Quote Originally Posted by Rally Power View Post
Fingers crossed, but ICEs future can be at risk with the new Euro 7 emissions standards, which will be voted at the end of the year by EU’s parliament. Some say they will be so severe that manus won’t be able to keep ICEs. That wouldn’t affect F1 bubble, but it’d probably have a huge impact on Rally, as the sport is deeply linked to manus production.

Btw, only a few bosses in the industry are brave enough to publicly criticise EVs extreme political push; hats off to Mr. Toyoda for being one of them: https://www.wsj.com/articles/toyotas...ed-11608196665
You are correct - Rallying has missed a golden opportunity to become relevant again. Their switch to Hybrid has been very late, they had an opportunity to make it way more "extreme" and missed it. Think about full EV on liaisons / ICE on stages (including recharging for the next liaison etc ...), maybe even full EV with fast charging at stages end. I understand the engineering challenge (added battery weight, battery life, ...), I understand it may not look anymore like the rallying that we know (which is already a far cry from the one that i grew up with in the 70's) - but if you believe the market value of rallying is to relate to manus production using the same roads as average Joe, can you imagine the PR dream by saying "you commute on these roads everyday, winter and summer - now our champions are doing the same at full speed with our EV - no problem". Wouldn't that be a true proof point for EV acceptance ? Attracting manus to the sport, instead of leaving one by one ?
Yes it will be dull for a few years (even though save from the noise, the lastest Skoda rally EV video looked OK), but how did you felt in 1987 when the GpA cars followed the uber-exciting Gp.B machines ?
Yes rallyes may have to become shorter / more compact, but isn't that already happening ?
I am not saying i would be happy for such move to happen, but i see that this may be (have been ?) the only way for Rallying to become one of the golden series as it once was.