[WEC] Toyota LMP1 Discussion

[Articus]

Solid state batteries still don't get around the issue of high rate cycling abuse of the battery which causes the anode and cathode materials to degrade. I didn't know much about it but it looks like solid state just uses a solid polymer electrolyte as the anode cathode separator.

"Air" batteries have a long way to go because air is only 20% oxygen and 80% junk. Most of the experiments being done with them are using pure oxygen to run the reactions but they are still calling them air batteries. So real world is an entirely different scenario. I don't think we will see the air batteries on the Toyota for next year.

[cokata]

Originally Posted by TF110

I know there are battery systems that are of the same type/material, but Toyota has been working on splid-state batteries and lithium air batteries as well. I think we may see a solid state battery if they completely abandon the supercap. Also it was mentioned earlier in this thread about the silicon carbide semiconductor may be used next season.

I though they were already using them in the P1 car, and were developing them for mass market cars next, maybe i'm wrong.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by cokata

I though they were already using them in the P1 car, and were developing them for mass market cars next, maybe i'm wrong.

Not yet. Post #2058 in this thread by Hiro says possibly next year for the SiC semiconductor. I know the air batteries have a ways to go but the solid state battery is currently just as good as litium ion but smaller. That would mean even if they lose charge over a period of time, theyre compact nature would allow for more powerful batteries.

[CTD]

As I understand it, the size of the battery isn't the issue in the hybrid system. It is the mass which matter.
There is plenty of space in a LMP1, for a light weight system, but not a lot of free weight for a heavy system.

[CyberMotor]

Originally Posted by CTD

As I understand it, the size of the battery isn't the issue in the hybrid system. It is the mass which matter.
There is plenty of space in a LMP1, for a light weight system, but not a lot of free weight for a heavy system.

Batteries are traditionally made from Lead, one of the heaviest elements, and then we start working up from there, but heavy metals, are just that, heavy. Lithium is up the charts on weight but is it light?

[skeeskirrt]

Lithium is the lightest (least dense) metal.

(Side note) A class of Aluminum alloys called Aluminum-Lithium alloys are heralded for being light weight and high strength.

[chernaudi]

Of course, that also means that cars powered by nuclear reactors are a ways away. And it's not just due to safety and packaging issues as far as size. Uranium and plutonium, by weight/mass, are among the heaviest metals on earth.

The inherent advantage of the current battery system is that the basic tech is proven, here and now, and there's development potential for the future. Especially on the road car end, flywheels and super/ultracapacitors are a long way way from being perfected as far as being very useful in a road vehicle.

[TF110]

Heres a little info on tge two types of battery Toyota is developing http://autoevolution.com/toyota-to-o...020-90501.html. They explain a little bit of the advantages for a solid state and lithium air battery.

[GasperG]

Problem with commercial batteries is that they all go on the path of higher energy density not high power density, two completely different things. The only commercially available high power density batteries that I know of are from A123.

Solid state and li-air are not high power and probably never will be, here is a nice graph explaining this:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2014...12-toyota.html

For road conditions you need a certain power, size and weight, if you also get capacity then instantly your normal hybrid car suddenly becomes plug-in.

[CyberMotor]

Originally Posted by TF110

Heres a little info on tge two types of battery Toyota is developing http://autoevolution.com/toyota-to-o...020-90501.html. They explain a little bit of the advantages for a solid state and lithium air battery.

That link is broken. Try this... http://www.autoevolution.com/news/to...020-90501.html

[TF110]

Originally Posted by GasperG

Problem with commercial batteries is that they all go on the path of higher energy density not high power density, two completely different things. The only commercially available high power density batteries that I know of are from A123.

Solid state and li-air are not high power and probably never will be, here is a nice graph explaining this:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2014...12-toyota.html

For road conditions you need a certain power, size and weight, if you also get capacity then instantly your normal hybrid car suddenly becomes plug-in.

In that link, the man from Toyota says they have had problems with power density until recently. I would guess that by next year if they wanted to go to a solid state battery hybrid system, they could.

As for this year, we know from the Porsche thread theyre back at Paul Ricard testing. This Mike Conway interview confirms they will test before Spa.

[TF110]

Motorsport-total have touched up on the "Toyota Gazoo Racing" for the team starting next year, but with branding on tge car from Spa.

[hcl123]

Originally Posted by TF110

In that link, the man from Toyota says they have had problems with power density until recently. I would guess that by next year if they wanted to go to a solid state battery hybrid system, they could.

