Supercars JUB JUB Supercars thread

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Vader said:
I wonder if there is any chance, whatsoever, of Supercars management pulling their heads out of their arses, and realising that the days of the pure ICE are almost extinct? Very soon they will be the only major category on the planet still running pure ICEs, indeed they will probably struggle to source pure ICE powertrains to put in their cars, by the time Gen 4 comes around.
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There probably will not be a Gen4, as Supercars as a category will be dead by then. Will there be any sports cars, coupes or even 4 door saloons sold in Australia by then? The local car market is dominated by SUV's & Utes.

Best we adopt either a GT spec or NASCAR spec car going forward to continue the series.

Maybe a complete restoration of Calder Park should be considered to reintroduce oval racing considering most of our V8 drivers will end up in the NASCAR series before too long.

ICE will always be around. EV's however are failing in the market and will likely exist in hybrid form only or as a niche product at best.
 
ibd77 said:
There probably will not be a Gen4, as Supercars as a category will be dead by then. Will there be any sports cars, coupes or even 4 door saloons sold in Australia by then? The local car market is dominated by SUV's & Utes.

Best we adopt either a GT spec or NASCAR spec car going forward to continue the series.
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I suspect Gen4 will be NASCAR spec vehicles.
ibd77 said:
Maybe a complete restoration of Calder Park should be considered to reintroduce oval racing considering most of our V8 drivers will end up in the NASCAR series before too long.
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I don't think Australians will ever be enamoured with oval racing.
ibd77 said:
ICE will always be around. EV's however are failing in the market and will likely exist in hybrid form only or as a niche product at best.
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... and no. Pure ICEs are rapidly going the way of the dinosaur.

Just this week Toyota announced that they were dropping ICEs for all models which have an existing hybrid option. All of these models will now only be offered in hybrid form. Only the Hilux, Hiace, Prado, and Landcruiser models remain with ICEs, and their days are numbered too.
https://www.drive.com.au/news/toyota-rav4-goes-hybrid-only-across-range/

Note that my previous discussion all centred on hybrid vs ICE. Hybrids will be around for a while longer, as a transition technology, but pure ICEs will be phased out very soon.

As for EVs... they're hardly failing in the market. Their growth may have slowed, but they're still a growing section of the market. There are a number of things affecting them:
  • Increasing imports from China changing the supply vs demand equation, driving new car prices down, resulting in poorer re-sale prices.
  • High prices (now falling rapidly, see above).
  • Lack of charging infrastructure.
  • Range anxiety.
  • Battery fires.
  • Rapidly changing technology - buy a 10yo EV today, and you get a car which only has a range of 130km. Battery technology is improving so rapidly that EVs become obsolete very rapidly, resulting in poor re-sale value.
  • High insurance costs, as vehicles are effectively written off if there is any damage to the battery.
All of these issues will be resolved over time. Charging infrastructure will be built; battery technology will mature, slowing the obsolescence of EVs, increasing range and decreasing the incidence of battery fires; with improved battery technology comes reduced insurance premiums.

EVs aren't going away - but pure ICEs most definitely are. The only thing which might prevent EVs from becoming dominant is if Hydrogen Fuel Cell or Hydrogen-ICE takes off in a big way, but those technologies are still in the prototype phase of development.
 

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Jatz said:
I know for a fact that the major energy companies in Australia are putting most of their resources into Hydrogen as the long term solution.

They don't believe EV's will ever fully take off here (or at least that's what they hope).
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There was an article on The Age website, talking about Toyota testing Hydrogen Hiluxes in the UK.
https://www.drive.com.au/news/hydrogen-powered-toyota-hilux-reaches-testing-phase-australia-keen/

At present there are only a handful of Hydrogen refueling stations in Victoria & ACT, so we're talking even less infrastructure than there is for EVs. It may well be the long-term solution, but it's still a fair way away from being a mature technology.

My understanding is that Hydrogen is likely to be better for long-haul driving (e.g. interstate trucks), with EVs being better suited to short-range trips (e.g. commuting to/from work in the cities). Hybrid is a good transition technology, while we wait for EV & Hydrogen technology to fully mature.

Given the vast distances between Australia's population centres, and the delusion most people secretly harbour about doing the big country drive, Hydrogen is likely to be very popular here once it matures. I suspect Hydrogen will be far more popular here than it ever will be in Europe.

Getting back to the original point, it seems odd that the head of Supercars Australia has no plans whatsoever for incorporating hybrid technology into Gen 4, when almost every other major category in the world either uses hybrid already or has plans to make the transition soon.
 
Vader said:
I suspect Gen4 will be NASCAR spec vehicles.

I don't think Australians will ever be enamoured with oval racing.

... and no. Pure ICEs are rapidly going the way of the dinosaur.

