In February this year, the van conquered Mount Panorama in Australia, breaking three lap records (fastest electric vehicle, fastest commercial vehicle and fastest closed-wheel vehicle) with a 1m56.32s lap time. Next, it raced to the top of Goodwood’s famous hillclimb course in 43.98s, winning the 2024 Festival of Speed shootout by over two seconds.

So how has Ford transformed its Pro E-Transit Custom van into a 2000bhp+ hillclimb monster?

Ford has been developing its SuperVan promotional vehicle concept since 1971. The first iteration, SuperVan 1, was a crude affair, combining a Ford GT40 chassis and its mid-mounted, 5.0-litre Ford V8 engine, with the factory steel bodywork of a Mk1 Transit van.

In 1984, SuperVan 2 came along, this time built using the chassis from a Ford C100 Group C car and a Cosworth DFL engine, all hidden under a glass fibre representation of a Mk2 Transit, with added aerodynamic enhancements.

A decade later, to promote the Mk3 Transit, SuperVan 2 was converted into SuperVan 3, this time using a 3.5-litre Cosworth HB V8 and a reduced scale silhouette body.

2022 then marked a new era in SuperVan history, with the first electric version, the Ford Pro Electric SuperVan 4.0, unveiled at Goodwood. Ford Performance collaborated with Austrian electric racing specialist, STARD, to deliver a 2000+bhp powertrain capable of accelerating the E-Transit Custom-inspired SuperVan from 0 to 100km/h (62mph) in under two seconds. This one stretched the likeness to a regular Transit van to nominal, at best.

Following the success of SuperVan 4.0 at Goodwood, Ford wanted to face the ultimate hillclimb test: Pikes Peak, but this was to prove a whole new challenge.

Pikes Peak is arguably the most fascinating race event for drivers and engineers alike. The start line sits 2800m above sea level with ambient temperatures typically around 20degC. The twisty, mountainous, 20km circuit winds its way up the highest summit of the southern Front Range of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains to a peak 4300m above sea level, where temperatures are near zero.

At this altitude, the density of air is only 0.72kg/m³, compared to 1.2kg/m³ at the start line. This not only reduces the aerodynamic forces acting on the car, but also the available cooling as well. Consequently, SuperVan 4.0 needed to be re-designed if it was going to top the timings, paving the way for SuperVan 4.2.

Unsurprisingly, a Transit van is not the optimal size, shape or weight for setting record breaking lap times, on any circuit or track. To compensate for this, the powertrain needed to maximise power output and the aerodynamics needed to squeeze every ounce out of the available downforce.

‘The powertrain and the aerodynamics package are the main factors that compensate for the huge mass, frontal area and all the other disadvantages of choosing a Transit as a base package,’ says Michael Sakowicz, CEO at STARD. ‘That’s why we worked so hard to design a compact package that delivered high power density.

‘I’m not aware of many other BEVs that achieve such a high power output for such a small battery, so we’re pretty proud of that. This, together with the aero kit developed by Ford Performance, who did a great job, is how we’ve managed to achieve such impressive records with a van.’

At the heart of SuperVan 4.2’s powertrain lies a bespoke, 50kWh battery made up of ultra-high performance lithium polymer (Li-Polymer) NMC (nickel manganese cobalt) pouch cells housed in a carbon fibre case. To help the battery operate within its optimum temperature window, particularly with the low density air at the top of Pikes Peak, cooling was a priority from the start.

‘The battery is liquid cooled with an oil-based fluid that runs in a separate cooling circuit,’ continues Sakowicz. ‘Cooling is very challenging for Pikes Peak because of the thin air, but I would say 50 per cent of a good cooling system is determined by the layout you choose.

‘The layout of the battery, motors and inverters, as well as how these units are packaged together, is very important. They must match the desired voltage range, as well as the continuous and peak power performance, and then those parameters can be tuned for each specific use case.’

The battery provides power to four six-phase motors, with two on the front axle and two on the rear, each capable of a peak power of 400kW. The front and rear axles are not mechanically connected, but instead have a conventional motorsport differential with a two-stage, single-speed gear. The torque is not distributed between the front and rear axles, but is controlled across each axle by a vehicle control unit (VCU) with STARD- developed software.

Interestingly, the power-to-weight ratio of the powertrain can be specifically optimised for each event by adjusting the number of motors in operation. For Pikes Peak, SuperVan 4.2 only used one of the front motors, for a total of three, while at Goodwood and other events, STARD opted for the full complement of four.

‘Because SuperVan 4.2 was primarily designed for Pikes Peak, its high downforce aero package means we are producing much more downforce at lower speeds [at Goodwood],’ notes Sakowicz. ‘This, combined with the four-motor set up, gives us a huge amount of torque at the front. In fact, we’re actually running a very long ratio because we have so much front torque available that we can achieve a straight line of torque until top speed. Whereas for the rear we use mixed ratios because, in this set up, we have a lot more traction due to the dynamic shift from the axle loads.’

The inverters are IGBT (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor) technology and share the same cooling circuit as the motors.

‘We developed the motors and inverters together with a specialist partner, which are cooled with a water glycol fluid,’ continues Sakowicz. ‘We also integrated rotor cooling, so both the rotor and stator of the motors are cooled as well.

‘The battery, motor and inverter cooling circuits all use air-to-fluid radiators. So, located at the front of the car is the cooling radiator for the battery, with the radiator for the motor and inverter circuit behind, as this operates at a higher temperature.’

To generate enough grip all the way up the perilous climb, the aerodynamics package needs to produce as much downforce as possible. Of course, with downforce also comes drag. This is less of an issue towards the top of Pikes Peak as the thin air results in lower drag, but at the start line where the air density is more typical, a great deal of energy is required to overcome the high drag of the high downforce package and accelerate the SuperVan. This was another reason why the powertrain needed to have such a high power density.

‘We are running close to Formula 1 levels of downforce, but with a 1700kg vehicle, compared to the minimum weight of an F1 car, which is 796kg,’ highlights Sakowicz. ‘More than 50 per cent of that downforce is on the front axle, and at sea level at 200km/h [124mph] we have about 2200kg of downforce in total.’

The upgraded aerodynamic package features a new carbon fibre front splitter and monster rear wing. Centre ducts in the floor help channel air from the bottom and guide it towards the rear and over the rear axle.

‘The frontal area of this van is around two to three times bigger than a typical GT car, so we had to find ways around that with an efficient aerodynamics package that is very different to other cars,’ explains Sakowicz. ‘This made packaging a challenge, particularly the rear axle, which is extremely tight, as the unit is quite powerful and so needs some space, but the diffuser is located on the bottom with ducting above.

