WRC future

[Mirek]

UK government has just confirmed a ban on the sale of new diesel/petrol only cars from 2030. Plug in hybrids given until 2035. I think that is a sensible compromise, it’s a good way to transition to full electric whilst gradually getting the infrastructure in place for charging and waiting for electric car costs to reduce and range to improve further.

You can also see it from the point that what will come in ten years won't be likely the problem of the current people in charge. It can be postponed, changed, canceled, speed-up or whatever. A lot will be different in ten years than today and a lot will happen in between. In a way it's easy to plan something which will come into effect in ten years because such decision doesn't hurt now.

[RS]

You can also see it from the point that what will come in ten years won't be likely the problem of the current people in charge. It can be postponed, changed, canceled, speed-up or whatever. A lot will be different in ten years than today and a lot will happen in between. In a way it's easy to plan something which will come into effect in ten years because such decision doesn't hurt now.

True, and sped up seems unlikely as far as politicians are concerned.

I could well see the hybrid ban getting postponed if there is not sufficient charging infrastructure in place for full electric by 2035.

[Rally Power]

You can also see it from the point that what will come in ten years won't be likely the problem of the current people in charge. It can be postponed, changed, canceled, speed-up or whatever. A lot will be different in ten years than today and a lot will happen in between. In a way it's easy to plan something which will come into effect in ten years because such decision doesn't hurt now.

Spot on. Besides demagogic, this political fixation on full EVs it's irresponsible as it makes harder to look for other alernatives, like the renewable synthetic fuels (RSF). Bosch, one of the leading partners in carbon neutral RSF, is struggling to get support for their development. https://www.bosch.com/stories/denner...ectromobility/

Btw, F1 will use RSF in their next hybrid engines generation. https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f...fuels/4907782/

[AnttiL]

https://yle.fi/urheilu/3-11665104

Jarmo Mahonen said in an interview that two big manufacturers are interested in joining WRC. He also says the current teams haven't yet signed the paper on committing to the rules, but it has been agreed verbally.

EDIT: The two new manufacturers were actually interested a few years ago. Misleading article.

[mknight]

https://yle.fi/urheilu/3-11665104

Jarmo Mahonen said in an interview that two big manufacturers are interested in joining WRC. He also says the current teams haven't yet signed the paper on committing to the rules, but it has been agreed verbally.

Google translate says "Two large manufacturers have been interested, but it is not yet more concrete in terms of their brands."

"Interested" is quite loose term. Anyway from this definition I would guess:

- PSA (Stellantis), hard to judge the interest level

- VAG (with other brands than VW, Skoda or Seat), they did recently announce that VW wont do motorsport, but how does it apply to "semi-green" hybrid cars and other brands than VW?

- There was some talk about Subaru, but that doesn't fit with this definition of "large manufacturers" that need to pick brand

In short, nothing new, not holding my breath.

[AnttiL]

https://dirtfish.com/motorsport/daka...try-finalized/

Dakar is planning to start using hydrogen as fuel from 2026 onwards

[AnttiL]

I listened to the Mahonen podcast out of which yesterday's news article was derived from. He talked about them planning the 2017 WRC rules and it was the first time they had the manufacturers at the table, and they also tried to create what the fans wanted to see.

He also mentions that they also considered going to R5 at the time, but it would have meant losing manufacturers, because they were more interested in a high-tech solution(remember that we're talking mid 2010's here, R5 wasn't as popular as it is now)

He also said that according to Jost Capito VW's yearly budget was 70 million, and Capito said that they could have done two years in secret without anyone noticing, such big are the turnovers of big car manufacturer that a hundred million is just a decimal.

[mknight]

It's much more about the optics than the money itself. Following the dieselgate it's not like VW suddenly ran out of money, even with the massive compensations. But withdrawing as a sinner regretting the cheating surely looked good to the steering board.

Similarly when PSA is kicking people and closing factories it doesn't want to be seen "throwing" money at WRC. Again doesn't matter if they have it or not.

[AnttiL]

It's much more about the optics than the money itself. Following the dieselgate it's not like VW suddenly ran out of money, even with the massive compensations. But withdrawing as a sinner regretting the cheating surely looked good to the steering board.

Yes, definitely. That quote was just representing what kind of investment rallying is for car manufacturers in general, not VW particularly.

[AnttiL]

I'm translating direct quotes from Mahonen about creating the 2017 rules because this stuff is golden

"When I came to FIA, they had no strategy, no plans five years ahead"

"The first point on our strategy was to take the position of the fans, what they want to see. It was a big shock to the manufacturers when we had a meeting and I said we need to make new cars. It was dead silent and they asked 'what kind of cars?'. I said 'let's start with 600 bhp, spectacular cars'. Again dead silent. They said I was crazy and it cannot be implemented. But it was the first time we sat down with the manufacturers and offered to plan it together"

"We have to accept that when car manufacturers are involved, it's extremely difficult to control costs"

About going to R5

"We considered going to R5 but we would lose 150 million Euros coming to the sport"

"It was a clear message in my times [that the manufacturers want to show their high-tech competence and they are not able to do that through simpler and more limited R5 cars]. They wanted this new car that would be spectacular and could be used in marketing"

"It's not cheap either to put up a team and drive 12-14 WRC events on an R5"

about Citroen leaving

"We could see it two years before that they are leaving from their weird statements, and Ogier jumping ship was their final excuse to pull the plug. They weren't successful and although they talked about green values, in reality they were out of money on the department"