Hybrid World Rally Cars

[LouKayne]

Hey guys

With increasing use of hybrid technologies in all of the top levels of FIA motorsports, it is inevitable that hybrid technology will be coming to the World Rally Championship in the future.

When would you like to see electrical hybrid technology in the WRC?

How would you like to see it used?



Links To 2008 Citroen C4 WRC HYmotion4 Info/Video
Info (http://www.citroenet.org.uk/sport/c4wrchymotion/xsara-wrc1.html)
Video (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xc2w88_citroen-c4-wrc-hymotion4-mondial-20_auto)

[itix]

Since rally cars are four wheel drive unlike F1, I see more potential in a WRC hybrid as you can brake all four wheels.

As the front brakes take more of the kinetic energy it could save a lot more than in F1 I think.

It is also more Road relevant since rally is driven on actual roads.

[GigiGalliNo1]

Maybe a separate class for Hybrid in the WRC... But a lot of money would be spent on these cars that I don't think will be justified or worth while...

[Arnold Triyudho Wardono]

Mitsubishi would love this..

[Mirek]

How would You assure safety when for example a crowd of spectators come to push the car stuck in a water splash?

On circuits You have warning lights, professional stewards, separated spectators and nobody goes into half meter of water...

[Jack4688`]

How are the hybrid systems on a racing car more dangerous in a water splash situation compared to the usual electrical systems found on a car?

[Mirek]

Normal voltage in cars is 24V which is very safe level. Hybrids work with 200-800V which is completely different thing. If You are in a water and somebody send 200V in it You are going to die (without high current protection). I'm not electrician but it's a real danger which must be addressed.

[stefanvv]

Normal voltage in cars is 24V which is very safe level. Hybrids work with 200-800V which is completely different thing. If You are in a water and somebody send 200V in it You are going to die (without high current protection). I'm not electrician but it's a real danger which must be addressed.

I have high education in electrics and AFAIR voltage amount doesn't affect that much as the current amount does, but I don't know how much the electrical motors on the hybrids consume, probably significant amount. Also DC is much more dangerous than AC, so it is quite unknown situation.

[Mirek]

Thanks, for the answer. I think that the situation isn't that unknown as You can see on safety measures in F1 or Le Mans. There You have mechanics with rubber gloves, warning lights etc. It's not there for nothing so how can we bring such cars into rallying and pretend that it's all ok when the safety measures applied on circuits are not possible in rallying?

[stefanvv]

Thanks, for the answer. I think that the situation isn't that unknown as You can see on safety measures in F1 or Le Mans. There You have mechanics with rubber gloves, warning lights etc. It's not there for nothing so how can we bring such cars into rallying and pretend that it's all ok when the safety measures applied on circuits are not possible in rallying?

In unknown I should have written dangerous. In general I agree with You.

[itix]

Ok, for anyone that knows anything about electrics... The batteries would short circuit and burn. They'd have to be in an explosion safe cell as lithium burns when over heated.

For the people handling the car it would pose little to no risk as electricity generally takes the shortest route between positive and negative which means though the body work, through a cable or anything that doesn't have the thousands of ohms a human being has.

Humans have to be the only conductor between positive and negative to conduct... It is still surprising that so few actually know this.

The major hazard would be short circuit and battery explosion and for that there would have to be some form of protective case to the batteries (preferably water proof).

Hybrid systems are not more dangerous in road going version than they are in motorsport version.

[Rally Power]

With increasing use of hybrid technologies in all of the top levels of FIA motorsports, it is inevitable that hybrid technology will be coming to the World Rally Championship in the future.

No doubt. Just this week at Paris COP, Germany (and others) took the major step to get 0 emissions on all new cars before 2050. http://zevalliance.org/content/cop21-2050-announcement

2017 wrc regs will be used till the end of 2019. It'll be hard for FIA to keep alternative energy technologies away from WRC much longer than that.

[stefanvv]

Ok, for anyone that knows anything about electrics... The batteries would short circuit and burn. They'd have to be in an explosion safe cell as lithium burns when over heated.

For the people handling the car it would pose little to no risk as electricity generally takes the shortest route between positive and negative which means though the body work, through a cable or anything that doesn't have the thousands of ohms a human being has.

Humans have to be the only conductor between positive and negative to conduct... It is still surprising that so few actually know this.

The major hazard would be short circuit and battery explosion and for that there would have to be some form of protective case to the batteries (preferably water proof).

Hybrid systems are not more dangerous in road going version than they are in motorsport version.

The batteries will burn if short circuit happens soon. if not humans in the water with electricity will still be in danger, and water has more electrical resistance than human body, so?

[Mirek]

No doubt. Just this week at Paris COP, Germany (and others) took the major step to get 0 emissions on all new cars before 2050. http://zevalliance.org/content/cop21-2050-announcement

So we have nice emissions of cars in our rich world and we don't care how the batteries are made in China and Korea.

We try to make the emission of cars smaller but we encourage the growth of car industry to ridiculous levels because it's good for our economy.

We create more and more complicated cars with very short livecycle but we pretend that buying a new car every five years is good for ecology.

We claim how we care about environment but we create lots of obstacles for second or third hand use of such cars to enlarge production.

We like to show how our factories and power plants are ecologic but we don't care that most of the sub-suppliers make their parts in China, India, Indonesia etc. where nobody cares about ecology.

We care about emissions of cars but in the same time we spent billions to promote diesels in passengers car about which everybody knows they are a lot worse for ecology than petrol cars.

We speak about cars emission but we don't care much about airplanes or ships.

We like to claim how we enhance ecological aspects of the traffic but we don't speak about the level of completely unnecessary transportation of goods which can be produced and spent on local basis. We created a colossal nonsense called subsidies which leads to insane transport of agricultural goods from place to place for thousands of kilometers. Than we created just-in-time ideology which again creates incredible traffic.

We can continue for a long time but I don't see anything ecological in all those ecological plans as nobody cares about basic things. It's like fighting a well known arsonist by buing better equipment for the firebrigade.


and water has more electrical resistance than human body, so?

This

[stefanvv]

We speak about cars emission but we don't care much about airplanes or ships.

You hit the nail here.

[itix]

The batteries will burn if short circuit happens soon. if not humans in the water with electricity will still be in danger, and water has more electrical resistance than human body, so?
Water does not have more resistance than the human body, where ever did you read that?

Considering the broad "cable area" the water constitutes, electricity will not travel through the human body. The resistance is far less in water and the path for the electricity to travel through water is far shorter. Maybe you will feel a slight tickle but that is about it.

You have all sorts of ignition coils and other high voltage circuits in a car already and people aren't burnt to a crisp by regular car batteries either so why would they by hybrid batteries?
(try shorting the terminals with a spanner if you consider a regular battery weak... Ok actually don't because you can cause a regular battery to explode as well but...)