‘Other areas, however, were relatively easy to package due to the van’s large size. For example, because the bonnet is so high, the driver needs to sit higher up to have a clear line of sight, so that lends nicely to locating the battery packs underneath the driver.’

The combination of high downforce, extreme power and significant weight of SuperVan 4.2 generates loads at the wheels that seriously punishes the tyres.

‘We are quite limited by the tyres,’ admits Romain Dumas, five-time Pikes Peak and two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner. ‘With the weight and the downforce, we could run with much bigger tyres, but nobody makes them. So we have had to use 18in Pirellis based on GT tyres. We could probably go even faster if we had more bespoke tyres.’

‘It’s not just the tyres that we are pushing to the limits,’ agrees Sakowicz. ‘We are loading the wheels, steering, suspension and brakes much more than any other car. It’s very different to any other vehicle we’ve worked on and has caused us a lot of headaches. We’ve had to adapt systems that have been tested and validated in much lighter, less powerful vehicles and really take them to their limits, so that has been a big challenge as well.’

So, what is this 2000bhp creation like to drive around some of the world’s most exciting circuits?

‘It’s more or less like driving a Dakar car, but with a lot more power and a lot faster,’ says Dumas. ‘The most difficult thing is to drive and brake with the weight because, due to the high centre of gravity, there is quite a lot of roll. Particularly as the battery is underneath you, which is good for weight distribution, but it means you sit quite high, so as soon as you steer there is this rolling response from the weight. Grip from the front axle is very good though, it is just as sharp as a conventional racecar.’

Piloting the SuperVan up Pikes Peak, Mount Panorama and the narrow hill at Goodwood required three very different styles of driving.

‘Goodwood is not at all for this car. It’s far too wide for this hillclimb, so this is probably the event that I was furthest from the limit,’ says Dumas. ‘Bathurst, on the other hand, was where I was pushing the most because we knew the lap time of the [modified GT3] Mercedes that we wanted to beat.

‘I mean firstly, we were never expecting to compete against them because we were expecting to go much slower but, when we saw their time, I was determined to go again.

‘The best thing about the SuperVan, compared to the Mercedes, was our top speed. We were going more than 300km/h [186 mph],’ smiles Dumas. ‘Travelling at that speed, with all the elevation at Bathurst, at the crest was the most challenging in terms of intensity. Particularly as we had some issues with the power steering system because we were so much faster than expected.’

‘Pikes Peak is a different challenge again because you cannot go 100 per cent as you only have one chance,’ continues Dumas. ‘So, even if you do a good run, you know you could improve here or there. It’s very difficult to be on the limit the whole time when you only get one lap.

‘You also have the issues with battery cooling. People have the attitude that electric cars have such an obvious advantage at Pikes Peak because you are not losing performance [from the engine due to the change in altitude]. This is completely true, but people often forget that batteries are heavy and need to be kept cool. So, although you don’t lose power going up the hill, you have to limit the top speed because you are never quite sure if you’re going to finish the run, or if the battery is going to overheat. It was the same with the [Volkswagen] ID.R.

‘At the end of the day, the concept is really fun,’ concludes Dumas. ‘If you strip the car out, it really is a racecar with a tube-frame chassis, wishbones, uprights and everything. But for the marketing side it needs to look like a Transit, which is why it is so big and heavy. It is a bit rustic, I would say. Daniel Ricardo drove it in Melbourne last year and he was a bit scared!’

‘It is incredibly quick,’ concludes Sakowicz. ‘At Goodwood, we’re competing against cars like the Subaru Project Midnight, which is the best you can build on the base of that vehicle. While at Pikes Peak, we smashed the Open class record, and in Bathurst set a closed-wheel vehicle lap record against unrestricted GT3s with Formula 1-style DRS. So we are a lot faster than some incredible racecars – with a van!

‘Overall, we’re really proud of how reliably it works, and also how adaptive it is,’ continues Sakowicz. ‘Normally, these one-off projects are designed for one specific challenge, but SuperVan 4.2 is so versatile that it can achieve phenomenal performance from drag strips to hillclimbs, and even rally stages.’

Gemma Hatton is the founder and director of Fluencial, which specialises in producing technical content for the engineering, automotive and motorsport industries

The post How Ford Turned a Transit Van into a Record-Breaker appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

The initial motivations for our ancestors were driven by the desire to facilitate meeting needs for provision of food, water and shelter – the fundamental requirements of survival. Shaping a hammer from a stone core, or using plant materials to build a shelter, were some of humanity’s earliest design enterprises.

With the perfection of concepts like the lever and pulley bolstering agricultural productivity, mechanisms such as the windmill soon emerged, enabling more complex functions to be considered and sparking an industrial revolution.

The evolutionary process of design flows such that innovations lead to innovations and, once basic needs are met, further experimentation is driven by some level of enjoyment gained from tapping into our innate desire and curiosity to keep exploring, optimising and doing better. This is what we know today as the pursuit of excellence.

For example, the imagination of the first wheel led to the innovation of the horse-drawn carriage, which, in relatively short time, led to the innovation of the motor car.

Sport from design

Following that glide path, it’s not difficult to see how humans, enjoying the comfort of plentiful food and warm houses, began to create sport out of design. This led to the development of hugely complex mechanisms like Formula 1 cars, made of thousands of components, each one of them a specialised evolution of a basic function, acutely focused on a specific objective.

The addition of sport to design activity is a significant point. With competition in the mix, the quality of a design is considered with a new scrutiny because an edge is gained by designing better than your opposition. This leads to some unique specialisations.

In any high-performance design, each innovation is undertaken with a focus on improving the previous function by a certain metric. When the designs are intended to bear loads, the metrics are strength, stiffness and weight.

With this, we enter the world of structurally efficient design.

What is structurally efficient design?

In motorsport, we need components to be strong enough to withstand their intended use without permanent, plastic deformation or damage. We need parts to be stiff and not flex excessively during operation.

The catch is we also need them to be light, because every excess gramme of weight carries a performance penalty, primarily in the form of a lap time increase.

Stiffness is a consideration that attracts focus in motorsport for very particular reasons. Testament to this is the suspension system, where excess deformation in the control arms or steering rack caused by high g lateral and longitudinal loading will dynamically alter the wheel’s camber and toe.

After spending many hours running countless simulations to dial in your kinematics, it would be tragic to have it ruined by an overly compliant suspension.

Stiffness quandary

If we design a part to be strong enough, it likely won’t be stiff enough. Conversely, make a part stiff enough without care to detail and it will be overly strong and too heavy.

To begin to untangle this problem, we need targets. Most structural parts will carry some compliance constraint, defined by their respective attribute group. This gives us a starting point to approach the design process.

