- Nissan plans to deliver its e-4orce AWD tech into System E
- System E might in flip turn out to be a testbed for efficiency AWD
- Battery tech will keep divergent between manufacturing and racing
Nissan’s System E race automotive is sporting the e-4orce badge for the primary time this 2023/24 season.
Sure, that’s the identical badge you would possibly discover on a 2024 Nissan Ariya—a badge that you just’re more likely to see rather more of on performance-focused Nissan EVs sooner or later.
Whereas Nissan’s avenue vehicles and race vehicles have little in widespread right this moment, Nissan sees them doubtlessly meshing extra sooner or later—and studying from one another, as Inexperienced Automotive Experiences realized in a dialog with Nissan System E group principal Tomasso Volpe ultimately weekend’s System E race in Portland.
Volpe is the group principal for Nissan’s group, which he likened to being the CEO of an organization whereas additionally implementing all of the supporting operations. And he really sees Nissan’s System E and manufacturing Nissan EV applications getting nearer collectively.
The reply is probably not so shocking contemplating his employer stands in stark distinction to a line of naysayers who’ve dropped out of System E, like BMW, Audi, and Mercedes. Nissan this spring grew to become the primary producer to join System E’s Gen 4 period, which can run by 2030.
2023 Nissan Ariya e-4orce
2023 Nissan Ariya e-4orce
2023 Nissan Ariya e-4orce
Effectivity and regen are on the core
All the pieces modified already for Gen 3, because the vehicles grew to become lighter, sooner, and rather more highly effective, with as much as 600 kw of brake recuperation because of the inclusion of recent entrance motors—already used for that, however on account of be employed for ahead movement in a Gen 3.5 improve subsequent season.
Volpe informed Inexperienced Automotive Experiences that initially, what the group has already realized in additional than a season of the Gen 3 automotive, forward of these modifications, is tips on how to handle car dynamics and power use and restoration collectively. With regenerative braking, and a method round it, constructed into the race, if you weren’t regenerating in any respect, you’d end round 60% of the whole race size.
“The place now we have improved so much is within the administration of the car effectivity—what you may obtain with all of the software program instruments that you just develop, and the management methods for the car dynamics,” mentioned Volpe. “Configuring the dynamics has improved so much. It’s not that we’ve discovered extra power, it’s that we use power significantly better.”
“Sure, we put e-4orce on the automotive already this yr to start out selling it, to be trustworthy; it’s a branding train,” Volpe admitted. However he rapidly added: “Subsequent yr there will likely be moments the place you need to use all-wheel-drive expertise within the automotive, and for that, sure, we’re utilizing some experience from Nissan.
Nissan System E automotive, at Portland, 2024
Ariya e-4orce faculties System E…which faculties future GT-R?
“So now we have a number of the engineers who’ve developed e-4orce to advise us tips on how to use all-wheel drive in essentially the most environment friendly means…tips on how to maximize the effectivity of the all-wheel drive,” he defined.
For now, System E vehicles don’t even use the entrance motor for tractive (ahead) energy but. However they do use it for regenerative braking—and Nissan is already capable of faucet into a few of its chassis know-how in that respect.
Nissan has emphasised that e-4orce was derived from work that began with its GT-R supercar. Likewise, senior VP and chief planning officer Ponz Pandikuthira confirmed to our companion web site Motor Authority that System E will function a testbed for next-gen GT-R improvement.
Subsequent yr will deliver some management methods gleaned from the dynamic management of regenerative braking, utilized in Nissan manufacturing fashions just like the Ariya using e-4orce. {Hardware}-wise, a brand new gearbox will likely be “massively improved, because of some concepts and options instructed by superior R&D in Japan,” and that can deliver the group one other increase in efficiency and effectivity.
2023 Nissan Ariya e-4orce
After which comes Gen 4, which is predicted to introduce fixed all-wheel drive, whereas Gen 3.5 will provide traction from the entrance wheels a number of the time. “So for us we are able to apply e-4orce for all the race then, and for us all-wheel drive is a elementary expertise for electrical automobiles,” mentioned Volpe.
Chassis management and dynamics because it pertains to which are a part of Nissan’s core enterprise, he says, so having an all-wheel-drive car will give Nissan the chance to switch much more information each methods.