People have no concept of why regular electricity in the house pass through them... All electricity in modern grid nets is returned through the earth which is one gigantic conductor. If you hold something that want to return to the source through earth and stand on earth, you will be the conductor.

If you hold an iron bar and it touches a live source while connected to earth, you'll get burns on your hand due to hot iron and maybe a small tickle.

This is not difficult... Electricity follows the path of least resistance... And that is Not the human body. Skin is a pretty good isolator.

[stefanvv]

Water does not have more resistance than the human body

of course it does. water has much simpler and less electricity conductive structure, like lack of metal ions for one.

[itix]

So we have nice emissions of cars in our rich world and we don't care how the batteries are made in China and Korea.

We try to make the emission of cars smaller but we encourage the growth of car industry to ridiculous levels because it's good for our economy.

We create more and more complicated cars with very short livecycle but we pretend that buying a new car every five years is good for ecology.

We claim how we care about environment but we create lots of obstacles for second or third hand use of such cars to enlarge production.

We like to show how our factories and power plants are ecologic but we don't care that most of the sub-suppliers make their parts in China, India, Indonesia etc. where nobody cares about ecology.

We care about emissions of cars but in the same time we spent billions to promote diesels in passengers car about which everybody knows they are a lot worse for ecology than petrol cars.

We speak about cars emission but we don't care much about airplanes or ships.

We like to claim how we enhance ecological aspects of the traffic but we don't speak about the level of completely unnecessary transportation of goods which can be produced and spent on local basis. We created a colossal nonsense called subsidies which leads to insane transport of agricultural goods from place to place for thousands of kilometers. Than we created just-in-time ideology which again creates incredible traffic.

We can continue for a long time but I don't see anything ecological in all those ecological plans as nobody cares about basic things. It's like fighting a well known arsonist by buing better equipment for the firebrigade.



This
Also, Mirek has a lot of points in this post...

Society is moving towards "ecological" things but totally without ecological life cycles.

Still, dear Mirek, you are wrong about nothing being done about ships and planes. There is plenty done in both fields.

CO2 is not the worst emission with ships. They have NOx and SOx emissions far worse than cars due to the fuel they use and the slow speed of the engines. That's why loads of time and resources are put down on developing ways to combat this. I can go on for hours about this as this is my field of work... Should you be interested.
Regardless... The car will at some point be too expensive for the common man to run on standard fuels ad we know them today. I am 100% convinced that the car of the future will be powered from the grid, like most other personal appliances.

I don't like it but oil is running out and fossil fuels won't sustain personal transportation much longer.

I know this because I used to work in an industry that found oil, and I now work in an industry that ship oil (on a ship... You know, those that do nothing about their emissions).

[stefanvv]

Regardless... The car will at some point be too expensive for the common man to run on standard fuels ad we know them today. I am 100% convinced that the car of the future will be powered from the grid, like most other personal appliances.

There are lot of alternatives to fossil fuels, why are you so sure it'll be from the grid? Aren't electric plants also big polluter?

[AL14]

So we have nice emissions of cars in our rich world and we don't care how the batteries are made in China and Korea.

We try to make the emission of cars smaller but we encourage the growth of car industry to ridiculous levels because it's good for our economy.

We create more and more complicated cars with very short livecycle but we pretend that buying a new car every five years is good for ecology.

We claim how we care about environment but we create lots of obstacles for second or third hand use of such cars to enlarge production.

We like to show how our factories and power plants are ecologic but we don't care that most of the sub-suppliers make their parts in China, India, Indonesia etc. where nobody cares about ecology.

We care about emissions of cars but in the same time we spent billions to promote diesels in passengers car about which everybody knows they are a lot worse for ecology than petrol cars.

We speak about cars emission but we don't care much about airplanes or ships.

We like to claim how we enhance ecological aspects of the traffic but we don't speak about the level of completely unnecessary transportation of goods which can be produced and spent on local basis. We created a colossal nonsense called subsidies which leads to insane transport of agricultural goods from place to place for thousands of kilometers. Than we created just-in-time ideology which again creates incredible traffic.

We can continue for a long time but I don't see anything ecological in all those ecological plans as nobody cares about basic things. It's like fighting a well known arsonist by buing better equipment for the firebrigade.



This

You forgot to say that we talk about electric car to be ecological but how do we take that electric energy? Most from carbon, gas, oil etc... Lithium himself is not renewable and will finish as well.
The point is that beside avoid fossils we should consume less energy, but the word "less" is again interest of who's there in Paris.
Look at them, they're the same doing wars from oil for decades, and now are talking about 0 emissions cars... Pathetic.
Sorry for OT...

[Mirek]

Still, dear Mirek, you are wrong about nothing being done about ships and planes. There is plenty done in both fields.

CO2 is not the worst emission with ships. They have NOx and SOx emissions far worse than cars due to the fuel they use and the slow speed of the engines. That's why loads of time and resources are put down on developing ways to combat this. I can go on for hours about this as this is my field of work... Should you be interested.

You are of course right and I have never mentioned CO2 as the particular problem. I meant emission as a whole. I do believe new engines are better but the problem is that while under the banner of ecology we start baning ten years old cars the lifecycle of ships and planes is a lot longer. I don't have numbers but for sure a high percentage of planes and especially ships is more than 20 years old and as such they were designed with very little respect towards ecology. The best way how to reduce the impact of the traffic is to limit the non-essential traffic to minimum. That however goes directly against the economic model of our society and that's the main problem. We like to look ecological bu we are as far of that as we can be (together with ecological standards of our factories and business activities in third world countries where we don't give a fuck about ecology at all).


Regardless... The car will at some point be too expensive for the common man to run on standard fuels ad we know them today. I am 100% convinced that the car of the future will be powered from the grid, like most other personal appliances.

Could be and I don't see that as a bad thing.

Sorry for this grumbling but I find our way of dealing with ecology as perfect example of hypocrisy.

[Rally Power]

So we have nice emissions of cars in our rich world and we don't care how the batteries are made in China and Korea.
We try to make the emission of cars smaller but we encourage the growth of car industry to ridiculous levels because it's good for our economy.
We create more and more complicated cars with very short livecycle but we pretend that buying a new car every five years is good for ecology.
We claim how we care about environment but we create lots of obstacles for second or third hand use of such cars to enlarge production.
We like to show how our factories and power plants are ecologic but we don't care that most of the sub-suppliers make their parts in China, India, Indonesia etc. where nobody cares about ecology.
We care about emissions of cars but in the same time we spent billions to promote diesels in passengers car about which everybody knows they are a lot worse for ecology than petrol cars.
We speak about cars emission but we don't care much about airplanes or ships.
We like to claim how we enhance ecological aspects of the traffic but we don't speak about the level of completely unnecessary transportation of goods which can be produced and spent on local basis. We created a colossal nonsense called subsidies which leads to insane transport of agricultural goods from place to place for thousands of kilometers. Than we created just-in-time ideology which again creates incredible traffic.
We can continue for a long time but I don't see anything ecological in all those ecological plans as nobody cares about basic things. It's like fighting a well known arsonist by buing better equipment for the firebrigade.