Damian Harty, former CAE team leader at Prodrive and founder of Future Vehicle Systems, had the following thoughts to share on his approach: ‘In our suspension target definition, I used to ask what’s the smallest adjustment to the geometry we can make that the driver can measure? This was about one tenth of a degree for toe and a quarter, or half a degree for camber. So, that defined our compliance target under the maximal lateral loading we’d expect during a season.’

Compliance target

The first task to defining a compliance target into something useable is to have a sound understanding of the environment the part will be operating in, in terms of forces and moments in each degree of freedom.

In motorsport, unexpected loading events are almost a given, so must be accounted for. Defining nominal loading is straightforward enough, but in something like a suspension system or chassis structure we must also account for crashes, contact with another competitor, kerb strikes or other events that introduce abnormal loading into our components. The standard deviation of loading is therefore relatively high.

‘In our WRC project, we used to design the cars to withstand a vertical load of 11g, but we also wanted to be clear on what would break if we exceeded that, and what would happen as a result,’ recalls Harty. ‘By the time we were at those loads, the tyres were contacting the inner wheel well, and the armoured belly was in contact with the ground. The car could survive that, but seeing as much as 11g generally means the driver has done something quite wrong.’

Defining these upper limits is still very much a human process, where judgement, experience and data are part of the decision making. The idea is to design such that we have a reasonable confidence that we won’t see failure, even during abnormal events.

This is a sound philosophy, but can look quite different in its implementation across different component types.

Heavily loaded powertrain components, such as connecting rods, crankshafts and, to a lesser extent, gearbox and driveshaft components, all must withstand very high peak loads. However, as the combustion process is reasonably repeatable, the standard deviation of these loads is way less than that of wheel loads.

Chasing efficiency

The objective is to achieve high stiffness while using the minimum amount of material possible. This is where the ‘efficient’ element of structural design comes into focus.

Structurally efficient design is an extremely interesting domain. It can be distilled into the following considerations: 1) robust material selection; 2) design that mitigates localised stress concentrations in the part with filleted edges and no abrupt section changes; 3) optimisation of the stress distribution through the part; 4) consideration of the section modulus to maximise bending stiffness relative to the volume of material used.

Clearly, then, the choice of material for a component is a meticulous process.

Stiffness at the material level is often evaluated through what is called the
specific modulus. This relates the part’s stiffness (Young’s modulus) to its density. Interestingly, the most commonly used high-performance engineering materials – aluminium, steel and titanium alloys – all have a similar stiffness modulus.

This means for a given weight, they are all just about as stiff as each other. There are no advantages to be gained there, apparently. So, the appropriate material choice isn’t immediately obvious without further consideration.

Evaluating strength with respect to density is another way to filter the good from the bad. Here, specific strength is our metric. A higher specific strength means less material is needed for a given part strength, so initially we want materials to have both high specific strength and specific modulus.

Material choice

The high strength of titanium alloys like Ti-6AL-4V is attractive, but it loses out to steel grades such as AISI 4340 on specific modulus. An aluminium alloy such as 7075-T6, on the other hand, performs well in stiffness and strength, comparable to both steel and titanium, but falls short in fatigue resistance, elongation and toughness. This means it bends less before failing and can withstand fewer loading cycles.

Carbon fibre stands out above metal alloys for some of these metrics, so can be a strong choice for applications where loading modes are well understood and relatively simple. However, unlike metal alloys, which are isotropic and exhibit the same strength in all directions, anisotropic composites like carbon fibre have mechanical properties that vary with loading direction.

This makes a material challenging to apply in complex loading scenarios, and its low elongation and toughness means failure is often catastrophic when yield is exceeded.

Special mention here should be given to some of the more exotic alloys, such as Al-Li (aluminium-lithium), Al-Be (aluminium-beryllium) and MMC (metal matrix composites), all of which offer some very attractive properties, but are generally tightly controlled by regulations due to their huge expense (or, in Al-Be’s case, outright banned because of its toxicity).

It’s not hard to see how complex the matrix of considerations is to pick the right material for a job.

Stress and strain

The loading experienced up to yield stress can be simplified as the linear strain region, where the relationship between stress and strain is approximately linear. With continued strain, it enters the realm of plastic deformation, where the relationship between stress and strain becomes highly non-linear.

These distinct properties form a lineation in material behaviour, and we ideally want our upper design load to sit right at that transition of linear to nonlinear response.

Materials and their stress / strain responses are fascinating, but component design is the realm where it all starts to become a little more tangible.

Joining our components together to form the structure is clearly the most pressing concern and, while packaging and kinematic constraints will certainly dictate some of the final form, there is a huge amount to be said for craftsmanship.

One wonders if the fact that pretty, aesthetically pleasing structural designs are often the most efficient load bearing shapes is purely a coincidence, or an innate feeling we all have for good and sound design.

Sharp edges give rise to sharp stress gradients, so fillets and smooth edges and transitions are a designer’s best friend. That’s elementary, but further refinement requires a trained eye, and a particular inspiration.

Nature’s gift

The field of biomimetics recognises that nature has some truly spectacular engineering solutions. Bones of animals feature trabecular tissue, which is specifically present to increase the stiffness and strength of bones without largely impacting the mass.

Bones also provide a brilliant observation of maximising a geometric property called the section modulus, which provides a metric of a form’s ability to resist bending stress.

A high section modulus is achieved by placing material away from the neutral axis, where the bending stress is zero, raising the moment of inertia and, in turn, the stiffness for a given quantity of material.

Applying this to motorsport engineering is the reason we have larger diameter tubes in roll cages, and why aluminium parts are generally larger section than an equivalent steel part. A great practical demonstration of the effect of an increased section modulus can be found in the steering rack.

A steering rack can be simplified as a bar inside a tube, supported in two places. The bar (rack) has teeth cut into it to allow the pinion gear to move it back and forth as the steering column rotates.

‘As the suspension articulates, there is an appreciable bending moment on it that makes the rack flex vertically, in a meaningful way,’ explains Harty. ‘When we were looking at compliance on the BMW Mini Countryman project [at Prodrive], we rotated the rack to give us the stiffer side of the bar working against the bending moment. It worked really well, and just seemed so obvious when we looked at the model.’

Validation time

With such time and focus on achieving structurally efficient design, painstakingly selecting the correct alloys and designing elegant part geometries, we of course need methods of validating the resulting component.

In earlier times, performing structural analysis was a slow process, but it has now been revolutionised by simulation and computing power.

Finite element analysis (FEA) tools, for example, have advanced leaps and bounds in both ease of use and integration into the design process. They use mathematical models of material behaviour and, in the linear strain range at least, provide quick, relatively simple and accurate predictions of how a material will behave.

