- Nissan plans to convey its e-4orce AWD tech into Method E
- Method E might in flip turn out to be a testbed for efficiency AWD
- Battery tech will keep divergent between manufacturing and racing
Nissan’s Method E race automobile 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 prone to see far more of on performance-focused Nissan EVs sooner or later.
Whereas Nissan’s avenue automobiles and race automobiles have little in widespread at present, Nissan sees them doubtlessly meshing extra sooner or later—and studying from one another, as Inexperienced Automotive Stories realized in a dialog with Nissan Method E crew principal Tomasso Volpe eventually weekend’s Method E race in Portland.
Volpe is the crew principal for Nissan’s crew, which he likened to being the CEO of an organization whereas additionally implementing all of the supporting operations. And he really sees Nissan’s Method E and manufacturing Nissan EV packages getting nearer collectively.
The reply will not be so shocking contemplating his employer stands in stark distinction to a line of naysayers who’ve dropped out of Method E, like BMW, Audi, and Mercedes. Nissan this spring turned the primary producer to enroll in Method E’s Gen 4 period, which can run by means of 2030.
2023 Nissan Ariya e-4orce
2023 Nissan Ariya e-4orce
2023 Nissan Ariya e-4orce
Effectivity and regen are on the core
Every little thing modified already for Gen 3, because the automobiles turned lighter, quicker, and far 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 resulting from be employed for ahead movement in a Gen 3.5 improve subsequent season.
Volpe advised Inexperienced Automotive Stories that firstly, what the crew has already realized in additional than a season of the Gen 3 automobile, forward of these modifications, is easy methods to handle automobile dynamics and power use and restoration collectively. With regenerative braking, and a technique round it, constructed into the race, if you weren’t regenerating in any respect, you’ll end round 60% of the entire race size.
“The place we’ve got improved rather a lot is within the administration of the automobile effectivity—what you’ll be able to obtain with all of the software program instruments that you just develop, and the management techniques for the automobile dynamics,” stated Volpe. “Configuring the dynamics has improved rather a lot. It’s not that we’ve discovered extra power, it’s that we use power a lot better.”
“Sure, we put e-4orce on the automobile already this 12 months to begin selling it, to be sincere; it’s a branding train,” Volpe admitted. However he rapidly added: “Subsequent 12 months there can be moments the place you should use all-wheel-drive know-how within the automobile, and for that, sure, we’re utilizing some experience from Nissan.
Nissan Method E automobile, at Portland, 2024
Ariya e-4orce faculties Method E…which faculties future GT-R?
“So we’ve got among the engineers who’ve developed e-4orce to advise us easy methods to use all-wheel drive in essentially the most environment friendly approach…easy methods to maximize the effectivity of the all-wheel drive,” he defined.
For now, Method E automobiles 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 website Motor Authority that Method E will function a testbed for next-gen GT-R improvement.
Subsequent 12 months will convey 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 can be “massively improved, because of some concepts and options steered by superior R&D in Japan,” and that can convey the crew one other increase in efficiency and effectivity.
2023 Nissan Ariya e-4orce
After which comes Gen 4, which is anticipated to introduce fixed all-wheel drive, whereas Gen 3.5 will supply traction from the entrance wheels among the time. “So for us we are able to apply e-4orce for the entire race then, and for us all-wheel drive is a basic know-how for electrical automobiles,” stated 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 automobile will give Nissan the chance to switch much more information each methods.
Actual-world crossover for Method E
Whereas this feels like a fairly harmonious meshing of racing, R&D, and EV improvement—one which Porsche, as an example, additionally sees—that’s not the best way that a number of different huge automakers have gone. Audi, BMW, and Mercedes have been among the many automakers exiting Method E simply earlier than the present Gen 3 arrived for the 2022-2023 season.
Every of those automakers had a spread of causes, however at one level or one other, every has in the end steered that there was a comparatively low stage of know-how switch again to manufacturing automobiles. After seven years in Method E, BMW sounded essentially the most pessimistic on the prospects when it introduced it will be dropping out after the 2020-2021 season. “On the subject of the event of e-drivetrains, BMW Group has basically exhausted the alternatives for this type of know-how switch within the aggressive surroundings of Method E,” the corporate stated.
Audi confirmed its departure a short while later, in 2021, and pointed to different sorts 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 Method E automobile, at Portland, 2024
Battery tech must be very completely different
Not each know-how right here is related to manufacturing EVs—even efficiency ones—the crew boss admits. The battery is the plain instance, as a result of it’s such a unique use case. Getting by means of the race with out a element 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 monitor time. “The principle difficulty that we’ve got with the battery is the temperature, and to attempt to get the battery at all times in the best window to verify we use many of the power in essentially the most environment friendly approach. That is the primary problem in the case of the battery greater than anything; the remaining is sort of constant within the BMS.”
Method 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 sure the temp gained’t preserve rising, as a result of at 74 levels it’s useless and gained’t be revived for the race. With round 55 levels on up thought of the perfect vary for the battery, the groups and Method E itself provide you with a technique on the place to begin—particularly, 42-45 levels for final Saturday’s race that the pit crew was then getting ready for.
Volpe famous that typically inside Method E races you see automobiles with the next share of power left on the finish of the race, whereas they hadn’t really been pushing a lot to recuperate positions in the previous couple of laps. That’s a sign the battery temperature wasn’t managed effectively.
However, 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 Method E automobile, at Portland, 2024
Method E leaning on software program for good points, drivers for wins
This 12 months, the large effectivity good points are software program ones, in response to Volpe. Power administration software program is giving the crew a way more subtle device to make use of through the race, for higher dynamic optimization of energy supply and regen.
“By regulation, in principle, you would rewrite the entire software program of the automobile from one race to a different. In fact 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 automobile and these are repeatedly up to date.”
Nissan’s engineers wish to assume that they’ve a brand new model of the software program for each single race. But it surely does should be set upfront of the race itself. The FIA evaluations the complete code, apart from offline instruments and no matter is used for knowledge evaluation.
However a lot of it in Method E nonetheless rests on the motive force—as seen at Portland the place the result of the race got here right down to easy driver error and one not fairly following the racing line he’d meant, clipping the grass, and spinning out.
I will depart you with an image you may simply must think about, as contained in the workings of its pit crew Nissan does not need to let onto any photographic secrets and techniques: On website, at pit lane and simply out of view of the traditional pit-lane excursions, Nissan gave me a quick glimpse of a management room filled with screens and folks layers of information, together with driver simulations and warmth maps. In the meantime, a crew in Paris can also be diving into knowledge and advising on varied situations.
2024 Nissan GT-R Skyline Version
From Portland to Paris to Yokohama, Method E appears to be working for Nissan as a distant testbed—and for Jaguar Land Rover, which has claimed actual EV vary good points from Method E tech.
As I left pit lane I contemplated: If these different automakers are getting what they want from F1, what know-how, like solid-state batteries or deeper simulation instruments, will it take to get different automakers again on board with Method E? The race is on, however not everybody sees themselves in the identical race.