Jesus, You almost looked like those radical US right wingers that still are denying global warming...

It's not only in the eco movement that hypocrisy can be found...in today's global society probably all governance systems are somehow incoherent or imperfect, simply because they are made by humans! It's in our nature...as it's having the ability to recognize faults and try to do better. Seeing today's degree of civilization it seems the human system is still working!

Btw, congrats to Germany, UK, Norway, The Netherlands and all the other states for their leading effort on the 0 emissions target. It may be shocking for petrolheads like us, but even with alternative techs there will be fun and fast cars (or spaceships;)) for all!

[AL14]

Jesus, You almost looked like those radical US right wingers that still are denying global warming...

It's not only in the eco movement that hypocrisy can be found...in today's global society probably all governance systems are somehow incoherent or imperfect, simply because they are made by humans! It's in our nature...as it's having the ability to recognize faults and try to do better. Seeing today's degree of civilization it seems the human system is still working!

Btw, congrats to Germany, UK, Norway, The Netherlands and all the other states for their leading effort on the 0 emissions target. It may be shocking for petrolheads like us, but even with alternative techs there will be fun and fast cars (or spaceships;)) for all!

He's far from those fanatic americans. He's saying that 0 emissions speeches are empty words since you still try to enhance the growth of production of cars (just to make an example). Do you think that with electric cars you solve the problem? You know that you still need energy for them and you can't pick all the energy needed from sun and wind?
Mirek said that traffic should be reduced into minimum indispensable. Are they working on it? Or just making useless statements? UK was killing innocent people for oil just a couple of years ago...

You're congratulating with countries like germany and uk...You know the overshoot day? They're leaders in reach that day at the beginning of the year.

[Rally Power]

You know the overshoot day? They're leaders in reach that day at the beginning of the year.

I really didn't get this paragraph...about the rest, it's sounds totally demagogic to bring the killing of innocent people into this discussion. Are we also going to blame Colombo and start missing the way of life of our prehistorical ancestries?

For sure the emissions problem should be solved in less hypocritical ways, but the real issue is finding that those ways aren't suitable to our way of life.

Restricting traffic, limiting flying, expanding products life cycles, etc, it all seems reasonable on paper, but then we would have less revenues to lots of business (the big corps but also the small and medium companies), more unemployment, more social unrest, etc.

Finding a way to keep the global balance, using the tech at our disposal, it's logic, not hypocrisy.

[itix]

You are of course right and I have never mentioned CO2 as the particular problem. I meant emission as a whole. I do believe new engines are better but the problem is that while under the banner of ecology we start baning ten years old cars the lifecycle of ships and planes is a lot longer. I don't have numbers but for sure a high percentage of planes and especially ships is more than 20 years old and as such they were designed with very little respect towards ecology. The best way how to reduce the impact of the traffic is to limit the non-essential traffic to minimum. That however goes directly against the economic model of our society and that's the main problem. We like to look ecological bu we are as far of that as we can be (together with ecological standards of our factories and business activities in third world countries where we don't give a fuck about ecology at all).



Could be and I don't see that as a bad thing.

Sorry for this grumbling but I find our way of dealing with ecology as perfect example of hypocrisy.
You're not wrong at all about the hypocrisy part of the entire economic system.

Actually, you are not wrong at all in this post and I am pretty cynical myself about the "ecological" measures taken by society.

You get these marketing campaigns where they brag about small ecological gains they have made but you look at the entire structure and you realise that it's a drop in the Nile, all the while their other operations has gotten worse etc etc.

Buy, use, throw has become norm and stuff is produced in ever greater numbers, number of people on the planet increase etc etc..

But now I am getting off topic...

[itix]

of course it does. water has much simpler and less electricity conductive structure, like lack of metal ions for one.
If you took human vs water of the same size... Say an arm and a plastic pipe of the same shape filled with water and measured their conductivity, I'm pretty sure that the pipe would come out on top but I haven't read this experiment anywhere so I can't say for sure.

I am sure that you know that the greater the cable area, the lesser is the resistance and a car standing in water has an almost endless cable area. That's why resistance will for sure be less in the water than a human being.

... And we haven't even looked at the path electricity has to take to pass a human being. It would have to go through the water to the body shell, to one hand of the human, back out the other side of the the human, back to the body shell and to the other battery terminal.

That's, quite frankly, a ridiculous path for the electricity to take. It follows the path of least resistance so it would travel through the body shell where it can and and through water where it has to.

Only if you held one end of the terminal or something connected to it and the other terminal was submerged you would be the conductor... and why you would rip off one of the cables going to the motor generator unit and hold the live part while helping a rally car is beyond me.

I just can't see how anyone would get fried this way sorry. You also have all sorts of breakers, over current protectors, fuses etc etc that would give up long before anyone reached the rally car. If you design the battery case to be of high IP class and have internal fuses, as soon as the rest of the electrics would be shortened the fuses would give and the electrics would be dead. All the components would have to be pretty waterproof regardless due to water splashes etc etc.

So... nah, sorry, I just can't see how this would happen.

[stefanvv]

I am sure that you know that the greater the cable area, the lesser is the resistance and a car standing in water has an almost endless cable area. That's why resistance will for sure be less in the water than a human being.

You contradict Yourself, less resistance means more danger, anyway this presuming human body have less resistance than water for which I'm certain, so when You touch wet car with both hands, seems quite dangerous to me.

[Franky]

And it is enough for one fan to get properly shocked to have major complications for the whole sport.

And if we'd leave aside safety and the very valid points abut ecology you've brought up in the discussion, then the technology is still far too expensive. Do we really need even more expensive car?

What's the situation with hydrogen?

[itix]

You contradict Yourself, less resistance means more danger, anyway this presuming human body have less resistance than water for which I'm certain, so when You touch wet car with both hands, seems quite dangerous to me.
I don't contradict myself, I know full well what I am talking about.

Less resistance in the water means it will travel through the water rather than through that of more resistance (I.e. A human).

If I can't explain to you why you are wrong, just trust me...

I can draw you a wiring diagram when I have access to a computer and enough time to make one (I.e not this week).

Seriously, people don't understand electricity. Nothing personal at all... I don't expect you to but this isn't worse than a regular 12v battery transformed to thousands of volts at the ignition coil.

[tommeke_B]

Jesus, You almost looked like those radical US right wingers that still are denying global warming...

