Electric fan car shatters the Goodwood hill climb record

I&#x27;m no expert on cars but according to this article it seems like a &quot;fan car&quot; uses fans to pull air in from under the car to create down force rather than as a primary means of propulsion. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;electrek.co&#x2F;2022&#x2F;06&#x2F;26&#x2F;watch-electric-fan-car-record-goodwood-hill-climb&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;electrek.co&#x2F;2022&#x2F;06&#x2F;26&#x2F;watch-electric-fan-car-record...</a>

The most famous fan car was the Brabham BT46, which used a skirt and fans to suck itself to the ground, leading to a ban of fan cars in F1.<p>&quot;when the drivers blipped the throttle, the car could be seen to squat down on its suspension as the downforce increased&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Brabham_BT46" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Brabham_BT46</a>

Cool, reminds me of how some small racing maze solving robots (micromouse) work - little fans on them to create downforce, letting the robot change directions incredibly quickly. But scaled up for a 2000lb car.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;greenye.net&#x2F;Pages&#x2F;Micromouse&#x2F;Micromouse2015-2016.htm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;greenye.net&#x2F;Pages&#x2F;Micromouse&#x2F;Micromouse2015-2016.htm</a>

Just in case anyone thought gasoline powered cars were still relevant in a performance context…<p>There’s no metric by which an electric motor, sufficiently supplied with everything it needs to function, doesn’t embarrass them. Very exciting future.

The driver of this car, Max Chilton, deserves a lot of credit for really going for it with a very fast car that looks pretty squirrelly.<p>With regard to taking records away from the VW ID.R, a much more interesting benchmark would be its performance at Pike&#x27;s Peak. I don&#x27;t imagine they&#x27;re ready for that yet.

I was watching Goodwood this weekend (it&#x27;s still ongoing btw [0]) BUT holy moly that brick wall at 0:27 in the video after they leave the Grand Stand. Or here is it <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;7TyNsP0.jpeg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;7TyNsP0.jpeg</a> One slight mistake and you are dead and oblitareted into atoms. No official FIA sanctioned event track have anything like this.<p>0, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=NC6fQ8EkASE" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=NC6fQ8EkASE</a>

Hill Climbing is a fantastically old competition. The heritage extends well beyond the vehicles. The culture of everyone from The Scrutineers to the burger vans is well worth looking into, if you can.<p>An example, continuously running since pre-quake SF:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Shelsley_Walsh_Speed_Hill_Climb" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Shelsley_Walsh_Speed_Hill_Clim...</a>

Something these types of high performance electric cars are continually proving now, is you don&#x27;t need fossil fuel cars to go fast. It&#x27;s helping to change how people think about cars, gasoline, and internal combustion engines. Someone&#x27;s next sports car can easily be electric, beautiful, and fast.

I am thinking you could flip a switch, which lowers a skirt and runs the fan in reverse : instant hovercraft mode for crossing a river, or even just deep mud. You&#x27;d need a steerable outlet jet on the back for propulsion.<p>Then once on firm ground, flip it and go back to racecar mode.

Ages ago when I was still a grease monkey I read a bunch about cars like the Chaparral 2J and recall something about the car leaving a horrible mess in its wake. The car was effectively a giant few-hundred-HP vacuum cleaner with no bag, blowing everything it sucked up straight out the back at anyone following. These were open cockpit Can-Am cars, I&#x27;m sure that was pleasant.

Technical analysis from a former F1 engineer:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=MyDORcYkX7g" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=MyDORcYkX7g</a>

Details of the ground effects car with some staggering statistics.<p>I&#x27;d be very concerned about trapped energy thermal runaway fire risk with the batteries surrounding the driver especially at impact, but this is an absolutely spectacular machine imo<p>WILD ELECTRIC FAN CAR BEATS GOODWOOD HILL RECORD! | EXCLUSIVE TOUR <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;qTgL8_1GDI0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;qTgL8_1GDI0</a>

American race-car driver Jim Hall pioneered a number of ground effects in the mid to late 1960s, including the use of fans like on this car. I think McLaren also used them on a Formula One car in the 1970s.<p>It&#x27;s worth reading the comments section of the article as it includes some observations from spectators at the hill climb. It sounds like the car in motion is quite a sight to behold!

Reminded me of Jim Hall and his Chaparral 2J <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.roadandtrack.com&#x2F;motorsports&#x2F;a32350&#x2F;jim-hall-chaparral-2j-history&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.roadandtrack.com&#x2F;motorsports&#x2F;a32350&#x2F;jim-hall-cha...</a><p>&gt; “.. and we calculated, we could actually drive it on the wall around Sebring.”

Be sure to go down into the comments below the article to see just how tiny this car is. It must be quite the ride.

Could fans become a standard safety feature of all cars? It could activate only when needed, when the driver needs to swerve suddenly or when the tires begin to lose traction due to ice&#x2F;oil&#x2F;hydroplaning. Hazard detection systems could activate the fan early.

Super impressive. On a more obscure side, I for one would love to learn how the Fanatec APM - Advanced Paddle Module - is used in the car.<p>These magnetic carbon shifters feel great in my simrig; it&#x27;s interesting how they are to be seen in this monster of an EV!

I think this kind of record should have two versions, the first one is that apparently standard ex-F1&#x2F;Indy driver, and the other is some random person picked up from outside a tube stop during a weekday morning.

39.08! McMurtry fan car breaks Goodwood Hill RECORD! | Festival of Speed 2022<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=5JYp9eGC3Cc" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=5JYp9eGC3Cc</a>

It looks ugly as sin though.<p>It is my opinion that the current generation of supercars (not to mention hypercars) not only exceeds the driver skills but also the driver&#x27;s ability to properly function for 7-10 days after bringing said supercar to the limit.<p>Makes sense to have both the V12 and a small electric motor because the rich folks would buy the car for the option (but not the obligation) to use the V12 but in reality it&#x27;s gonna be the electric motor doing all the work while proceeding at 7mph around Harrods&#x2F;Piccadilly or the Burj Khalifa. I think the environment can handle a couple of V12 revs per week when rich folks get out of Harrods.

&gt; In fact, it&#x27;s so quick that it almost looks like the video is set on fast-forward.<p>It totally looks like an old 1960s&#x2F;70s&#x2F;80s low-budget TV show special effect.

Gives it a bit more sound character than a pure electric race car too. Maybe when F1 finally has to ditch hybrid engines they should add fans...

I saw the chaparral 2J run at Laguna Seca in 1970. It was clearly a menace. I was more impressed with the 2e in 1966, which pioneered wings.

An electric fan sucking your car downwards sounds all nice and lovely for a street-legal car, until you hit a speedbump and womp womp womp.....

That&#x27;s a hill?

The previous record was in 2019, 39.90, from the electric volkswagon IDR. That car also broke the pikes peak hill climb record.

The driver is brave, that thing looks like a plastic bag blowing in the wind

I believe these should be illegal, just as it is in F1.<p>The basic problem with this concept is that if it ever stops working you are now driving way over the limit (not just a tiny bit) of what the car can handle and are unceremoniously thrown out of the track at a dangerous speed.<p>It becomes basically the contest of who can create more downforce.<p>The cars resulting from this have very little clearance and very hard suspension. Add a huge, changing downforce and you can imagine how anything failing like a suspension or a tyre can immediately put the driver in danger.<p>I think allowing this creates unhealthy, dangerous incentive to escalate the downforce until something fails -- the driver due to G-force, some component in the car or an object on the track that causes the car to bump up, etc.