Results from the FEA are fed back to the designer in very short time to allow modification of the design based on stress concentrations and overloaded areas. This iterative approach to design has been in practice for decades and, while there have been efficiency improvements to workflows and methodologies, the basic principles have remained static.

Additionally, 3D printing and metal sintering techniques have allowed some very interesting and previously unachievable geometries to be developed.

Validation revolves around gathering physical data from real-world testing to correlate the FEA to observations on prototype parts from tests in a lab setting on test rigs or running the part on a real vehicle on an accelerated durability test. By validating FEA predictions with empirical data, engineers can identify discrepancies and refine their models to improve accuracy. This iterative process ensures the final design meets performance targets, ultimately leading to more reliable and robust components.

What the future holds

The future of structurally efficient design in the motorsport environment will be significantly influenced by advancements in materials science and manufacturing techniques. Part of this revolution will be through emerging technologies such as metamaterials and nanomaterials.

Metamaterials are engineered materials, which exhibit properties not found in naturally occurring substances. They have been an area of intense research, partially unlocked through improvements in additive manufacturing technology such as selective laser melting (SLM), which allows for the creation of complex, periodic structures with extremely high precision.

Similarly, nanomaterials are making waves. By reducing the grain size of materials like titanium and aluminium, researchers have significantly increased their yield strengths. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs), when integrated into composites like carbon fibre (CFRP), improve stress distribution and provide substantial benefits in terms of fatigue resistance and crack mitigation.

These cutting-edge materials share the common goal of enhancing the strength and stiffness of components while, at the same time, minimising weight. Although there are still challenges to overcome, the future looks promising.

The pursuit of structurally efficient design is a dynamic and evolving field. From the historical advancements in basic mechanical principles to the sophisticated integration of modern materials and computational techniques, the journey is a remarkable one.

Continuous improvements in material science, coupled with advancements in simulation and optimisation algorithms, promises a future where designs are not only lighter and stronger but also more adaptable and resilient. If there are benefits to be found, we can be sure motorsport will find them.

Jahee Campbell-Brennan is the director of Wavey Dynamics, a consultancy specialising in vehicle dynamics, race engineering, powertrain and aerodynamics across the motorsport and automotive sectors

The post Tech Explained: Structurally Efficient Design appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

The British company, which acquired Avon’s residual stock after the brand was shut down, purchased the existing Camac Pneus production site located on the banks of the Ave river and is undergoing a major refurbishment to turn it into a ‘new European centre of tyre manufacturing excellence’.

The site, situated between the cities Porto and Braga, will enable Nova to resume production of new Avon Motorsport products and develop new racing tyres for the future.

Over 200 trucks have been used to transfer the tyre manufacturing equipment from Avon’s previous headquarters in Melksham, UK, to the new site in Portugal. The Melksham site was auctioned off by Avon’s parent company, Goodyear, in February but the buyer remains undisclosed. Nova was set up by former Avon employees and has launched a recruitment drive for its European manufacturing programme.

‘The creation of Nova Motorsport’s new European centre of tyre manufacturing excellence represents a crucial strategic step for the imminent resumption of production of legendary Avon Motorsport tyre products,’ said Nova Motorsport chief technical officer, Mike Lynch.

‘Integrating Nova Motorsport’s engineering and design resources into the Camac facility has significantly enhanced the site’s manufacturing capabilities. The upgraded labs and NDT (Non-Destructive Testing) facilities will elevate product quality and performance, significantly benefiting both Avon Motorsport and existing Camac products.’

Nova plans to start production of its historic and rallycross Avon tyres in early August, using track and in-house rig testing as part of the process. The company has stated that it is ‘on track’ to start full-scale production of the Avon CR6ZZ, Avon ACB9, Nova autocross and some rallycross products in the fourth quarter of this year. Other tyres, such as the Avon ACB10, Avon hill climb products and several historic competition ranges, will be manufactured in early 2025.

‘The hard work and rapid advancements made by the Nova Motorsport and Camac teams bear testament to our determination to establish a world-leading centre of tyre manufacturing excellence in Europe, supported by our Global Technical Centre and HQ in Holt, England,’ said James Weekley, Nova Motorsport Commercial Director.

‘However, this is only the beginning of the Nova Motorsport journey. Our next goal is to produce the first Avon Motorsport products in Portugal, marking a new chapter in our commitment to delivering high-performance tyres for the motorsport industry, and we remain firmly on track to achieve that.’

The post Nova Developing €20 million Tyre Production Hub in Portugal appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

It currently builds the gearboxes for IndyCar, NASCAR, Supercars, all LMDh cars, most LMH cars, several in Formula E and more. In recent years, Xtrac has diversified into the high-performance automotive sector with electrification projects and boasts an impressive factory in the UK. Racecar recently went to Thatcham to find out what 40 years of progress looks like.

Xtrac: Origins

The first Xtrac headquarters were as humble as you like: a small workshop around the back of a Chinese takeaway in Wokingham, a small town west of London. Endean built transmissions and related components in small quantities, mostly for off-road motorsport. The name Xtrac only emerged after Endean’s G4 gearbox had started racing in 1983. The story goes that Endean light-heartedly told the revered British motorsport commentator, Murray Walker, that his as-yet-unnamed firm could be called ‘Mr X’s Traction Company’. Walker then ran with it, going onto the broadcast and shortening it to ‘Xtrac’. The impromptu, catchy moniker stuck and Endean, together with his wife, Shirley, established Xtrac Ltd on June 15, 1984.

Building on its success with Schanche, Xtrac gained more off-road customers, particularly manufacturers building cars for the Group A regulations. As it gained more work, Xtrac moved to a new 9000ft.sq factory at Hogwood Lane, having moved out of the cramped workshop behind the takeaway.

‘We were bringing in one new person every two to three weeks,’ recalls Peter Digby, Xtrac president and one of the company’s earliest employees. ‘We couldn’t afford to buy machines because we were so small, so we would go to these [car manufacturer] customers and say, if you want to have that gearbox, we need this much up front for design, tooling etc.’

As the company grew in the late ’80s, bringing more processes such as heat treatment in-house, it branched out from rallying and set its sights on Formula 1. It had made a few F1 parts in the early days, for the likes of Penske and Haas Lola (where Digby was previously managing director before joining Xtrac) but not an entire transmission. That changed in 1989 when Onyx contracted Xtrac to develop a transverse gearbox for its F1 car.

‘Then we were approached, almost at the same time, by McLaren,’ recalls Digby. ‘Pete Weismann had designed them a new, revolutionary gearbox and they were making gears, but having some issues. McLaren decided to do a back-to-back test. Allegedly, ours lasted longer.