It's not only in the eco movement that hypocrisy can be found...in today's global society probably all governance systems are somehow incoherent or imperfect, simply because they are made by humans! It's in our nature...as it's having the ability to recognize faults and try to do better. Seeing today's degree of civilization it seems the human system is still working!

Btw, congrats to Germany, UK, Norway, The Netherlands and all the other states for their leading effort on the 0 emissions target. It may be shocking for petrolheads like us, but even with alternative techs there will be fun and fast cars (or spaceships;)) for all!

Didn't the Netherlands just started using new coal plants to make electricity? ;) I lately read some article that claimed electric cars to be at least as polluting as a petrol car (for example they compared a Tesla with Volvo V60). And that's just the driving part. Apparently the production of a electric car pollutes around twice as much as the production of an average petrol car. If you know that the production of an average new car pollutes as much as 14 tonne CO2 (more for the bigger cars), and let's say average emission for a new petrol car is 125g/km. Then theoretically you drive 112 000km before you polluted as much by driving as by the manufacturing of the car. I know many people buy a new car earlier than they reach that amount of kms, and many governments are supporting it by their tax rules. So actually the governments are only supporting the economy, wile making the environmentalists believe it's a good thing they do... :) IF governments want to do something for the environment, they would tackle the industry (not just car industry, all industry), but that would only work in a good way if the same rules are being applied all over the world at the same time, and it's not going to happen.

[itix]

Didn't the Netherlands just started using new coal plants to make electricity? ;) I lately read some article that claimed electric cars to be at least as polluting as a petrol car (for example they compared a Tesla with Volvo V60). And that's just the driving part. Apparently the production of a electric car pollutes around twice as much as the production of an average petrol car. If you know that the production of an average new car pollutes as much as 14 tonne CO2 (more for the bigger cars), and let's say average emission for a new petrol car is 125g/km. Then theoretically you drive 112 000km before you polluted as much by driving as by the manufacturing of the car. I know many people buy a new car earlier than they reach that amount of kms, and many governments are supporting it by their tax rules. So actually the governments are only supporting the economy, wile making the environmentalists believe it's a good thing they do... :) IF governments want to do something for the environment, they would tackle the industry (not just car industry, all industry), but that would only work in a good way if the same rules are being applied all over the world at the same time, and it's not going to happen.
You are not wrong... Power needs to come from other sources than coal before it has any environmental impact.

All those muppets who write zero emissions on their cars are of course right for their specific little cluster but the emissions still happen somewhere... Just not where they are.

Nuclear would be the obvious solution if people stopped being so stupid and scared of it and we were allowed to do some serious R&D on reactors and fuel management...

[itix]

...but we are yet again going off topic... And I'm partly responsible.

Shame on me. Back to the main subject again, hybrid rally cars.

[Franky]

...but we are yet again going off topic... And I'm partly responsible.

Shame on me. Back to the main subject again, hybrid rally cars.

No need to apologize. It is interesting to follow the discussion.

[AL14]

I really didn't get this paragraph...about the rest, it's sounds totally demagogic to bring the killing of innocent people into this discussion. Are we also going to blame Colombo and start missing the way of life of our prehistorical ancestries?

For sure the emissions problem should be solved in less hypocritical ways, but the real issue is finding that those ways aren't suitable to our way of life.

Restricting traffic, limiting flying, expanding products life cycles, etc, it all seems reasonable on paper, but then we would have less revenues to lots of business (the big corps but also the small and medium companies), more unemployment, more social unrest, etc.

Finding a way to keep the global balance, using the tech at our disposal, it's logic, not hypocrisy.

Yes sorry. That paragraph about overshooting day is about developed countries reaching overshooting day at the beginning of the year.
The overshooting day is the day when the humans use the resources that the earth is capable to reproduce in one year. So if you reach it before the 31th of december there's something wrong with you.
And all those countries you mentioned, that are making so much efforts towards sustainable growth reach it at the beginning of the year.

You think I'm demagogic...It's ok, it's your opinion. But you said that "Restricting traffic, limiting flying, expanding products life cycles, etc, it all seems reasonable on paper, but then we would have less revenues to lots of business (the big corps but also the small and medium companies), more unemployment, more social unrest, etc."

Let alone the fact that producing more does not mean more employment most of the time (see automatic producing), but I just answer you with this:
demagogic or not, one thing is certain: The nature does not care a damn about our businesses.

[AL14]

...but we are yet again going off topic... And I'm partly responsible.

Shame on me. Back to the main subject again, hybrid rally cars.

I was feeling guilty too but it's a nice discussion. :)

[stefanvv]

Seriously, people don't understand electricity. Nothing personal at all... I don't expect you to but this isn't worse than a regular 12v battery transformed to thousands of volts at the ignition coil.

I don't take it, I just write what have taught me at school. If I was experienced it myself, probably I wouldn't be able to write with the keyboard right now. You are right about the path current goes, this with least resistance, our contradiction seems to be in which has more.

[Jack4688`]

And if we'd leave aside safety and the very valid points abut ecology you've brought up in the discussion, then the technology is still far too expensive. Do we really need even more expensive car?

...and I don't believe WRC is the sport to drive down the cost and make the technology more readily available and more efficient at its purpose through competition by the manufacturers. I think WEC is doing it right by allowing different concepts. Maybe the hybridisation of rally cars will have to wait quite a few more years

[itix]

I don't take it, I just write what have taught me at school. If I was experienced it myself, probably I wouldn't be able to write with the keyboard right now. You are right about the path current goes, this with least resistance, our contradiction seems to be in which has more.
If the car was powered off the grid and electricity had to return through earth, I would agree with you.

It doesn't however. It needs to go between one pole to the other.

The path of less resistance is through the water should there be a path between them somewhere, that I can assure you... I can guarantee that it won't go battery pole (or anywhere connecting to the battery pole like cables, terminals, junctions, control unit, MGU) to water, to body shell, to helping hand one, through heart, to helping hand two, back to the body shell, to water to the other pole. I am sure you realise this yourself.

If the current can go from positive to negative, it will go pole, to water, to pole. Maybe also pole to water to body shell to pole of it has to go far. The body shell and the water are so wide conductors that the potential between any given point on or in them is maximum a couple of micro volt.

You can touch both sides of a 24v battery without a problem, so I am sure you'll be fine with a couple of micro volt too (if there even will be any potential at all).

You'd literally have to hold both sides of the battery pack to get any current running through you and for that you'd have to get inside the car, probably undo a lot of protective equipment, take one pole in one hand and one in the other... First then you'll die...

If for some reason the rally car would crash in a Manor that the battery pack gets dislodged from the car, half of it gets buried and the protective cover is destroyed and you try to lift it in the other terminal, THEN you'd be fried... But that's about it. I seriously can't think of any realistic situation where the current would pass you, helpful rally enthusiast, trying to get the rally car back on the road.

