Lucid Motors of California confirmed on Wednesday that it is offering standard front-wheel drive for “the world’s leading line of single-seat electric racing cars.”
Well, that’s Formula E for the rest of us. And it’s an interesting combination with production EVs, as details continue to be revealed about the sourcing of components for the EV. Formula E 3rd generation car—even with a race, Mexico City, in the rearview mirror.
The unit Lucid is offering makes an incredible 14.7 hp/kg and combines the engine, inverter, differential and transmission, totaling just 70.5 pounds and making 469 hp. force, with a maximum rotor speed of 19,500 rpm.
Each team can choose their own rear engine unit but will use a Lucid unit at the front, mounted in the nose of the race car and there primarily to help the front wheels recover regenerative energy up to 250 kW. . With maximum regeneration more than doubled in the Gen 3 car, to 600 kW, and at the same time the vehicle itself is lighter and more agile, it is sure to make racing more enjoyable this season.
Lucid Drives for Formula E
The overall lightness and power density specifications of Lucid’s racing engine are as impressive as those used in its production cars. That’s because in some respects it’s the same engine. This unit, called a “micromotor” inside the Lucid, is a half-sized version of its existing engine unit in the Air, and it incorporates some of the same design features, such as Micro-beam and constant wave cooling strategy. winding is underlined in a video all about Lucid’s motives from CEO/CTO Peter Rawlinson and Powertrain VP Emad Dlala.
Lucid’s Rawlinson and Dlala present the actuator
This isn’t the first time Lucid has supplied a key component to Formula E. Over four Gen 2 car seasons, it has applied expertise from its battery division and Atieva sports car to deliver. The 54-kwh battery pack transformed the race seriesallows one charge per race, instead of two separate cars.
Rawlinson, as he revealed in previous conversations with Green Car Reports, tends to be skeptical about the extent to which racing technology has spread from tunnels to production vehicles. Here, Lucid is doing the exact opposite, bringing essentially a downsized version of the powertrain from the production Air sedan into a rather different use case.
Transparent Air Sapphire
Although with extreme performance, three motors Transparent Air Sapphire arrives for delivery later this year and is likely to do some high-speed runs and track records of its own, there’s a good chance there will be some return racing revelations.