‘So, overnight, we had a massive order in from McLaren, which was a real challenge. Then, within a couple of years, we had six Formula 1 teams that came to us. Nearly all of the work was bespoke at that point. We had Benetton, McLaren, Tyrrell, BAR, Williams and Jordan on the books. That was probably our peak of Formula 1.’

Xtrac is still involved in F1 today, supplying torque-carrying steel internal gearbox components to ‘a number of successful teams’. The company pushed in the past for F1 to adopt a single gearbox supplier, as other series have done, but that didn’t materialise.

Sole supplier success

However, single-supply contracts in other categories are where Xtrac really accelerated its growth heading into the 21st century. In 1999, IndyCar enquired about a standardised gearbox to try and prevent development wars and reduce costs for teams. After convincing the series that it could bring the cost per unit down, Xtrac was signed as the sole supplier.

‘Overnight, we had to go and build 100 gearboxes very quickly with all our own money, before we sold one,’ says Digby. ‘We were bursting at the seams.’

The huge increase in workload had Xtrac searching for a new factory location. It eventually landed on a 13-acre site in Thatcham and enlisted Ridge & Partners, the architect for most F1 team headquarters in the UK, to put a 88,000ft.sq facility in place for staff to move in by the summer of 2000.

Three years later, Xtrac opened its first American outpost in Indianapolis to service the IndyCar transmissions (the other one serves NASCAR in North Carolina). However, this rapid expansion, which included buying new manufacturing machines, came with a financial cost. HSBC Private Equity (later called Montagu) took a 25 per cent shareholding, the first of three times that Xtrac has worked with an external investor to finance its growth. Its first major structural change occurred in 1997, when Digby led a management buyout that saw Endean step back from his duties.

The IndyCar supply deal came after Xtrac had already expanded into other areas of motorsport. It created its first complete 24 Hours of Le Mans transmission for the Peugeot 905, developing a six-speed sequential manual for the first time. It went on to supply other winning cars including the McLaren F1 GTR, Bentley Speed 8 and LMP1 machines from Audi and Toyota. In parallel, Xtrac was building front and rear sequential transmissions for several BTCC cars, and eventually moved to a single-supply contract for the series that it still holds today.

‘We then decided to take sequential to rallying,’ says Digby. ‘Most of the drivers said they didn’t want that, but we built a gearbox mock-up to show them that you could go from sixth to second as quickly as you could on an H-pattern, but without blipping the engine. It was transformational at that point. Nobody looked back after that.’

Covering various categories and adapting the gearbox technology to suit different vehicles’ demands helped increase Xtrac’s reputation across motorsport. Its products were often not the cheapest option, but its selling point has been reliability with the aim of being cost effective in the long run.

Automotive Expansion

Despite hailing from motorsport, Xtrac has ramped up its high-performance automotive (HPA) business in the last two decades. According to company CEO, Adrian Moore, years of working on hard and fast motorsport deadlines enabled Xtrac to be agile in reacting to road car projects which tend to be more fluid from a timing perspective.

‘The core of the business is still motorsport,’ he says. ‘It gives us the customer focus, the reaction time and the ethos.’

However, the automotive side is growing – it currently takes up around 40 per cent of the projects and Moore projects it will be as big as motorsport in a couple of years. The expansion has been supported by Xtrac not just selling gearboxes: it also builds turnkey packages that incorporate control systems, gearshift mechanisms and clutch actuators.

Since its first electrified powertrain project for a Tesla prototype in 2006, Xtrac’s EV and hybrid workload has increased and is set to overtake internal combustion. According to Moore, the split last year was about 65 / 35 in favour of IC, but now they are on equal terms. Hydrogen has also recently emerged as an option and Xtrac has started developing transmissions for hydrogen combustion engine prototypes, such as the Alpine Alpenglow HY4.

‘As legislation changes, we’re still small and agile enough to react to that,’ says Moore. ‘As well as IC, our capability is transmissions for those three [hybrid, electric and hydrogen propulsion systems]. We’re ambivalent as to which way the regulations go, it just depends on what the customers want.’

Extensive Factory

Xtrac produces a quarter of a million components annually – that’s almost 5000 weekly, or 685 daily – at its Thatcham facility.

Before any part is manufactured, it is conceptualised in the design office. There are 90 engineers working in this department, with about a third of them on motorsport projects and the rest on high-performance automotive. Downstairs sits the production office, where manufacturing plans and quality control are directed.

Unsurprisingly, the manufacturing area utilises the most space. It is constantly evolving, with new machines regularly being introduced or re-positioned for efficiency. A wide walkway runs along the length of the factory floor and serves as a gateway between the offices and machinery on the other side. Along the walkway, project timelines are laid out on whiteboards.

On the manufacturing floor, gear-cutting machines stand like towers above a network of narrow walkways, through which technicians and engineers commute between the different stages of manufacture – turning, milling, gear cutting and heat treatment. Once a part is designed in CAD, its first step towards manufacture takes place in the turning department. This consists of nine Okuma CNC lathe machines, which receive inputs from a turning program.

‘We’ve got multiple coordinate measuring machines, which are used to measure our parts,’ says Xtrac principal engineer, Nick Upjohn. ‘They validate that the program is machining the part how we want it. That way, if you’ve got an error in the program, you can correct it and account for any discrepancies in your next turning operation. It’s a nice, closed-loop system. A lot of work will be done here before any issues present in our manufacturing support office.’

Next is the milling department, where over a dozen mills cut and remove material to define the part’s shape, be it a bearing retainer or a gearbox casing.

‘We have a huge array of mills,’ says Upjohn. ‘Anything from small, three-axis manual mills for simple parts, all the way up to five-axis machines that can accommodate a one metre cubed work piece.’

Cutting Teeth

Once a blank part has been made, it is taken to the shaping department where teeth are cut into it by up and down movements. It takes about 15 minutes to produce a spline of 30mm diameter. Some gears can have as many as 150 teeth, and there are different cutting methods employed, including broaching and hobbing machines, which use rotary cutting tools.

‘Our Klingelnberg G30 CNC spiral bevel gear grinding machine was the first in the UK,’ says Upjohn. ‘We dress the form of the tooth we would like onto the wheel, and it then form grinds the material away. It’s an abrasive process, as opposed to a metal chipping one.

‘We then take it to our inspection department and a probe will measure where it’s incorrect vs the true perfect form. It will then send that information back to the first machine, which will administer corrections to make it the perfect shape. It’s a closed-loop system, right back to the original design data, which enables our engineers to refine the design for optimum strength, wear, efficiency and, for automotive applications, low noise.’