[Rally Power]

You think I'm demagogic...It's ok, it's your opinion.(...)
demagogic or not, one thing is certain: The nature does not care a damn about our businesses.

You're wrong mate. I don't think you're demagogic. I see you defending your views in a fair way, with the exception of that particular "innocent killings" argument, that was demagogic because unappropriated for the debate.

Somehow this discussion has became a sort of "wishful thinking" vs "reality check" on environmental politics. I share all your concerns about the future of the planet but I've lived long enough to know that changes in human societies usually don't came in a fast way. They're made of small but significant steps, like those that we're taken in Paris, even if they don't ever seem enough.

PS: Thanks for the overshooting day explanation!

[AL14]

I've lived long enough to know that changes in human societies usually don't came in a fast way.

I'm 30 but they are enough to agree with you on this. Unfortunately. In fact I'm pretty convinced we will be forced to change fast and it will not be funny.
Just let's hope rally sport will survive it. ;)

[Rally Power]

Just let's hope rally sport will survive it. ;)

Aaaaaamen!

[AndyRAC]

...and I don't believe WRC is the sport to drive down the cost and make the technology more readily available and more efficient at its purpose through competition by the manufacturers. I think WEC is doing it right by allowing different concepts. Maybe the hybridisation of rally cars will have to wait quite a few more years

A few years ago I thought hybrids should be in the WRC - no longer though. Leave all the 'road relevance' type technology to the WEC: which does it so much better.

[OldF]

You forgot to say that we talk about electric car to be ecological but how do we take that electric energy? Most from carbon, gas, oil etc...

+10 That’s the key issue what is ecological or not.


Less resistance in the water means it will travel through the water rather than through that of more resistance (I.e. A human)

That doesn’t mean that all the current will go true the water. Considering water and a human body two different resistors, they are connected in parallel. Googling for some “facts”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_shock

Body resistance[edit]
The voltage necessary for electrocution depends on the current through the body and the duration of the current. Ohm's law states that the current drawn depends on the resistance of the body. The resistance of human skin varies from person to person and fluctuates between different times of day. The NIOSH states "Under dry conditions, the resistance offered by the human body may be as high as 100,000 Ohms. Wet or broken skin may drop the body's resistance to 1,000 Ohms," adding that "high-voltage electrical energy quickly breaks down human skin, reducing the human body's resistance to 500 Ohms."[15]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_resistance

the electrical resistivity of water (0.2 Ω·m sea water, 2 to 200 Ω·m drinking water, 18000 Ω·m deionized water at 20°C)

If a dry human body has a resistance of 100 000 ohm and the water has 2 ohm and both connected in parallel with a voltage of 600 V, the current true the water would be 300,000 A (assuming no fuse blown) and true the body 0,006 A = 6 mA (total current = 300,006 A)

If the resistance of the skin is broken and the resistance will decrease to 1000 ohm the result will be:
True water = 300 A
True body = 0,6 A = 600 mA which would be lethal.

Total current = 300,6 A

Some facts about voltage & current: true a human body.

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/demobook/chapter4.htm

Average Effects of Continuous ac or dc Electrical Currents on Healthy Adults

Electrical Current Biological Effect
1 mA threshold for feeling
10-20 mA voluntary let-go of circuit impossible
25 mA onset of muscular contractions
50-200 mA ventricular fibrillation or cardiac arrest

And from a Finnish web site http://www.epanorama.net/faq/sfnet.harrastus.elektroniikka/sahkoverkko.html

Mitä erisuuruiset ihmiskehon läpi kulkevat virrat vaikuttavat? (How does different amount of current through the human body affect?)

From and above 50mA. Dangerous threshold. The current will affect the heart. If the current affects longer than 0,5 sec, it will cause a heart-stopping or ventricular fibrillation.

From 80 mA and above. Lethal.

As can been seen it’s not all about the voltage but how much current goes true the human body and also about the route true the body (true the heart or not).

Also the resistance of a human body is dependent off the voltage and it will decrease if the voltage increase. With 230 V voltage the resistance is about 11,7 kohm from hand to hand and about 1 k ohm from hand to leg. Also the durability of the shock is vital.

And don’t ever never disconnect the green-yellow wire. It’s not there for fun.

[itix]

You have to remember that they are not in fact connected in parallel unless the battery pack is submerged and some idiot breaks into the car, opens the cover, and touches both the poles (plus and minus).

That is extremely unlikely. In a real situation where the battery pack or an MGU connected to the battery pack gets shorted by water (which already is unlikely), the connection is going to be water to human to water in parallel with water only and water to body shell to water (very much preferred by electricity) and water to earth to water... So human is about the last thing the battery pack will go through.

Also the voltage over human won't be 600v or 800v or whatever, as much of the current will pass through the water.

Voltage over human would be too small to even be felt (or probably even measured). If you put a volt meter across two points in water that you have shorted with high voltage you are going to get a very small voltage (if even detectable if you have a larger amount of water) as you can in theory see the water as veeeery many resistors in series and the voltage will distribute across them. If you measure between the terminals you are going to get 800v but across two points in the water, just a few micro volt (if even that).

If you ever witness a generator overload test, you can try this if you like. It is done by lowering all three phases into the water and shorting them until the point where the generator overloads and the security systems cut in.

If you have any power plant close to you that is being commissioned, make a study visit with a volt meter and you will see!

(Oh and I knew about the 50mA lethal current... I have studied all of these things... I am not worried about the safety aspects of a hybrid rally car in water... Cost of hybrid rally car and feasibility and many other things yes, but safety aspects no).

[Rally Power]

http://www.motoring.com.au/next-subaru-wrx-sti-to-go-hybrid-100477/

Rumours about next WRX generation. The first hybrid in rallying or the definitive end of N4?

[OldF]

One thing I almost forgot about is the resistivity. Maybe it has something to do with that it’s almost 40 years since I was studying electrical engineering.:)

However here have been talks about the resistance of water but water, as any other conductor, water don’t have a specific total resistance but the resistance (or impedance) depend on what kind of water (the resistivity of the conductor) and how much water is in question (the length and area of the conductor). The more water the less resistance.

With a cable it’s more simply because with a cable the electricity come in (usually) from one end and go out from the other end and the resistivity, length and area of the cable is known. With water it’s more complicated because in a case of an accident the circumstance varies a lot i.e. the type of water, the length and area of the water conductor.

The resistance is:

R (ohm) = resistivity of the conductor (ohm meter) * length of conductor (m) / area of conductor (m2)

As you can see in a case of electrical accident in water it can be difficult to assess the length and area of the water conductor and also with the resistivity if the type of water is not known.

Interesting article about bath tube accidents with self-testing (crazy):D. Nothing to do directly with hybrid cars but however with electricity and water.

http://www.powerlogic.com.au/Attachments/Body%20Current%20&%20Touch%20Voltages%20in%20the%20Bath%20-%20Biegelmeier.pdf

As said in the summary the path electric source – human in – human out – water – ground or other terminal is more dangerous than the path electric source – water - human in – human out – water – ground or other terminal.



