Quote Originally Posted by Googol View Post
The problem is that the choice is not just to electric or not to electric. If they decide to go to electric, the choices vary between let's plug in a same cheap standard component for everyone to look modern, and let's give everyone freedom to spend ridiculous amounts of money for new solutions to really be modern. The range is very big and every manufacturer wants different. So the result will be a lousy compromise for which no one is happy and everyone will threaten to leave anyway.
Absolutely.

The question is: are they doing this for R&D, or for marketing?

Although pretty much everybody in all forms of motor racing talks about how it feeds back into car development, it seems most of them pay for it out of the marketing budget not the R&D budget.

I mean, come on. You can spend 30 million a year on a WRC programme and trumpet how rally Mexico improved your engine management at high altitudes. Or you can spend a million on testing a car in Mexico for a few months. If you do the former, it's marketing. But there are a few manufacturers who do look like they might honestly be in it for the R&D, at least partly, e.g. Toyota's hybrid program for WEC (Le Mans etc).

And when these clash... as you say, we get a crappy compromise.

We can only hope that nobody really cares about electrics, they all just want to be seen to be doing something. Then they can all have the same cheap standard hybrid unit to integrate, and it will keep the marketing side happy.