Once the gear has been produced, heat treatment realises the intended material properties of hardness, ductility and strength. Xtrac uses two types of heat treatment furnace technology, both of which use electrical elements to heat to the correct temperature: a seal quench furnace (of which the company has three) and a low-pressure carburising furnace.

The heat treatment process creates a reaction in a gaseous environment that produces carbon, which infuses into the gear’s surface when the heat is raised up to around 1000degC. The low-pressure carburising furnaces are newer to Xtrac, having only been introduced within the last six years, and can provide a more precise process than the older, but  proven, sealed quench furnaces through their gas quenching process, rather than the oil quench of the older equipment. There are currently two in operation, all feeding off a dedicated electricity substation.

After heat treatment, most parts, including gears, are processed through shot peening to improve their fatigue resistance and prolong their lifespan. This aerospace process involves firing tiny shot pellets at the gear surface and creating surface tension.

Test and Build

Heading back out to the main walkway, greyed-out windows on the office side signify the R&D department. Of course, this most interesting of rooms is strictly off limits to outsiders, but we are told it contains testing apparatus, such as a four-square rig, a gimbal rig and a quasi-transient differential test rig (QT-DTR) that customers and Xtrac both use. The factory also houses two fully loaded, transient powertrain test rigs, and multiple rigs used for end-of-line gearbox testing.

Next door is the Xtrac Academy: a practical training area for level two and three apprentices with manual and CNC machines for making non-production parts, plus computer-aided engineering (CAE) training areas. Xtrac takes on around 10 apprentices per year, and a high proportion go on to stay with the company. As an example, Xtrac’s first apprentice from the 1990s, Simon Short, is now head of its Indianapolis build shop.

Upstairs from R&D and the academy is Xtrac’s motorsport build area, where gearboxes are put together. Five years ago, it was the assembly shop for all products, but the increased automotive workload has correlated with a significant investment into a dedicated assembly line located in a different area. At the time of our visit, sportscar gearboxes are being built for Le Mans.

Also visible is a huge, 3D-printed casing built for the 932kW Czinger 21C electric hypercar (an industry first as most gearboxes use L169 aluminium). This makes a fitting bookend to the G4 layout encountered at the top of our tour. Gearbox technology has come a long way since Endean’s first, successful product and Xtrac has been a key part of furthering reliability and performance in many categories during that time.

As motorsport looks to other powertrain and fuel solutions for the future, Xtrac is well positioned to remain at the forefront of transmission design.

CLICK HERE to read the full version of this article in the July issue of Racecar Engineering!

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A team of Delft University of Technology technical department students studying to become tomorrow’s engineers have designed, built, and raced a hydrogen fuel cell electric-powered Prototype to demonstrate the possibilities for hydrogen in motorsports, mobility and more.

The team, called Forze Hydrogen Racing, was set up to accelerate the marketing, activation and visibility of hydrogen and the technology inside fuel cell cars. The result is a collaboration of academic programmes and industrial partner-engineered design, providing a laboratory environment to develop hydrogen fuel cell technology under rigorous racing conditions.

Forze Hydrogen Racing was founded in 2007 and started by putting small fuel cells on a go-kart. The latest car, the Forze IX, is a full-scale Prototype racer that currently competes in an Open GT racing class in The Netherlands. It is considered a breakthrough in hydrogen fuel cell electric car performance.

Fuel cell operation

The Forze IX is an electric-powered Prototype racecar with a supercapacitor accumulator, and two independent EKPO fuel cell systems that produce its electricity. The sensitive operation of the hydrogen fuel cell makes designing one for the racecar application challenging.

The oxygen required comes from the outside air, which is scooped in from the main inlet on the roof and fed to the two cathode systems. Before the air can reach the fuel cell, it must be conditioned to remove contaminants and rainwater. So it is run through filters designed with one of the team’s partners, Donaldson, before being compressed by an electrical turbo-compressor from Fisher Spindle.

Due to this compression, the air heats up so, before entering the cathode, it passes through an intercooler to cool it down. Compressing the air also enables energy recuperation from the exhaust flow, which significantly increases system efficiency.

Finally, Fumatech humidifiers moisten the air so as not to dry out the fuel cell.

The compressed, intercooled and humidified air then enters the cathode inside the fuel cell. Both cathode systems consume as much as 16kg of air per minute.

At the anode, hydrogen molecules are split into atoms and stripped of their electrons, leaving a proton that needs to pass through the fuel cell membrane. Meanwhile, the hydrogen’s electron is forced through an electrical circuit. This electron movement is current that the car can use as drive power directly at the motors and power systems, or to charge the accumulator.

At the cathode, the proton bonds with the oxygen in the air and re-combines with the electron to form a water molecule, which is then exhausted from the system using excess air.

‘What makes the car truly unique is that it runs on two separate and independent fuel cell systems,’ explains Abel van Beest, team manager of Forze Hydrogen Racing. ‘Only a few experiments have been done in the past with dual-engine cars, and this is a first for fuel cells.

‘Running on a dual fuel cell system like this one has several advantages. Starting from redundancy can help in case of a partial system failure and reduce engineering risk as one system can be developed and tested before producing the second one.’

The fuel cells provide a continuous 240kW.

‘The two EKPO fuel cells are very power dense and are therefore a great match for a powerful, tightly packaged car,’ van Beest continues. ‘The two fuel cells simultaneously operate under independent deployment strategies to provide the most efficient performance for any part of a track, and allow our engineers to develop and iterate upgrades much faster.’

Hydrogen management

The total volume of hydrogen on board amounts to about 8.5kg, which is stored in four tanks at 700 times atmospheric pressure (bar). From the tanks, it is transported through high-pressure and vibration-resistant tubing from Parker to a pressure regulator that drops the pressure of the hydrogen.

The next stop is a hydrogen control system, custom developed by Forze’s fuel cell engineers, in collaboration with Burkert.

This system consistently provides the fuel cell with the exact amount of hydrogen for the demand. In some conditions, excess hydrogen is delivered to the fuel cell to gain more performance and lifetime. A recirculation system was developed using a custom component called the ejector so as not to waste the hydrogen that comes back out of the fuel cell. The ejector is a passive device used to sustain hydrogen recirculation to the fuel cell, specifically on the anode side, without power.

‘The ejector, in essence, can be viewed as a pump, a device that increases the pressure of a fluid to overcome the frictional losses associated with mass transport,’ explains India van Doornen, chief engineer at Forze Hydrogen Racing. ‘Within the control of the various mass flows to and from the fuel cell, the ejector’s job is to maintain the hydrogen flow on the anode side of the fuel cell, which a recirculation pump would typically fulfil.

