It's just a marketing gimmick to draw in fans to the league. I've yet to see it really impact a race in any meaningful way. I do hope they'll get rid of the fan boost once they have a large steady fan base.
It removes some of the skill from the sport and puts victories in the hands of randos. The bottom 10 are fucked because they'll never get votes. It's not balanced, it's not good motorsport. Imagine if a golfer got a free two strokes off of their game if the fans decided it to be so.
I love this, except it would be cooler if they increased the size of the battery pack significantly, and did away with Fanbooat entirely. I don't like that the outcome of the race can depend on social media. That's not fair to the drivers.
Fan boost sounds hella dumb, but I think it would be a lot more interesting if everyone started out with a boost or two. It would force drivers to make decisions about if they want to use a boost to overtake someone or save it in case you might need it later. Also if you use your boost early on other drivers might take note and use the fact they have a boost and you don’t to make plays.
Can't help but agree with everyone else. Change Fanboost to something more scientific & fair. Social media shouldn't play a role in the outcome of a race IMO.
Oh, I can imagine why some marketing department thought it was a good idea but I think it's a corruption of the race. I guess they're happy for it to be just entertainment masquerading as sport since that seems to be the norm, particularly in the US.
I agree, but i think it is just to push popularity, once fanbase is aquired, it can be more competitive. I think and hope that the Urban circuits follow the same principle, since a proper circuit can give more opportunities for overtaking.
The problem I have with many circuits is the huge run-off, drivers who make mistakes and leave the track should be penalised and a good way to achieve that is a gravel trap or a wall. The subsequent safety cars also mix things up too.
They need gimmicks in order to compete with F2, F3, IndyCar and F4. Obviously there's no competing with F1 which will always be the big daddy of them all.
it cost billions to develop any battery technology...jaguar,Ds while large lack the ability to create such technology...even tesla's battery are created by passonic...
Kevin John That makes sense. The thing is it seems to me that a large part of why Formula E was created was to develop electric vehicle technologies. So to not allow any development of the batteries (which is what currently needs the most development) seems like is missing a big part of the sport.
There are companies who specialize in battery technology and who can, frankly, do it better than Formula E. Developing a more efficient battery pack would cost hundreds of millions of dollars if not more.
But in competion you usally develope something much faster. For many people the problem of an E-Car is the battery or the range you can drive with that. To develope the engine and transmission part i think it is not that useful for a road car. Sometimes i have the feeling that the FE is just green marketing, I like the Serie and races but without developing the battery i dont see the big technolgytransfer for a road car. In Rally you had the Allwheel drive, other series had the fuel injection etc. which came comon in road cars. Williams or next year McLaren dont have a reason to develope a much better battery, there is no reason to do that, i m pretty sure if they would allow a team or have an other battery maufacture to build a battery, they wouldnt need the second car anymore.
Exactly the same for me, I completely felt like everyone watching Formula E must be 12 years old... At least I would be ashamed to participate in such a circle jerk with more than 16 years (I mean, voting)
I think they painted themselves in a corner with FanBoost. Because the series is so over-regulated and evenly matched... you have to come up with some way to spice it up and interject chaos into the field. "Hey let's give the fans a boost they can vote for" =/ It's American Idol meets Motorsports ... sigh
"So we standardized everything to make the race as fair as possible, pitting driver against driver and team against team on equal terms..oh, and then we randomly give the 3 most charismatic drivers an extra advantage for shits and giggles". Come on guys, this sin't fucking pop idol. Give drivers an extra boost on the same rules as DRS if you want more overtaking, not a fucking popularity contest. Why don't you have an unpopularity contest while you're at it? At random intervals of 10 min the least popular driver's car just explodes. That would make things interesting! /s
Fanboost needs to be replaced by a system of rewarding drivers for their in-race performance. Take Ult Generation on Overwatch for Example. Drivers could be rewarded for clean segments, overtakes, and optimum energy efficiency. For added tension, only the first 3 drivers to reach 100% boost goal are rewarded. Hope to see the Brooklyn race in 2019!
yeah, right. Seems kind of ridiculous. I pity the driver that is a great driver but isn't received well by the fans or has a little fans base. Could you imagine Vettel, Hamilton and Ricciardo battling for 1st and their DRS use was voted for by the fans.
As a fan of F1 I was really interested until I heard about the fanboost... I was hoping it would be some way to enhance engine cooling in drs-like manner but apparently it's american idol.
The fact that you need to change cars mid-race highlights the biggest problem with electric cars, the recharging time and short range. Also FanBoost is ridiculous....
With the new batteries, there will be no car changes anymore in season 5 (2018/2019): www.fiaformulae.com/en/news/2017/march/nine-season-5-powertrain-manufacturers-homologated/
Want to encourage the development of electric cars. Then proceed to prevent any development of the battery, the biggest thing holding electric cars back.