Just this week Toyota announced that they were dropping ICEs for all models which have an existing hybrid option. All of these models will now only be offered in hybrid form. Only the Hilux, Hiace, Prado, and Landcruiser models remain with ICEs, and their days are numbered too.
https://www.drive.com.au/news/toyota-rav4-goes-hybrid-only-across-range/

Note that my previous discussion all centred on hybrid vs ICE. Hybrids will be around for a while longer, as a transition technology, but pure ICEs will be phased out very soon.

As for EVs... they're hardly failing in the market. Their growth may have slowed, but they're still a growing section of the market. There are a number of things affecting them:
  • Increasing imports from China changing the supply vs demand equation, driving new car prices down, resulting in poorer re-sale prices.
  • High prices (now falling rapidly, see above).
  • Lack of charging infrastructure.
  • Range anxiety.
  • Battery fires.
  • Rapidly changing technology - buy a 10yo EV today, and you get a car which only has a range of 130km. Battery technology is improving so rapidly that EVs become obsolete very rapidly, resulting in poor re-sale value.
  • High insurance costs, as vehicles are effectively written off if there is any damage to the battery.
All of these issues will be resolved over time. Charging infrastructure will be built; battery technology will mature, slowing the obsolescence of EVs, increasing range and decreasing the incidence of battery fires; with improved battery technology comes reduced insurance premiums.

EVs aren't going away - but pure ICEs most definitely are. The only thing which might prevent EVs from becoming dominant is if Hydrogen Fuel Cell or Hydrogen-ICE takes off in a big way, but those technologies are still in the prototype phase of development.
Click to expand...
There isn’t enough resources being mined in the world to produce enough EV’s for everyone. EV’s were designed to take most people off the roads by 2030.
Good luck with the hybrids.
 
What the hell is going on with Supercars these days?

Last time around, at Wanneroo, the races were dominated by Fords. Mustangs filled 7 of the top 10 positions in both races, with only 1x non-888 Chevy finishing in the top 10 for both races.

Fast forward to Darwin, and there are 8x Chevys, and only 2x Mustangs, qualifying in the top-10.

The WAU teams are at the back of the pack, in 22nd & 24th. They had a big leg-up at Wanneroo, doing testing on the track days before the races. That goes some way towards explaining their outstanding performances in Perth, but it doesn't explain why they have sucked so badly in Darwin.

WTF is going on? Has something changed in the technical regulations (which have been a moving feast this year, as the cars do more off-track homologation testing)? Why are the Chevys so good in Darwin, after sucking so badly (other than the 888 cars) at every other event so far this year?
 
Interesting news today, that Jess Dane has sold her stake in 888 racing... to the owners of Shaw & Partners and Southern Cross Truck Rentals. The latter were formerly major sponsors of Erebus, until Barry Ryan blew the team up, forcing Kostecki out the door (though he has subsequently returned).

Dane is now working for GM motorsports in the US, and doesn't have enough time for 888 as well.

The team was formerly owned by Roland Dane, who sold his shares to Jamie Whincup. The Dane family no longer have any ownership of the team - for the first time since the team's inception.
 
Vader said:
Interesting news today, that Jess Dane has sold her stake in 888 racing... to the owners of Shaw & Partners and Southern Cross Truck Rentals. The latter were formerly major sponsors of Erebus, until Barry Ryan blew the team up, forcing Kostecki out the door (though he has subsequently returned).

Dane is now working for GM motorsports in the US, and doesn't have enough time for 888 as well.

The team was formerly owned by Roland Dane, who sold his shares to Jamie Whincup. The Dane family no longer have any ownership of the team - for the first time since the team's inception.
Click to expand...
Reckon she can see the writing on the wall?
 

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Jatz said:
Reckon she can see the writing on the wall?
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Possibly... or she's just really invested in her career in the US now. Probably a bit of both.

FWIW, I thought the racing was really good at Townsville. The Sunday race was great, with teams split between 2 & 3 stop strategies.
 
Vader said:
Possibly... or she's just really invested in her career in the US now. Probably a bit of both.

FWIW, I thought the racing was really good at Townsville. The Sunday race was great, with teams split between 2 & 3 stop strategies.
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I liked the Saturday race, heaps of possible winners at the end, Brown would have even been a chance if Randle didn't fight him for a couple laps.
 
The 80 kph safety car rule has been a shocker.

It directly contributed to 2 incidents, with drivers slamming into the back of cars which hit the speed limiter prematurely.

It also ensured that the cars remained spread out all over the track, rather than bunching up behind the SC. The whole point of the SC is to bunch the field, affording race officials a car-free period in which to safely deal with the issue on the track

There is now effectively no functional difference between a SC period and a Full Course Yellow, other than a greater certainty about when the track will go green again.

On SM-A5360 using BigFooty.com mobile app
 
Jatz said:
I'd assume they'd want bigger than Team 18 or MSR. Might still be a work in progress though.
Click to expand...
Maybe they would, a Grove or improving PremiAir would be the next step.

Particularly the latter with the engineering team theyre putting together.

Team 18 already have an affiliation with Toyota, albeit on the forklift side.
 

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