You have to remember that they are not in fact connected in parallel unless the battery pack is submerged and some idiot breaks into the car, opens the cover, and touches both the poles (plus and minus).

That is extremely unlikely. In a real situation where the battery pack or an MGU connected to the battery pack gets shorted by water (which already is unlikely), the connection is going to be water to human to water in parallel with water only and water to body shell to water (very much preferred by electricity) and water to earth to water... So human is about the last thing the battery pack will go through.

Also the voltage over human won't be 600v or 800v or whatever, as much of the current will pass through the water. ).

The case with my example was mainly to show that how a small fraction of the total current can be lethal to a human if a human body is in parallel with any other low level resistance.

In the picture below the human is in parallel with the load of the electric system. Imaging that the dotted line is water and the minus terminal is in water, the body and the water would be in series and parallel with the load. Now the question is: What is the probability for this kind of accident to happen. Luckily the bird is safe.

http://sub.allaboutcircuits.com/images/00056.png

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/direct-current/chpt-3/shock-current-path/


Btw, idiots always exists. It seems that a very common electrical accident is when some idiots are climbing on the roof of a train.

http://www.tukes.fi/tiedostot/sahko_ja_hissit/diplomityo_kinnunen_2013.pdf

On page 137
APPENDIX 1. Fatal electrical accidents in the Nordic Countries in 2007-201

The latest one was this New Year eve. Someone had clime on the roof on a train and had burned sot bad that even the gender couldn’t be defined at the first place. It’s said that the safe distance from a train power line (25 kV) is at least 2 meter.




Voltage over human would be too small to even be felt (or probably even measured). If you put a volt meter across two points in water that you have shorted with high voltage you are going to get a very small voltage (if even detectable if you have a larger amount of water) as you can in theory see the water as veeeery many resistors in series and the voltage will distribute across them. If you measure between the terminals you are going to get 800v but across two points in the water, just a few micro volt (if even that). )

I’m far from an expert but after reading http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/134634/using-a-bottle-of-water-as-a-resistor this maybe it’s the wrong way to measure the voltage just to put the small probes of a volt meter in the water. Maybe what you said (voltmeter across two points) was just an expression. As I said I’m not an expert in this case but as I understand to get the true value of the voltage/current (or measuring the resistance) true the water is to have electrodes covering the whole area of the water where current/voltage is applied to the water (+ terminal of a battery or the “hot” wire of a house case) and electrodes covering the whole area of water where the current goes back to the source, i.e. path from terminal to terminal in a battery case or a path from “hot” wire to ground in a house case or vice versa. (- terminal of a battery or the ground in a house case).



(Oh and I knew about the 50mA lethal current... I have studied all of these things... I am not worried about the safety aspects of a hybrid rally car in water... Cost of hybrid rally car and feasibility and many other things yes, but safety aspects no).

I didn’t doubt that you didn’t know about that. I didn’t remember the actual value, only that’s very small. That’s why I had to search for it.



If you ever witness a generator overload test, you can try this if you like. It is done by lowering all three phases into the water and shorting them until the point where the generator overloads and the security systems cut in.

If you have any power plant close to you that is being commissioned, make a study visit with a volt meter and you will see! )

No, we didn’t do such drastic laboratory works. And I won’t try it at home by putting the three phases of our sauna heater in the water.:)

[itix]

One thing I almost forgot about is the resistivity. Maybe it has something to do with that it’s almost 40 years since I was studying electrical engineering.:)

However here have been talks about the resistance of water but water, as any other conductor, water don’t have a specific total resistance but the resistance (or impedance) depend on what kind of water (the resistivity of the conductor) and how much water is in question (the length and area of the conductor). The more water the less resistance.

With a cable it’s more simply because with a cable the electricity come in (usually) from one end and go out from the other end and the resistivity, length and area of the cable is known. With water it’s more complicated because in a case of an accident the circumstance varies a lot i.e. the type of water, the length and area of the water conductor.

The resistance is:

R (ohm) = resistivity of the conductor (ohm meter) * length of conductor (m) / area of conductor (m2)

As you can see in a case of electrical accident in water it can be difficult to assess the length and area of the water conductor and also with the resistivity if the type of water is not known.

Interesting article about bath tube accidents with self-testing (crazy):D. Nothing to do directly with hybrid cars but however with electricity and water.

http://www.powerlogic.com.au/Attachments/Body%20Current%20&%20Touch%20Voltages%20in%20the%20Bath%20-%20Biegelmeier.pdf

As said in the summary the path electric source – human in – human out – water – ground or other terminal is more dangerous than the path electric source – water - human in – human out – water – ground or other terminal.




The case with my example was mainly to show that how a small fraction of the total current can be lethal to a human if a human body is in parallel with any other low level resistance.

In the picture below the human is in parallel with the load of the electric system. Imaging that the dotted line is water and the minus terminal is in water, the body and the water would be in series and parallel with the load. Now the question is: What is the probability for this kind of accident to happen. Luckily the bird is safe.

http://sub.allaboutcircuits.com/images/00056.png

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/direct-current/chpt-3/shock-current-path/


Btw, idiots always exists. It seems that a very common electrical accident is when some idiots are climbing on the roof of a train.

http://www.tukes.fi/tiedostot/sahko_ja_hissit/diplomityo_kinnunen_2013.pdf



The incident with the train is fairly easy... in that case the human is the only conductor connecting the power to earth and the super high voltage (16 kv in sweden... don't know what finnish train systems run) can actually arc the air to human due to the high voltage and conduct to earth. Just a shame that railway operators have to be responsible for these idiots... let them burn I say!

In the case of the rally car, we still have to conclude that both poles have to be earthed through the water for this to work. It is true that different kind of water conduct differently... distilled fresh water is the worst conductor and salt water the best (due to the ions and free electrons etc etc). We know that we need a relatively high voltage to create any current in a human person.

This is why 12v and 24v systems can be touched and nothing happens...

We also know that voltage in a system of resistances distribute over the highest resistor with the greatest voltage and the lesser resistors with lesser voltage when in series.

We also know that the most current pass "the path of least resistance".

Below is a very simplified diagram of the situation. In reality it is endlessly more complicated but it is a simple map to help us understand what happens.

http://i68.tinypic.com/ff4zs6.jpg

As seen in the diagram (where I have lied a bit and connected the left hand of human to the minus pole... but hey, resistors are addable in series so), the voltage over human is distributed over water 4 (I named the waters differently but in reality as it is just one big body of water so we could all have named them the same but for understanding, better like this) and then human... so it won't be many volts over human as the body of water 4, even in salt water, have resistance per meter and cable area...

