NASCAR Future

[Juneau4]

NASCAR Might Launch Electric Racing Series, Demo Race In 2023​

The source is an alleged leaked document that says demo races with prototype EVs will take place in February 2023.​

Aug 02, 2022 at 1:16pm ET

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By: Andrei Nedelea





NASCAR is reportedly currently looking to set up its own electric racing series and a demonstration race will be held on February 5 at the 2023 Busch Clash in Los Angeles. The electric NASCAR racers will reportedly run on a 900-volt architecture and have in excess of 1,000 horsepower thanks to a trio of electric motors - we can also infer from this that the vehicles will be all-wheel drive.


The news about this parallel electric racing series was broken by Kickin’ the Tires, a website dedicated to motorsport with a focus on NASCAR, which stated that it got hold of screenshots from a leaked document that also announced the series would run for six races that would be aligned to the NASCAR Cup Series.

Each race would consist of two 30-minute legs, it would feature 12 vehicles that would not be allowed to charge or swap batteries during the race. To add credence to their claims, the source article quotes Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR Chief Operating Officer, who in March said

We are exploring some opportunities around an exhibition series in that space, and as everyone knows, there is a huge push across all of our OEM partners and potentially new OEM partners, so it is important for us to explore that space.

I think there is a lot of interest from our current partners to be part of that but we look at NASCAR as a place where in an ideal world we’d be all things to all things to all people. So, if you went to a NASCAR event weekend, you could see whatever type of technologies you wanted throughout a race weekend, so we will take a look at an electric series.

NASCAR did officially announce it would be moving to hybrid powertrains starting in 2024. The new competition car for 2022, known as the Next Gen car, has already undergone some major changes, and it now makes a lot more downforce, which means it has been designed to take a lot more power than it currently has, so with the debut of hybrid (and eventually fully-electric) powertrains, we could also see a bump in power.

The leaked document also referenced the fact that with over 1,000 horsepower, the electric NASCAR vehicle would mirror the performance level of the main competition vehicle, which leads us to believe the future hybrid NASCAR vehicles could also have upward of 1,000 ponies. The Next Gen car is already got an increase over the previous generation, with its power output going up from 410 horsepower to 670 horsepower.

The other rumor, whether true or not, is that the vehicles used will be SUV'S.)

 

[crashthe24]

stage breaks may be 30 minutes long to recharge the battery cells. LOL
i guess they could have races less than 250 miles.

 

[Juneau4]

Each race would consist of two 30-minute legs, it would feature 12 vehicles that would not be allowed to charge or swap batteries during the race.