As for this year, we know from the Porsche thread theyre back at Paul Ricard testing. This Mike Conway interview confirms they will test before Spa.

That is one part of the 'story'. The EDLC capacitor of Toyota is 'weak', an inherent design fault of the tech not the implementer(too low energy density), but there are plenty of 'hybrid' capacitor techs emerging...

Yet the big point is how Toyota is going to harvest for 8 MJ ? ... only by 'recuperative braking' ? ( this seems to have come short not only now but also in the past) ... wonder if they can engineer and exhaust alternator!..

[TF110]

Braking power should be sufficient at LM for 8mj. The capacitor cant store a large amount of energy. Thats more of the issue than recuperating it.

[MyNameIsNigel]

Some interesting news being reported by DSC. Toyota apparently had to cut short their recent three-day test at Paul Ricard following damage to the monocoque:

(...)
Since Silverstone, the team has been back to Le Castellet, with one car, for a three-day test. However, this had to be cut short on the second day after damage sustained to the monocoque following too many encounters with Ricard’s ‘sausage’ kerbs proved too severe to be repaired on site. The team claims that everything on the programme had been completed by this point: that 27,000kms of testing had been done, but nevertheless it must be disappointing to the team to have lost valuable testing time. At this level, you learn from every lap, no matter what.
(...)

The damaged monocoque was however due to be retired:

(...)
The damaged tub was due to be retired in any case and the build process for the Le Mans cars has not been affected. This is an area, of course in which Toyota’s decision to run only two cars in the 24 hours at Le Mans has helped its cause. Running two instead of three cars means that the lead time for manufacturing is 33% less than that of its rivals, and two cars in Le Mans specification should be ready to go in mid-May, when Toyota will be back at Spa for a further 3-day test ahead of the Le Mans Test Day on May 31st.
(...)

A new aero package is apparently due for LM, which package will not be run during the race at Spa however, but during their planed test mid-May:

(...)
Toyota, along with Porsche and Audi, will have a revised aero package for Le Mans, and although they will use it for their test at Spa in mid-May, they won’t be running it at the Spa 6 Hours – an indication of the importance of the World Endurance Championship. Thus the lessons that are learnt from Spa will be limited to those from the test. This is where having only two cars will make the job that much harder. The kerbs at Le Mans are rather different from those at Ricard – and at Spa they are different again – and the drivers will no doubt have been told to stay off them, but if tub-damaging contact can have race-ending consequences, then only having two ‘bullets in the gun’ could spell the difference between defeat and victory.
(...)

[cokata]

Originally Posted by MyNameIsNigel

Some interesting news being reported by DSC. Toyota apparently had to cut short their recent three-day test at Paul Ricard following damage to the monocoque:


The damaged monocoque was however due to be retired:


A new aero package is apparently due for LM, which package will not be run during the race at Spa however, but during their planed test mid-May:

It will probably be a LM package 2.0. Since they saw how uncompetitive they were at silverstone (and Ricard), they are working on a new aero package, but it won't be done in time for the WEC race this weekend. They do need to find a lot of performance just to have an outside chance, because they are too many P1 cars now to rely just on reliability.

[MyNameIsNigel]

Originally Posted by cokata

It will probably be a LM package 2.0.

Last-minute changes ?

[cokata]

Originally Posted by MyNameIsNigel

Last-minute changes ?

maybe this year they will try a "F-duct" like solution

[TF110]

Originally Posted by cokata

It will probably be a LM package 2.0. Since they saw how uncompetitive they were at silverstone (and Ricard), they are working on a new aero package, but it won't be done in time for the WEC race this weekend. They do need to find a lot of performance just to have an outside chance, because they are too many P1 cars now to rely just on reliability.

That doesnt make sense. They ran the high d/f package at Silverstone. So how would we know if the LM spec aero is uncompetitive? I thought it was known they werent trying to showboat at the prologue? They didnt even do a low fuel run. I dont think their pace is of concern. Especially since we only have one race to go by and they were only a few seconds behind Porsche.

[cokata]

Originally Posted by TF110

That doesnt make sense. They ran the high d/f package at Silverstone. So how would we know if the LM spec aero is uncompetitive? I thought it was known they werent trying to showboat at the prologue? They didnt even do a low fuel run. I dont think their pace is of concern. Especially since we only have one race to go by and they were only a few seconds behind Porsche.