Fanboost is why I can't take it serious. How fucking lame is that. Was this sport created by Silicon Valley? How ironic how they don't allow for innovation to create close races but introduce something like that.
I get the standardised aerodynamics and tires, because you'd want the teams to focus on the bits that make it an electric car. That does make every car look the same, though (and they're ugly cars in my opinion). However I don't understand why they would cap the power output and standardize the battery. I was excited for this formule E, when I first heard of it, because I was expecting this new and fresh sport to present loads of David and Goliath scenarios and crazy inovations like in the early days of F1. One team, for example, would maybe figure out a quick change battery system to be performed in the pits as to make the car lighter and faster, with the trade-off of having to need extra pit stops, while another team might opt for a heavier car that could go on for the entire race. Instead they seem to have castrated the sport with stupid rules. Also these stupid go-cart city tracks are ridiculous and cause a first corner crash nearly every time. Great video, by the way, very informative and well made!
tedobs The reason is that they probably don't want innovation to be too abusively strong because there are lower team budgets. If money was too powerful, there would be no suspense for viewers, only 2-3 teams would really compete for the winner title. It's first and formost an entertainment game, not a tech challenge so they have to balance the playing field. The downside is that it is more boring because there are no super weird strategies.
tedobs I think that cost control (i.e. avoiding exploding budgets such as in F1) was the key driver behind these limitations. The predictability of costs was also one of the reasons why many of the teams joined the series. But of course, there are always some downsides. As more and more manufacturers are joining the series, there might be some pressure on opening up the rules.
If they wouldnt limit the power there would be alot more crashes because of the rather narrow circuits and also because the cars arent designed for much higher speeds. Then you obviously cant give teams with alot more money free reign because that would be very boring. Another factor is that teams would potentially go past the limits and could cause a drivers death because an oversized battery for example catched fire. Take the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 as an example. This could easiely also happen to a electric car which uses the same type of battery.
Pretty much every series caps instantaneous power output in one way or another. F1 has fuel flow restrictors, LMP1 limits to 1000hp, GT3 has "balance of politics" as I call it Battery standardization is inevitable right now because outside maybe Nissan/Renault and Toyota nobody has the tech to do it. Even Tesla gets their batteries from Panasonic. So while that's the area with biggest room for improvement, it's also the one they need the most help getting their feet wet. Personally, I'm not a fan of the open-wheel layout. You want to change the image of EVs? Make this a GT3 spec race imo... require mfrs to actually make and sell ~500 of the base vehicle. Have the cars be real things that onlookers could buy. Granted there's a huge difference between a 911 in the showroom and a 911 GT3 but that connection still exists. GT3 specs are also well in line with the street-racing power requirements, and would open the door for these EVs to eventually enter various GT3 races as well. Take the fight to ICE cars directly head to head on the track. But that's just my opinion... the eFormula venue is interesting but too closed off too sheltered too cloistered imo.
Im so happy with this...i love the sound as well---and im a old school F1 fan...but this is beautiful..no pollution, IM OVERWHELMED we need to support this, beautiful rules. Im in
So they basically make the whole principle of the sport about fairness so it is only about driving skill. And than they put there something like fannboost which will probably get the same racers over and over again. That's really dumb.
Agreed. Though I would also like to see more aggresive looking cars. But the fanboost is a big disapointment to me. It is the reason I don't really respect this league. To me it looks kinda the same as a footballplayer (soccerplayer) going to the usa to have a nice cooldown-period and show some great football to fans there at the end of their careers. I know it isn't really the same, but it has that feel to me. But when the fanboost is gone, it's just another great racingleague that I would prolly start following.
I love almost all of it, but like many people have voiced here in the comments, that Fan Boost seems bad at best, and the restriction on the battery is something that should be taken out, the battery IS the limiting factor for EV's if we allow these Teams to tinker with that, we'll solve this issue much faster.
drs is useless in so short traks where the aerodynamic force is important but not essential... more battery power is more efficient for an immediate over pass a car.
The fish out of water It makes no sense in racing terms, but it allows the fans to get involved, helping to create a fanbase which is needed on a new championship like this, so I understand why they do it.
JUST WHY have the same battery??? The batteries are the most important field of development for EVs and playing a role in formula E could have sped up their development a lot! It just doesn't make sense to me...
Ant F Tesla started laying of employees. I don't see them being around for the Long haul. Pretty encouraging to see BMW, Audi, and Mercedes involved, especially that they're all using different tech for the drive train. Be nice to see this trickle down to street cars.
Well that is what racing is. A spectator sport. There would be no racing without fans. There is already a hundred thousand different racing category's, so of course they are going to have to do things differently than tradional or else nobody would watch. Like boring ass f1 that like 12 people watch.
