FIA tested formula car breaks records with Power Battery pack
Do you own high performance applications such as formula cars and are you looking for the solution to transition from fuel to clean powertrains? With a battery pack from Power Battery you get the same performance as with a petrol engine. And you meet the applicable regulations and safety requirements of the circuit.
Unique cooling technology
Since 2020, Power Battery has been a partner of ERA Championship. ERA's mission is to create the world's first fully-electric junior racing class. It requires the necessary engineering skills to design and produce solid, safe and high power battery packs for this application. ERA found these at Power Battery.
A critical factor in high performance applications such as racing is the cooling technology. This enables you to continuously extract a lot of power from a battery pack without it overheating. With positive consequences for safety, and especially for the life span and reliability of the pack. What does this cooling technology involve?
Increasing voltage
Besides cooling technology, electrical safety is another critical success factor. Did you know that the voltage of powertrains is increasing all the time? In 2020, 350 to 400 volts was still the common bandwidth, but now most requests for new powertrains run up to 700 to 800 volts. Voltages that can be downright lethal. That's why Power Battery pays a lot of attention to the safety systems and insulation inside and outside the battery pack. We also see this upward trend in voltages in other types of applications, such as industrial and maritime applications. We apply the knowledge we have gained from the racing industry to other places.
Record
The racing activities of ERA are for a young club like Power Battery the perfect test case to test the battery packs in real life. The F4 race cars race over the curb stones at 200kmh and have to perform at high power almost continuously. Even the first tests showed that the packs performed exceptionally well on the track. Both in terms of mechanical construction and technical and operational performance. The package and the car performed so well that in August 2021 the lap record at the Zolder circuit was shattered by 3.5 seconds.
Read the article here.
That record was previously held by InMotion, a student team from Eindhoven that is preparing to drive a fully electric car in the 24 hours of Le Mans.
ERA Championship
ERA Championship is growing fast, and has been able to attract major sponsors such as Eurosport, Discovery and Software AG. In order to give more substance to its various sponsorships, ERA has joined other electric racing classes in order to gain name recognition and experience. The FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) is the global body that regulates these racing classes. Both in terms of mechanical and electrical safety.
FIA-tested racing car
Another success factor in developing a battery pack is collaboration: Power Battery works closely with the team owners and technicians of the client. This way, we get to know all the ins and outs and incorporate them into the design. At the request of ERA, we made the rules and specifications of the FIA our own. This led to adjustments to the construction and the electrical safety system, so that even in the event of a crash, the driver and the marshals can handle the vehicle safely.
Nice to mention: one of the packages underwent an FIA test in which a decelleration of 18G took place. After this test, the package was found to be fully functional and without damage.
Meanwhile, the ERA F4 cars are driving in the pre-programme of the eTCR Worldcup and will visit the various circuits this summer. This makes Power Battery one of the few battery pack manufacturers in the world to see their product integrated into an FIA-tested racing car.
Watch our Battery Pack in full motion
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