Silverstone is a worst case scenario track for both cars (porsche even more so), and you have to note that the #1 had a perfect race (i mean by that is they extracted everything out of the car, no mistakes, and the right strategy calls), the #18 was consistently slower of the two Porsches, and it lost a lot of time fighting with the audi #7 throughout the race.

Porsche were quicker, had longer stints, and could double stint the tires too. It was clearly the better car, and by no small margin. I'm a toyota fan as well, but coming from the advantage they had last season, and getting so soundly beaten by the competition in every performance parameter is very disappointing.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by cokata

Silverstone is a worst case scenario track for both cars (porsche even more so), and you have to note that the #1 had a perfect race (i mean by that is they extracted everything out of the car, no mistakes, and the right strategy calls), the #18 was consistently slower of the two Porsches, and it lost a lot of time fighting with the audi #7 throughout the race.

Porsche were quicker, had longer stints, and could double stint the tires too. It was clearly the better car, and by no small margin. I'm a toyota fan as well, but coming from the advantage they had last season, and getting so soundly beaten by the competition in every performance parameter is very disappointing.

That first sentence is your opinion. Porsche dont rely solely on braking to recuperate energy. Otoh, Toyota do. Porsche has no issue with the hybrid side at Silverstone because they can recover energy from the turbo, on throttle. So how is it they were affected more than Toyota? Porsche were the better car at Silverstone, but Audi was better, even though ultimate pace they were slower. Making judgements off one race is too soon.

[cokata]

Originally Posted by TF110

That first sentence is your opinion. Porsche dont rely solely on braking to recuperate energy. Otoh, Toyota do. Porsche has no issue with the hybrid side at Silverstone because they can recover energy from the turbo, on throttle. So how is it they were affected more than Toyota? Porsche were the better car at Silverstone, but Audi was better, even though ultimate pace they were slower. Making judgements off one race is too soon.

It's not all about the hybrid power. Porsche had the least amount of DF, and you would struggle to find a track that rewards good DF more than Silverstone.

All the cars are an evolution of last year, and keep the same strengths and weaknesses compared to each other. Last year audi was most competitive at Silverstone, and this year they crushed everyone on pure pace. Porsche were very far of the pace last year at Silverstone, but this year they leapfrogged Toyota. Only a very big development (b-spec) can really put them in play now.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by MyNameIsNigel

The damaged monocoque was however due to be retired:

(...)
The damaged tub was due to be retired in any case and the build process for the Le Mans cars has not been affected. This is an area, of course in which Toyota’s decision to run only two cars in the 24 hours at Le Mans has helped its cause. Running two instead of three cars means that the lead time for manufacturing is 33% less than that of its rivals, and two cars in Le Mans specification should be ready to go in mid-May, when Toyota will be back at Spa for a further 3-day test ahead of the Le Mans Test Day on May 31st.
(...)

I see how Paul is trying to give positive spin for having 2 cars against 3 of others

[TF110]

Originally Posted by cokata

It's not all about the hybrid power. Porsche had the least amount of DF, and you would struggle to find a track that rewards good DF more than Silverstone.

All the cars are an evolution of last year, and keep the same strengths and weaknesses compared to each other. Last year audi was most competitive at Silverstone, and this year they crushed everyone on pure pace. Porsche were very far of the pace last year at Silverstone, but this year they leapfrogged Toyota. Only a very big development (b-spec) can really put them in play now.

But it is about hybrid power. Porsche is in the 8mj class for starters. That means they get more energy per lap total than any other car. On top of that, at Silverstone, they can probably use a good deal more hybrid energy than Toyota can even if they both ran 8mj, just because the ers-h. Its confusing how you can jump to conclusions based on one race.

It should be no wonder they leapfrogged Toyota at Silverstone with a new car and hybrid running to its potential. Last year they were new to the wec, this year they have the experience and the car working to its potential.

Imo, looking at Silverstone, we should pay closer attention to qualifying. Thats when the cars are 'fully charged'. With that in mind Porsche had a theoretical 1:39.2 and Toyota a 1:39.7 with Audi a 1:39.8! Looks like theyre all very close when they can get the car running to its max.

[Adam43]

Pretty impressive by Audi is what your saying then? In a situation that favours the higher MJ classes and they are only 0.1s off Toyota. Or is it confusing to jump to any conclusions based on one qualifying session?