all there for these chargers, but the problem has been in supply chains for the ABB charging unit that would be used in the races.
As a result, the plans to introduce charging at the beginning of this season were pushed back to mid-season, and now it looks like the chargers would only be ready for the last one or two race weekends of the season.
At that point, it becomes an issue of fairness – in an already-tight racing season, introducing a change at the very end of the season could swing the championship at the last moment. Some teams objected to that, arguing that changes shouldn’t be made mid-season and that the rules should remain the same all season long. Porsche, which is currently in the lead for both the teams’ and drivers’ championships, has opposed the rule change in particular.
The series now plans to introduce charging at the start of the 2024 season instead and seems confident that supply issues will be worked out by then and that racing teams will be more on board with a full season change.
Electrek’s Take
We’re very excited to see this mid-race fast-charging happen. 600 kW is a lot of charge capacity, and EV drivers should be interested in a proof-of-concept of this type of technology. Sometimes, it can take 30 seconds to even start a charging session at major DC charge networks, and by that time, the Formula E car would have already put more than 10% into the battery.
While 10% may not seem like a lot, Formula E races are optimized down to tenths of a percent of charge. In the nine seasons of its running, teams have gotten good enough at managing their energy use that most cars finish the race with exactly 0.0% battery left, using their regenerative braking on the last straight to put just a little juice into the battery to stay over the minimum battery regulations in the racing rules. So in light of that, 10% gives a lot more wiggle room.
Drivers who have used DC chargers on the road know that sometimes it takes time for chargers to ramp up to speed. So if we can get a proof-of-concept of cars starting these charges rapidly and safely, maybe we could do something about the long ramp-up and handshaking times on public chargers. Or maybe that’s a naive hope, but regardless, I’m still quite interested in seeing these charges happen. Plus, they’ll shake up the racing, which is always good.
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After years of waiting and many false starts, Formula E is finally going to debut its mid-race charging system, which will give cars a quick boost of energy charging at a rate much faster than current road cars can.
For years now, we’ve been hearing about FIA plans to introduce charging stops to electric racing.
In gas car racing, some series allow mid-race fueling and some don’t. The World Endurance Championship, which runs the 24 Hours of Le Mans, obviously needs to fill up several times during the race. But Formula 1, which hosts shorter races, eliminated mid-race fueling in 2010.
Plans to bring mid-race charging to Formula E started in 2021, when the FIA started kicking around plans for an Electric GT racing series with 700kW charging.
But the FIA already had one electric racing series, Formula E, which had debuted in 2014. At the time, each driver had two cars, and would swap mid-race to a fresh car with new batteries.
Battery-swapping had been considered, but it would be too complicated to set up at temporary race facilities in city downtown areas, as many Formula E tracks are.
Then, in 2018, Formula E debuted a new “Gen 2” car which had a big enough battery not to need a charge mid-race, and later a “Gen 3” car in 2022, which had much stronger regenerative braking, capable of 600kW of braking power. Gen 3 also has an “Attack Mode” feature that lets cars unlock additional power for a short period each race, adding to strategy and mixing up the race order.
That 600kW charging ability could also be used for mid-race charging, so Formula E said that it was working on a system to allow for this. It announced that mid-race charging would come at some point in the 2023 season, but then pushed back those plans until 2024, and pushed them back again, this time with an uncertain date.
The issues involved building the charging system in temporary facilities and ensuring safety of the system (and of pit stops in general, which is always a concern when cars are driving rapidly near people). But after winter testing prior to this season, Formula E now says the system is ready to go.
So, once again, Formula E is ready to announce that mid-race charging is definitely, totally, positively, 100% certain at the upcoming Jeddah E-Prix, on February 14-15 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Formula E thinks that proving this high-power charging technology could help road cars to charge more quickly, which could have myriad benefits for electric cars in general.
The series is calling the system “Pit Boost,” and it will consist of a 34-second pit stop that provides around 10% additional charge to the cars (about 4kWh). While 10% isn’t a lot, 34 seconds is also not a lot of time. For comparison, one of the fastest-charging cars out there, the Ioniq 5, can charge from 10-80% in 18 minutes, which means 10% charge takes 2.5 minutes – five times as long as Formula E cars will manage the feat.
The stop will be mandatory for all drivers to take at some point in the race, and will mean new strategy options for drivers. Taking the stop means getting more energy, which means that your car won’t have to do as much energy saving to get to the end of the race – but it also means giving up your position on track, which can be hard to get back if you do it late in the race.
However, we’ve never seen it happen before, so it will be interesting to see what kind of strategic options develop.
If you’re interested in seeing how it turns out, tune in to the Jeddah E-Prix on February 14-15 to see what happens. It’s a doubleheader race weekend, with night races both on Saturday and Sunday, February 14-15, at 5pm UTC, 9am PST, 12pm EST, and 8pm local time. You can check out how to watch the race in your area by going to Formula E’s “Ways to Watch” section. In the US, Roku should be the most reliable way to watch.
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JackRabbit, the maker of pint-sized electric microbikes, is back with a new product designed to quickly recharge their batteries from pure, uncut photons mainlined into an e-bike directly from the sun. In true independent charging form, the Solar Charging Kit from JackRabbit keeps riders rolling even when there’s not a convenient AC outlet in sight.
Unveiled this week, the Solar Charging Kit consists of a single folding solar panel and a tiny voltage converter that is configured to output 42.0V, which is the exact voltage required by JackRabbit’s little e-bike batteries. There’s also an added USB-A and a USB-C charging port for powering other devices in addition to charging JackRabbit batteries.
“This Solar Charging Kit plugs directly into your bike,” explained the company, “letting you recharge without needing an outlet, but with a speed comparable to the charger that comes with the OG/OG2 (42V, 2A).”
That would mean the panel outputs around 80W of solar power, which the company says can recharge its batteries in just three hours. That fairly quick recharging speed is helped by the fact that JackRabbit’s batteries are a mere 151 Wh, or around a third of the size of most e-bike batteries.
If that sounds small, then you’re right – it is. But JackRabbit is all about going micro, offering barely 25 lb rideables that are easy to store and bring on adventures, even when they aren’t actually being ridden.
With small batteries that fit under the 160Wh limit for many airlines in the US, the batteries can be quickly charged and taken to the widest number of locations. And for riders that want to go further than a single 10-mile (16-km) battery will allow, extra batteries are small enough to fit a pants pocket. The company also offers much larger Rangebuster batteries, though they won’t pass by TSA and make it onto an airplane in your personal item.
It sounds like the Solar Chargking Kit should be able to charge up JackRabbit’s large RangeBuster batteries, though likely in more than three hours.
The $349 Solar Charging Kit is a bit pricier than building something similar yourself, but it’s also safer and more convenient than hacking together your own battery charger since it’s designed to work with JackRabbit’s batteries right out of the box.
Technically it’s only inteded for JackRabbit’s micro e-bikes (themselves technically seated scooters, even if they look and feel more like a typical bike), but it’d probably work for just about any 36V e-bike that requires 42.0V to charge.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen solar charging kits for electric bikes, and it’s a trend that is certainly appreciated by outdoors and camping enthusiasts, festival goers, or anyone who finds themself and their bike spending extended periods in the great, sunny outdoors.
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