Formula E is in Moscow this week for the latest round of the championship. During the race, the Team Amlin Aguri team was forced to do a battery swap in one of their fully electric cars. Having now released the footage, it’s an interesting process.
Basically the steps to change a battery out in a Formula E car are as follows, disconnect the back end of the car to reveal the battery pack bay positioned just behind the driver. Position the new battery pack in place, connect everything and then attach the rear end again.
The FIA and Spark Racing Technologies created the battery that weighs 200kg and has a 1000V maximum allowed bus voltage, a 200kW peak power limit and maximum usable energy of 28kWh.
Thankfully we don’t need to change the batteries in our road-going electric vehicles. There were a few companies that tried the battery in the boot, making it easier to get to, but that ruined the center of gravity and destroyed handling.
If you don’t watch Formula E, you may not know that each driver actually has two cars for each race. This is due to current batteries not being able to achieve the full race distance, so half way through the race, the driver pits and physically jumps out of car 1 and straps into car 2 and continues. It’s crazy and is a graphic demonstration of how much we still need battery technology to evolve.
Thankfully for our speeds on the roads, cars are now able to achieve hundreds of kilometers on a single charge and battery replacement really isn’t necessary each time you pull into the service station. Rapid charging means the time to recharge is dropping do minutes rather than hours.
Let’s hope Team Amlin Aguri don’t have to change too many more batteries, it’s a nasty process in Formula E. Check out the 3-part process below.
Part 1
Battery change (1/3). #MoscowePrix pic.twitter.com/8fQW8GMTy0
— Team Amlin Aguri (@Amlin_Aguri) June 6, 2015
Part 2
Battery change! (2/3) #MOSCOWePrix pic.twitter.com/H042311BeD
— Team Amlin Aguri (@Amlin_Aguri) June 6, 2015
Part 3
Battery change (3/3). #MoscowePrix pic.twitter.com/GCkgCuKElM
— Team Amlin Aguri (@Amlin_Aguri) June 6, 2015