Now if human really was in series with water only and was touching the minus pole, 100% of the current would pass through human... but that is not the case because there is earth, water and body shell also in parallel and they are much preferred path of the current to take so the current passing through human will be microscopic... at best.



I’m far from an expert but after reading http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/134634/using-a-bottle-of-water-as-a-resistor this maybe it’s the wrong way to measure the voltage just to put the small probes of a volt meter in the water. Maybe what you said (voltmeter across two points) was just an expression. As I said I’m not an expert in this case but as I understand to get the true value of the voltage/current (or measuring the resistance) true the water is to have electrodes covering the whole area of the water where current/voltage is applied to the water (+ terminal of a battery or the “hot” wire of a house case) and electrodes covering the whole area of water where the current goes back to the source, i.e. path from terminal to terminal in a battery case or a path from “hot” wire to ground in a house case or vice versa. (- terminal of a battery or the ground in a house case).

You need to remember that there is no ground in a battery system of a car (other than the bodyshell which is used as a common 0 of sorts... I guess you can regard that as ground but it is important to remember that it is not the ground you stand on).

The reason why trains and all other land based electricity is dangerous is because it returns through ground (yep, that is right, the 0 cables (blue) of almost all land based equipment today, including high voltage transformers etc etc, are earthed and return the current through ground... and yet you don't get fried when you put a shovel in the ground... same thing as the rally car in the water really). When you touch any live electric bit, it always wants to return to earth... which is exactly why the bird in your chart is fine even if it were to sit on a live wire where the insulation is gone... the bird does not touch earth.



No, we didn’t do such drastic laboratory works. And I won’t try it at home by putting the three phases of our sauna heater in the water.:)

I don't think your fuses would survive it and you probably have an earth fault breaker as well... so go ahead ;) Ok no probably not, unforseen things will probably happen, but theoretically you'll be fine!

Generator tests are done without fuses and other safety equipment hahahaha, but there is a safety parameter... mostly because the pahses are live and bare and not because of the water... it is very interesting to watch :)

[Eli]

Since we now have (Plug-in) Hybrid Rally1 Cars, would you say it was the right move or do you guys think they should've gone away with it earlier than this season?

[pantealex]

Since we now have (Plug-in) Hybrid Rally1 Cars, would you say it was the right move or do you guys think they should've gone away with it earlier than this season?

not right move, should have continued with ICE gasoline cars.

#myopinion

(I understand that world is going Green but I still like my rallying with gasoline/diesel only)

[Sergiow]

Since we now have (Plug-in) Hybrid Rally1 Cars, would you say it was the right move or do you guys think they should've gone away with it earlier than this season?

Certainly not the right move. GTWC 24h Spa 2022, on July 28-31 there will be 65 cars participating, 23 PRO teams (including Valentino Rossi which already is providing the GT show with its biggest merchandising stand :rotflmao:) participating GT3s from Aston Martin, Audi, Bentley, BMW, Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Mercedes-AMG and Porsche, lined up by customer teams and those with official support.

https://it.motorsport.com/gtwc-endurance/news/gtwc-battaglione-di-65-macchine-al-via-della-24h-di-spa/10326282/?nrt=209

Unlike the Hybrid Rally1 Cars, all official GT3s can be acquired by customer teams. The only big draw back with GTWC (and WEC too) is that deadening BoP which is a disgrace for all true racing. But that doesn't matter here because it is the customer model which counts and that make the GT show a gold mine for the official constructors. With a rumored price tag of 0,5 mil dollar each GT3 they are much cheaper than the current Rally1 cars and the GT3s have much more road relevancy.

[Kenneth]

What's your point here? You know that GT3 is to circuit racing the same what is Rally2 to rally?

[Sergiow]

What's your point here? You know that GT3 is to circuit racing the same what is Rally2 to rally?

The Rally1 cars are a blast when experiencing live on the rally stage. No doubt about that. Although you need to be careful with comparisons because the power to weigh ratio of Rally1 and GT3 might be very close. But actually in WRC there are only 2,5 constructors for those Rally1 cars which makes the current WRC absolutely not sustainable. And the budget saving measures (less testing and upgrades) are making it even worser. Adamo in his latest Rallysimo interview was already suggesting some souped up Rally2 car to replace the current crop of expensive Rally1 cars. My point is 2 fold:

1) The GTWC championship is organised by SRO Motorsports Group, not the FIA, it was in fact SRO who launched the whole GT3 hoopla not the FIA, so trusting the FIA with the very future of WRC might not be the best idea; even DTM is jumping ship to GT3 (the move from Class 1 to GT3 attracted more manufacturers and teams in DTM that couldn't previously compete in the series due to high cost!!!!) even Le Mans will get GT3 in 2024

2) The current crop of Rally1 do not have a viable customer model just like GT3 and its feeder series do have (for example, adding up the first and second generations of the Audi R8 LMS, a total of 275 GT3 sports cars have been built of this type). You can not even participate with a Rally1 car in a national Rally championship (at least not in Belgium I think)

[Sulland]

Have any of the teams managed to put in an electric AC yet?

[WRCStan]

What's your point here? You know that GT3 is to circuit racing the same what is Rally2 to rally?


The Rally1 cars are a blast when experiencing live on the rally stage. No doubt about that. Although you need to be careful with comparisons because the power to weigh ratio of Rally1 and GT3 might be very close. But actually in WRC there are only 2,5 constructors for those Rally1 cars which makes the current WRC absolutely not sustainable. And the budget saving measures (less testing and upgrades) are making it even worser. Adamo in his latest Rallysimo interview was already suggesting some souped up Rally2 car to replace the current crop of expensive Rally1 cars. My point is 2 fold:

1) The GTWC championship is organised by SRO Motorsports Group, not the FIA, it was in fact SRO who launched the whole GT3 hoopla not the FIA, so trusting the FIA with the very future of WRC might not be the best idea; even DTM is jumping ship to GT3 (the move from Class 1 to GT3 attracted more manufacturers and teams in DTM that couldn't previously compete in the series due to high cost!!!!) even Le Mans will get GT3 in 2024

2) The current crop of Rally1 do not have a viable customer model just like GT3 and its feeder series do have (for example, adding up the first and second generations of the Audi R8 LMS, a total of 275 GT3 sports cars have been built of this type). You can not even participate with a Rally1 car in a national Rally championship (at least not in Belgium I think)

Still where Kenneth was because I don't think this comparison stands up. What about the prototype and hypercars in the GT space, aren't they the better direct comparison for Rally1? And does GTWC carry the same prestige and pinnacle in world GT racing as WRC is to Rallying? (ie better than WEC, I don't know) Nobody designed or approved hybrid Rally1 with customers, regional or local events/championships in mind; maybe Adamo initially disagreed with that but ultimately he went along with it. If your point is top level world rally should be accessible to all, fair enough, but I'm not sure GT3 makes great reasoning.