‘However, a recirculation pump requires considerable amounts of power, usually in the order of several kilowatts, to achieve the required pressure lift,’ he continues. ‘This power would come from that produced by the fuel cell system and is directly consumed by the systems supporting its operation, generating parasitic losses. The ejector, on the other hand, reduces the parasitic losses of the fuel cell system by tapping into another energy source: the potential energy stored as pressure within the hydrogen storage tanks.’

The stored hydrogen must be returned to near atmospheric pressure before the fuel cell can use it, and the ejector system exploits this potential energy to increase the hydrogen pressure in the anode recirculation loop. The hydrogen feed is throttled to coincide with demand, and this process is not used to produce useful output.

‘The ejector increases the pressure of the gases in the fuel cell anode recirculation loop by throttling the hydrogen to a pressure several bar above the final desired pressure,’ confirms van Doornen. ‘The hydrogen from the storage system is accelerated through the ejector’s convergent nozzle geometry, which decreases the fluid’s static pressure.’

The ejector geometry means the pressure of the fluid leaving the nozzle is lower than the pressure of the fluid in the recirculation loop. As a result, the hydrogen in the recirculation loop is entrained because of the negative pressure gradient. The gases in the anode loop are therefore accelerated and mixed with the hydrogen from the storage system at a high velocity. At this point, a lot of the fluid’s energy is kinetic.

The flow is fed through a diffuser to transfer this kinetic energy back into potential energy in the form of pressure, and the ejector’s geometry increases the pressure of the fluid relative to the entrained flow.

The Forze engineers optimised this component using flow simulations, with help from FTXT. The car features an accumulator of supercapacitor cells from Musashi, enabling onboard electrical storage with ultra-fast charge and discharge to make the fuel cell system efficient and practical for racing.

Another partner, SciMo, provides the four lightweight and power-dense electric motors that allow Forza IX to have a combined motor torque equivalent to that of a Lamborghini Huracán. The SciMo motor units also enable the Forze IX to regenerate as much energy in one braking zone as a Formula 1 car can generate in an entire lap. 

‘Each motor is connected to its custom gearbox and drivetrain so the wheels can spin at different speeds, allowing for torque vectoring,’ explains van Doornen. ‘When the car approaches a corner, it needs to decelerate. A significant part of this deceleration is achieved by regenerative braking using the four electric motors to charge the accumulator. When the car is most power sensitive, at corner exit, besides the fuel cells working on maximum power, the accumulator can be quickly discharged to the motors, delivering the total output of 600kW to the wheels.’

System integration

Creating a lot of power always comes with a lot of heat, since no system is 100 per cent efficient. As such, the Forze IX is heavily cooled to maintain performance. Despite the significant new technical innovations onboard, the cooling presented some of the biggest design challenges for the project.

The hydrogen fuel cell and supercapacitor accumulator run at very low temperatures compared to an internal combustion engine but, because the temperature difference between the powertrain and the outside air is small, it is hard to cool it using outside air.

The car is therefore fitted with five radiators spread over the car to address the cooling requirements, which the Forze team cooling engineers designed with partner, PWR. Pierburg pumps drive coolant through the system at a flow rate of up to 460l/min.

To have enough airflow through these radiators to exchange the heat with the coolant, the Forze IX needed specialised aerodynamic bodywork to accommodate its thermal requirements, while also maintaining adequate performance and efficiency. The Forze IX aerodynamics engineers designed the car’s carbon fibre bodywork, which was produced with partner, Airborne.

‘The Forze IX’s shape is the result of over 500 iterations of airflow simulations to optimise the aerodynamics for the application,’ highlights van Doornen. ‘The mass flow of air through the radiators is 190kg/min, and the Forze IX still generates 1200kg of downforce at top speed. Even with higher cooling requirements than other Prototype cars, the Forze IX has good aerodynamic efficiency with a lift-over-drag ratio of around 4:1.’

The front of the chassis is a carbon fibre monocoque construction, built for driver and systems protection, with integrated mountings at the rear to accommodate power unit systems. The monocoque features a frontal extension to include the front drivetrain, while the back houses the accumulator and mounts for the central subframe, all while weighing just under 100kg.

The car’s body was iterated over 300 times using various CAE solvers to ensure seamless integration of the powertrain systems.

‘The central subframe mounted behind the monocoque houses most of the critical systems in the car, such as the fuel cells and the main tank,’ notes van Doornen. ‘It was optimised for stiffness and crash protection, while also accommodating the rear subframe mounting. The rear subframe consists of a structural motor and gearbox housing designed to attach to the rear suspension and a rear wing support structure to deal with those loads.’

Forze Hydrogen Racing’s vehicle dynamics engineers designed the car’s double wishbone suspension.

‘The tricky part about designing the suspension was the little space we had to work with in the car,’ notes van Doornen. ‘We needed to ensure the forces were translated properly from the ground to the chassis and provide optimal road handling while tightly packaged.

‘Our suspension features high-quality bearings from SKF that ensure a smooth and low friction movement.’

Using driving simulations, the Forze engineering team identified all the forces and shocks occurring within the suspension while racing. A damper package from Koni was then chosen as the optimal solution for the car, providing the driver with the proper feedback from the interaction between the car and the road.

Control systems

The Forza IX is a complex machine, with a great many systems interacting, so it needed a brain to activate and accurately control all those systems. A custom power distribution system was therefore designed to manage the energy flow from the fuel cells to the four electric motors, two compressors and all other power devices.

‘The function of the brain is taken up by our embedded system, which has a central processing unit and distributed sensing and activation units that operate like a nervous system,’ explains van Doornen. ‘All the embedded systems are prototypes, with many custom components and experimental samples from the automotive industry.’

The embedded central control systems monitor, protect and control all the sub-systems in the car.

To help do this, the team developed a component called the supervisor node. This monitors the hydrogen tanks and refuelling system, checks high-voltage electronics and performs critical shutdown safely. It can take up all safety-critical features and operate them during a system failure or power loss.

The state of the car is constantly monitored by over 400 sensors provided by team partner, Kistler. That’s more sensors than on a current Formula 1 car.

‘The various sensors accurately measure a large variety of parameters from which thousands of calculations of the state of critical systems are made to operate the car safely and in the most performant manner,’ notes van Doornen. ‘Measurement of many parameters are needed to learn about the systems since the team is working with all-new technology that has never been benchmarked before.’

The team’s electrical engineers have also designed custom telemetry system hardware that collects sensor data and communicates it to the central control unit of the car. From there, commands are communicated to the external hardware and relays telemetry, and to all other electrical components throughout the car when necessary.

The wiring harness and the central control unit, which has enough processing power to run all the control systems and process all the data, were designed in cooperation with partner, Fokker, while the control algorithms are written by Forze control system engineers, and dictate at all times what the controllable components in the car have to do.

