The battery to be used for season five of the Formula E championship has already completed a full race simulation according to the FIA.
The 2018/19 season of the all-electric series will see the biggest change yet, as teams will compete with just one car per race.
This means having a battery that can last the full race distance, but despite the huge challenge this poses McLaren Applied Technologies have already created a battery that has completed a full test.
Speaking to Motorsport.com, the President of the FIA’s Electric and New Energies Championships Commission, Prof Burkhard Goschel, said, “It [a full simulation] has been done and it shows up as being very positive and we can show that simulation is nearly the same reality.
“We still have some issues and with the timing, we just have to get ready with the main issues with the functional testing.”
“It is proceeding well, but we know that it is tight time wise and we will see this summer where we are at the end, but all signs which are coming out are looking positive.”
Despite the progress made so far, Goschel still believes that the weight of the unit and the cooling it requires will still pose big challenges.
While he believes that they are able to manage the heat being created by the new battery, he admitted that they were under pressure in terms of reducing its weight in time for the start of track testing.
“One issue always with the battery and the electrical drive is the cooling because the load in our case is a very, very strong one,” Goschel commented.
“We will be re-charging very deeply and the inner-resistance goes up and the requirement for cooling is going up. From the first season we have managed it, and I think we can manage it now too.
“The [weight] is getting tight. Because we have had some additional cells to meet some additional requirement which came up so we added some. We are under pressure with the weight, this is true.”
Goschel also stated that they were planning on giving the drivers 200kW of power for the race and 250kW for qualifying.