[focus206]

Still where Kenneth was because I don't think this comparison stands up. What about the prototype and hypercars in the GT space, aren't they the better direct comparison for Rally1? And does GTWC carry the same prestige and pinnacle in world GT racing as WRC is to Rallying? (ie better than WEC, I don't know) Nobody designed or approved hybrid Rally1 with customers, regional or local events/championships in mind; maybe Adamo initially disagreed with that but ultimately he went along with it. If your point is top level world rally should be accessible to all, fair enough, but I'm not sure GT3 makes great reasoning.

I can answer some of those GT questions:
I wouldn't consider prototypes on the same ladder as GT cars, they're on a different ladder: LMP1/Hypercars, LMP2, LMP3.
GT cars' ladder is GTE, GT3, GT4.
To the mainstream medias, WEC is far more important than GTWC, mainly because of Le Mans and prototypes. This year GTWC gained notoriety because of Valentino Rossi joining, otherwise it wasn't much more than Spa 24h for the mainsteam medias.
But speaking about the prestige given by the fans, I've never met a GT racing enthusiast who prefers WEC over GTWC (some prefers even the GT4 championship), and I agree. GTWC has many more manufacturers compared to the 2-3 in the WEC GTE, much better balance of performance (not uncommon at all that one of the 2-3 manufacturers in GTE has almost no chance of winning a race because of weight/power) and in GTWC the focus is always on GT cars.
For my taste, GTWC is the best circuit racing series around.

[mknight]

The situation about Rally1/WRC being only for manus, expensive and not able to start in local rallies has been basically the same since like 2006. (and they are not 100% correct).

They were also valid in 2012-2016 with the "cheap" WRCs.

So while a discussion about Rally1 vs "Rally2(+)" is interesting, the main point in this resurected thead was hybrid vs no hybrid in otherwise similar car.

On a sidenote, while Rally2 has certainly been extremely sucessfull as a class it is now down to only 2 brands developing their cars. How long will the other cars stay competetive and whether the class survives in current form more than a few more years is a big guestion.

[AndyRAC]

I can answer some of those GT questions:
I wouldn't consider prototypes on the same ladder as GT cars, they're on a different ladder: LMP1/Hypercars, LMP2, LMP3.
GT cars' ladder is GTE, GT3, GT4.
To the mainstream medias, WEC is far more important than GTWC, mainly because of Le Mans and prototypes. This year GTWC gained notoriety because of Valentino Rossi joining, otherwise it wasn't much more than Spa 24h for the mainsteam medias.
But speaking about the prestige given by the fans, I've never met a GT racing enthusiast who prefers WEC over GTWC (some prefers even the GT4 championship), and I agree. GTWC has many more manufacturers compared to the 2-3 in the WEC GTE, much better balance of performance (not uncommon at all that one of the 2-3 manufacturers in GTE has almost no chance of winning a race because of weight/power) and in GTWC the focus is always on GT cars.
For my taste, GTWC is the best circuit racing series around.

Yes, GT3 racing is probably the most competitive 4 wheeled motorsport around; plenty of series around the globe, lots of cars, and virtually all of the top drivers driving them. Bathurst 12 hours, Nurburgring 24 hours, Spa 24 hours will see them all racing each other. We've just had a Spa 24 hour two day test, this weekend sees another NLS (VLN) round on the Nordschleife. The BoP seen in SRO GT3 events seems to be fairer than the ACO version in the WEC, but that isn't a surprise.

[AndyRAC]

The situation about Rally1/WRC being only for manus, expensive and not able to start in local rallies has been basically the same since like 2006. (and they are not 100% correct).

They were also valid in 2012-2016 with the "cheap" WRCs.

So while a discussion about Rally1 vs "Rally2(+)" is interesting, the main point in this resurrected thread was hybrid vs no hybrid in an otherwise similar car.

On a sidenote, while Rally2 has certainly been extremely successful as a class it is now down to only 2 brands developing their cars. How long will the other cars stay competitive and whether the class survives in current form more than a few more years is a big guestion.

Yes, so we see three manufacturers in Rally 1, and only two are developing their cars in Rally 2; that's not great, and rather worrying. The sport needs to attract more in both classes.

[WRCStan]

I can answer some of those GT questions:
I wouldn't consider prototypes on the same ladder as GT cars, they're on a different ladder: LMP1/Hypercars, LMP2, LMP3.
GT cars' ladder is GTE, GT3, GT4.
To the mainstream medias, WEC is far more important than GTWC, mainly because of Le Mans and prototypes. This year GTWC gained notoriety because of Valentino Rossi joining, otherwise it wasn't much more than Spa 24h for the mainsteam medias.
But speaking about the prestige given by the fans, I've never met a GT racing enthusiast who prefers WEC over GTWC (some prefers even the GT4 championship), and I agree. GTWC has many more manufacturers compared to the 2-3 in the WEC GTE, much better balance of performance (not uncommon at all that one of the 2-3 manufacturers in GTE has almost no chance of winning a race because of weight/power) and in GTWC the focus is always on GT cars.
For my taste, GTWC is the best circuit racing series around.

Gotcha, thanks. Perhaps a split between Rally1/WRC Manufacturers and WRC2/3 may be a more popular idea than I first imagined. To that end, I don't care whether hybrid is/was the right idea and only the three manus can answer that anyway.

[Sergiow]

So while a discussion about Rally1 vs "Rally2(+)" is interesting, the main point in this resurected thead was hybrid vs no hybrid in otherwise similar car.

Alright, then let us discuss hybrid vs no hybrid and have a look at this very recent interview with AMG’s customer racing boss Stefan Wendl about GT3 racing. The title of the article says it all: "Mercedes-AMG Looking to Introduce New GT3 Car in 2025". Nowhere in this article is any mentioning of 'hybrid' nor electric. And this article is also given a good insight about the homologation process of GT3"

Stefan Wendl told Sportscar365 at last weekend’s Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour that the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo is set to continue as the brand’s flagship GT racing product until the end of 2024. He suggested that the end of the current Evo model’s homologation period after the 2024 season “could be a good chance” for Mercedes-AMG to introduce a successor.

The Mercedes-AMG GT3 made its global debut with customer teams in 2016 and was given an Evo update ahead of the 2020 season. Wendl gave a vote of confidence in how GT3 has been managed by the FIA, which is responsible for vehicle homologation, and SRO Motorsports Group which sets the Balance of Performance in several key championships and founded the worldwide formula.

“I am quite happy about how the FIA and SRO handle the evolution of GT3 cars,” said Wendl.

“Since 2015-16, since the group of cars like the Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Audi and us came, there was a growth of manufacturers in that homologation period.

https://sportscar365.com/industry/mercedes-amg-looking-to-introduce-new-gt3-car-in-2025/