‘Due to its unique hydrogen electric design, the Forze IX consists of a unique collection of specialised electrical devices. To integrate those into a robust and embedded system, our software engineers had to design a completely custom and extensive software structure,’ explains van Doornen. ‘It features low-level codes to interface specific devices, and high-level implementation for system level error handling.’

As it is not enough that the car itself knows what’s happening during a race, the trackside engineers also need to have all critical information to hand to spot mechanical or electrical problems whilst the car is on track, or run a power strategy at a particular moment in the race. Therefore, the Forza IX features telemetry using UHF, 4G and Wi-Fi systems. The car can transmit all the necessary data at various data rates depending on the distance from the pit wall. To make telemetry even more convenient, the Forze team, together with IBM, are setting up cloud-based telemetry for easy data storage and analysis.

‘The Forze IX is built to keep growing and innovating, so that is what we are going to do,’ states van Beest. ‘In the future, Forze aims to shift towards endurance racing. We believe that is where the power of hydrogen lies.’

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The prospect of fielding a vehicle in both the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and the North American IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship proved to be enticing enough for Porsche AG’s executive board, who, on 16 December 2020, announced its commitment to developing an LMDh prototype for racing from January 2023.

Less than five months later, Porsche divulged its close partnership with Team Penske. The new Porsche Penske Motorsport team for international racing was born. The squad operates out of two locations: The IMSA headquarters is in the American team’s home of Mooresville, North Carolina, with the WEC operations run from Mannheim, Germany.

After an active testing phase for the new prototypes throughout 2022, the new Porsche 963 makes its official race debut at the 24 Hours of Daytona in the US state of Florida (28/29 January 2023). Prior to this, the hybrid vehicle covered more than 33,000 kilometres at tests and the so-called Roar at Daytona.

Powering the Porsche 918 Spyder is a highly efficient, naturally aspirated engine without turbocharging. In the LMDh prototype, the power unit runs in conjunction with two turbochargers from the Dutch manufacturer Van der Lee, which increases the ambient pressure by just 0.3 bars. The turbocharger units mount in a ‘hot vee’ configuration inside the 90-degree opening of the V-geometry. ‘The engine retains its basic characteristics as a naturally aspirated unit and has a swift throttle response,’ Moser continues. ‘The relatively low boost pressure builds quickly; therefore, there is no so-called turbo lag.’

Converting the production engine to feature turbo technology was easy: around 80 per cent of all components come from the 918, though some components required additional reinforcement to make the 963 engine a supporting element. Additionally, Porsche had already designed the V8 to work with a hybrid system for the 918 Spyder.

The manufacturers Bosch (motor generator unit, electronics and software) and Williams Advanced Engineering (high-voltage battery) supply the standardised components of the electric boost system. The so-called motor generator unit (MGU), responsible for the power output and energy recovery under braking at the rear axle, directly interacts with the standard gearbox from the Xtrac brand. The MGU sits in the bell housing between the combustion engine and the gearbox.

The hybrid’s entire electrical system produces up to 800 volts. The uniform battery has an energy capacity of 1.35 kWh, which can be mobilised at any time under acceleration. An output of 30 to 50 kW (40 to 68 PS) is available in short bursts but does not change the overall output of the powertrain. When the thrust of the MGU kicks in, the combustion engine’s power, which can reach over 8,000 rpm (depending on the BoP), automatically decreases. The regulations stipulate the power output precisely.

The lineage of the 4.6-litre twin-turbo V8 sporting the Porsche internal designation 9RD can be traced back to the RS Spyder. In the hands of the former Porsche customer team Penske, the racing vehicle won all titles in the LMP2 class of the American Le Mans Series between 2006 and 2008. At the time, the engine in the distinctive yellow and red prototype had a displacement of 3.4 litres. The design and concept, however, still satisfy the highest demands of modern motorsport.

‘The V8 engine can also run on CO2-optimised fuel or so-called bio-based refuel,’ Moser notes. In this area, Porsche has played a pioneering role with the introduction of environmentally friendly fuels in the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup since the 2021 season. The insights gained with the 911 GT3 Cup assist with the optimum running of the new Porsche 963.

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‘At Audi, we are pursuing a consistent strategy of decarbonization,’ says Oliver Hoffmann, Board Member for Technical Development at Audi. ‘Our battery vehicles and renewable electricity are the lead technologies. To complement this, renewable fuels offer the possibility of running internal combustion engines in a more climate-friendly way. The Audi RS Q e-tron combines both systems in its innovative drive. As a result, we are now even more sustainable on the road in the toughest motorsport imaginable for electric drives.”

Audi relies on residue-based products that do not compete with foodstuffs for the fuel used in the rally car to further reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Behind this is a process that converts biomass into ethanol in the first step. The final fuel is then produced in further process steps. The process is abbreviated to ethanol-to-gasoline (ETG). The process engineers use biogenic plant parts as the starting product. The tank content of the RS Q e-tron consists of 80% sustainable components, including ETG and e-methanol. This fuel is required by the energy converter, whose combustion engine part operates with high compression and thus very efficiently supplies electricity for the electric drive. So while the drive concept, in principle, already requires less fuel than conventional systems, there is now a further optimization. ‘With this fuel mixture, the Audi RS Q e-tron saves more than 60% in carbon dioxide emissions,” says Dr Fabian Titus, Application and Thermodynamics Development.

This development, driven by Audi, complies with the strict chemical specifications of the FIA and ASO fuel regulations. They are similar to the regulations for commercially available fuel grades with 102 octane. Such a high value guarantees the anti-knock properties of the fuel-air mix during the combustion process. With this innovative fuel, the combustion engine achieves slightly higher efficiency than fossil-based gasoline. However, the oxygen content in the eFuel reduces the energy density of the fuel, which is why the volumetric calorific value drops. The RS Q e-Tron, therefore, requires a larger tank volume.

Of course, this does not give the vehicle a regulatory advantage because fuel flow meters determine energy consumption with maximum precision in the interest of equal opportunities among the participants. In its premiere year, 2022, the first generation of the RS Q e-tron already completed the daily rally stages in January and March in a highly energy-efficient manner thanks to the electric drive with energy converter. A significantly improved CO2 balance is additionally achieved through the direct use of renewable fuels in HEV (Hybrid Electric Vehicles) models such as the RS Q e-tron and highly efficient hybrid vehicles for road traffic in general.

Audi’s vision is to drive the world’s most demanding races with 100% renewable fuel. After the four rings have stood for a technology transfer between motorsport and production cars for more than four decades, the use of eFuels opens up an additional dimension: vehicles with combustion engines and hybrid drives can continue to make an effective contribution to reducing greenhouse gases with eFuels.

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