This Is Why Making A Road Car With An F1 Engine Is Easier Said Than Done

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Interesting.


This Is Why Making A Road Car With An F1 Engine Is Easier Said Than Done

Mercedes-AMG is currently developing a hybrid hypercar dubbed the One. Big claims have been made about it, but it's no secret the German company is struggling to bring the car to the street.

When the One was first announced, it set the world buzzing because it is set to receive the 1.6-liter turbocharged V6 hybrid powertrain of a hybrid-era Mercedes Formula 1 car.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZZfbcQ7Ilw

This sounds truly amazing on paper, but it is proving to be exceptionally difficult to make a reality. This video from Drive Tribe helps to explain why that's the case.

One of the first things AMG is struggling with is just how to start an F1 engine. Current F1 cars use external starter motors to fire them into life but that's clearly not practical for the road and the company will need to develop a bespoke starting motor.

Another issue relates to cooling, or the lack thereof. F1 cars are almost always moving and when they're not, huge fans are placed over the air intakes to feed the engines with air. An F1-powered road car would have to deal with stop-start traffic and use custom fans to ensure it doesn't overheat at slow speeds.

Other problems AMG is having to deal with relate to cost and torque. Modern Formula 1 engines are loaded with technology and far from cheap. In fact, a current unit is thought to cost about $8 million, so Mercedes needs to somehow make that much cheaper. F1 engines also don't produce huge amounts of torque at low revs, yet that's something modern customers demand from their road cars – though we guess that's the least of Merc's worries...


Link: https://www.carscoops.com/2019/07/this-is-why-making-a-road-car-with-an-f1-engine-is-easier-said-than-done/