Mixed opinions on Formula E. The racing is quite good, due to the tight circuits and competitive cars, but the fan boost and the atmosphere feels almost abit fake. I like how theyre trying to promote the use of electric cars/transport, but i think there should be a Formula E "Pro" series, where manufacturers can compete to build the fastest cars. These races could be held alongside (before/after) the main "E-Prix" takes place. This would help with pushing the technology of fast electric cars. However , there would need to be some restrictions, to keep it competitive.
I let "switching cars" slide for now as the sport is still in its baby steps, and I believe as the technology radically improves it'll only comes to switching the batteries (hell if not charging them in a few seconds) but the Fan boost IS a ultimately stupid concept I wish they would drop!
I was racing electric cars 20 years ago. I'm really glad to see this taking off finally. It's surprising how similar this is to the racing we were doing that long ago.
Check out our updated "Formula E for Beginners" video. Find out what's new this season: everything from the new Gen2 car to Attack Mode. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HR37RAsXqhw.html
The racing action is cool and fun to watch, but the circuits suck and Fanboost is cringy. If they did away with fanboost and raced on proper race tracks, it' d be great fun. And I' m not even talking about GP circuits, there are tons of shorter, really fun tracks out there that could use the exposure and would fit the FE model really well. These street circuits are too similar to one another, they have no personality.
Absolutely. A few street circuits are fine, as long as they're very different from each other. Almost all street circuits are just 90 degree corners which can be fun every once and a while, but are very repetitive and offer very little character. The only exception from this that I can think of is Monaco. I also hate fanboost. Right now, Formula E isn't really a racing series, but a popularity contest, which is a shame.
Standardised battery packs??? That's the number one restriction to electric cars! Instead, just give a weight and volume restriction for the entire battery system and watch how teams innovate them!
I'm sure that will be a thing for the future. Currently the battery packs are the most expensive element in the vehicle. As they are the most expensive element, having an open battery development team would severely increase cost, potentially limiting some teams from competing against wealthy teams. Give it a few years though, and they will open those flood gates to battery innovation too!
PistenBoy I agree with you, but perhaps it would also bring more money into the sport by having companies such as Sony and Hitachi doing the battery design. It would be equivalent to have only 2 or 3 common engine suppliers in F1 and would be built on automotive and battery-supplier partnerships similar to F1 today. So like Cosworth or Renault supply engines in F1, Sony, Panasonic or Hitachi would design battery packs.
I used to race R/C oval cars and the Formula E cars sound just like the smaller ones I raced, so I can relate to stuff like battery life,etc. And the racing is very good and entertaining. The drivers jumping out & switching cars is pretty crazy and almost Monty Pythonesque. LOL
Thank you! Even a great refresher for those who haven't watched in a while. I know they only have a day... but can 2022 include that they use one car and they have to charge it, treat it like the fuel pit in F1 (I know, now banned). But let's also encourage battery charging technology. Are we going to have a 1 or 2 charge race? How long does it take to charge a current Formula E car?
The concept of "fanboost" should be withdrawal, basically the drivers that have none or to fewer fans can only reach for 4th place, it is down right unfair and stupid since the public's mind can be easily manipulated with close to none regard for the actual driver. Until i knew that i was an FE fan, now, not so sure...
What a great sport. Although the street circuit thing sounds kind of dangerous and "pile up sensitive", and fanboost is a sorry excuse for DRS, the core and mechanical sides of the sport fit well in today's technology.
Fan boost.. what a load of shit. If formula E wants to present itself as a serious motorsport it needs to get rid of gimmics that a 12 year old would come up with.
Honestly the way of the world these days. Fan votes determine so many types of awards especially in American sports where "All-stars" are just voted on, not rated objectively.
While a good marketing thing and getting the fans involved in the race, Fanboost seems like a highly exploitable thing. Literally someone could just make bots to vote on one driver every race.
Get rid of Fanboost and allow real Race Tires. Then allow one extra PitStop per Car to change tires. 1. Fanboost is unfair, although I get that it is done to motivate the drivers to do a lot of social media and boost publicity of formula e. But its to gimmicky and therefore has the opposite effect. 2. Better tires would mean organizers could allow a little more power and speed. But keep two cars if necessary to max out on speed within safe borders. Afterall, you want to showcase the possibilities of electric propulsion and not be a slower formula one. Even with the new generation the acceleration is a lot less than a Tesla due to being capped at 200kW during race.
Madness 2.0 In what way? You can get companys into Formula E by making the buy in low. As soon as you open up aero etc the price goes up. The motors are open though which is what needs too be developed because that can then be used for road cars. Aero cannot.
