[Rules] Future Rule Changes

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

Different markets for sure see different trends, but with some manus recently scaling back EV production due to their high costs and lack of demand, are manus still looking at the same market realities as they were 5 years ago?

It depends upon what "EV" means in those proclamations from car manufactures. I talk to this at the very end of this post. But regardless of what exactly they mean, it is all about some form of electrification and a path from today to some future state. And that path will have some level of hybrid technology. So the new F1 power unit spec can cover flexible talking points that work for most all situations short of ONLY selling battery EV vehicles (which is unlikely within the lifespan of that future power unit spec)

Here is an old article (2021), but I picked this for it's age as it speaks more to what they were saying when they picked this new path...

https://us.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1...onent/6626214/

Quotes from Toto Wolfe...

“The discussion was ‘what are we doing in the future in terms of engine’, because we want to save costs, so we don't want to reinvent the wheel,” he said.

“But we also want to have an engine that is relevant from 2025 to 2030, and we can't be old petrol heads with screaming engines when everybody expects us to be going electric.

“So these engines are still going to be fuelled. We are staying with the current V6 format, but the electric component is going to massively increase.”

F1's current power units feature both an MGU-K and an MGU-H, but there have suggestions the sport may abandon the MGU-H because of its cost and complexity. That would then open the door for a more powerful kinetic component to be used.

One of the core components of the new hybrid generation of engines will be running on sustainable fuels, which car manufacturers believe will be hugely important with cars continuing to use combustion engines for many years to come.

Wolff added: “Why we are staying with the internal combustion engine is that we believe that the fuel is going to be with us for a long time.

“In Europe we may have the ambitious targets of having electrical mobility as part of our daily life by 2030, and I can see at Mercedes how ambitious the targets are, but in the rest of the world, we will have millions of vehicles that would still run on fuel.

“For Mercedes cars itself, we believe that we will have several million vehicles in the world that will still run on fuels. So what we can contribute with our innovation is to help them to develop sustainable fuels: be it biofuels or be it synthetic fuels.

As you can see from above, it fits many marketing narratives. Sustainable fuels, and flexibility on to topic of level of electrification. We are in this period of transition from ICE, to HEV (hybrid electric vehicle), PHEV (plug in HEV) and BEV (Battery EV). We have all four now and will likely continue to have all four a decade from now, but the balance will be shifting to the right. New ICE only vehicle may exist only as niche or specialty vehicles at that time.

But back to the manufacture claims. They mostly are talking about commitment to "EV". So for many that is some balance of HEV, PHEV and BEV with the aggressive and or aspirational goals being only PHEV and BEV at the end of their stated timelines (Circa 2030-2035). I found this interesting article that summarizes the current stances of various manufactures. I think the F1 power unit strategy fits well within most of those from a marketing perspective. Even if they slow the pace of the transition (i.e. slower than expected demands, electric fueling infrastructure issues, etc.), that transition will still happen and again the F1 marketing perspective still works.

https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/automaker-ev-plans/

Richard