Actual-world crossover for System E
Whereas this seems like a fairly harmonious meshing of racing, R&D, and EV improvement—one which Porsche, for example, additionally sees—that’s not the best way that a number of different massive automakers have gone. Audi, BMW, and Mercedes have been among the many automakers exiting System E simply earlier than the present Gen 3 arrived for the 2022-2023 season.
Every of those automakers had a variety of causes, however at one level or one other, every has in the end instructed that there was a comparatively low stage of expertise switch again to manufacturing automobiles. After seven years in System E, BMW sounded essentially the most pessimistic on the prospects when it introduced it might be dropping out after the 2020-2021 season. “With regards to the event of e-drivetrains, BMW Group has basically exhausted the alternatives for this type of expertise switch within the aggressive surroundings of System E,” the corporate mentioned.
Audi confirmed its departure a short while later, in 2021, and pointed to different varieties of motorsport, just like the Dakar Rally, as a approach to “additional develop our experience within the area of electrical mobility underneath excessive situations,” and Mercedes merely famous that the choice was made to refocus sources on EV improvement.
Nissan System E automotive, at Portland, 2024
Battery tech must be very totally different
Not each expertise right here is related to manufacturing EVs—even efficiency ones—the group boss admits. The battery is the apparent instance, as a result of it’s such a unique use case. Getting by the race with out a part failure is the target, not getting the battery pack to final 150,000 miles or extra as in a manufacturing EV.
Though even right here there could also be some classes good for taking to EVs set to say observe time. “The primary problem that now we have with the battery is the temperature, and to attempt to get the battery at all times in the correct window to ensure we use a lot of the power in essentially the most environment friendly means. That is the principle problem relating to the battery greater than the rest; the remaining is sort of constant within the BMS.”
System E groups function underneath a unique set of priorities. They’ll run the battery all the best way as much as 73.5 levels C and nonetheless be fairly environment friendly in extracting power from it, however they’d higher make certain the temp received’t preserve rising, as a result of at 74 levels it’s lifeless and received’t be revived for the race. With round 55 levels on up thought of the best vary for the battery, the groups and System E itself provide you with a method on the place to start out—particularly, 42-45 levels for final Saturday’s race that the pit crew was then making ready for.
Volpe famous that typically inside System E races you see vehicles with a better share of power left on the finish of the race, whereas they hadn’t really been pushing a lot to get better positions in the previous few laps. That’s a sign the battery temperature wasn’t managed effectively.
Alternatively, engineering insights from the inverter, gearbox, and motor can all be helpful for manufacturing fashions. So can insights from superior supplies like carbon fiber.
Nissan System E automotive, at Portland, 2024
System E leaning on software program for positive factors, drivers for wins
This yr, the massive effectivity positive factors are software program ones, in accordance with Volpe. Vitality administration software program is giving the group a way more refined device to make use of through the race, for higher dynamic optimization of energy supply and regen.
“By regulation, in idea, you would rewrite the entire software program of the automotive from one race to a different. After all the core software program stays the identical, however there are little instruments we use; some are instruments that hook up with the software program within the automotive and these are repeatedly up to date.”
Nissan’s engineers prefer to suppose that they’ve a brand new model of the software program for each single race. But it surely does must be set prematurely of the race itself. The FIA evaluations all the code, apart from offline instruments and no matter is used for knowledge evaluation.
However a lot of it in System E nonetheless rests on the motive force—as seen at Portland the place the end result of the race got here all the way down to easy driver error and one not fairly following the racing line he’d supposed, clipping the grass, and spinning out.
I will go away you with an image you will simply need to think about, as contained in the workings of its pit crew Nissan would not need to let onto any photographic secrets and techniques: On web site, at pit lane and simply out of view of the conventional pit-lane excursions, Nissan gave me a short glimpse of a management room stuffed with screens and folks layers of information, together with driver simulations and warmth maps. In the meantime, a group in Paris can be diving into knowledge and advising on varied eventualities.
2024 Nissan GT-R Skyline Version
From Portland to Paris to Yokohama, System E appears to be working for Nissan as a distant testbed—and for Jaguar Land Rover, which has claimed actual EV vary positive factors from System E tech.
As I left pit lane I contemplated: If these different automakers are getting what they want from F1, what expertise, like solid-state batteries or deeper simulation instruments, will it take to get different automakers again on board with System E? The race is on, however not everybody sees themselves in the identical race.
