NASCAR will run hybrid engines by 2024
And Formula 1 has plans to create sustainable fuel by 2025
The world of automotive racing is quickly changing.
Electric cars have already taken to the track in the Formula E and Extreme E circuits, and now America’s favourite left-leaning race series has announced that it will utilize hybrid powertrains in its vehicles in just a few years.
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NASCAR president Steve Phelps said in an interview at the Sports Business Journal World Congress of Sports that the series will have “some type of hybrid engine system with an electrification component” starting in 2024. The news was shared to Twitter by Fox Sports reporter Bob Pockrass.
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Before Covid-19 derailed all plans everywhere, series organizers had set their sights on 2022 as the year of electrification, indicating at the time that the hybrid vehicles would race on road courses and shorter oval tracks first before being allowed on the real deal.
Instead, 2022 will mark the arrival of the Next Gen cars featuring updated hardware and redone bodies that look more akin to street cars, with the hybrid models to follow a couple years after.
Formula 1, meanwhile, is working to develop a 100-per-cent sustainable fuel with which to power its race cars by the year 2025. As part of its goal to be “Net Zero Carbon” by 2030, the motorsport giant says it expects the fuel to be “drop-in,” meaning it’ll work in existing combustion engines, and come from some sort of lab-generated carbon capture setup, food waste, or non-food biomass such as algae. The brand is currently in discussion with multiple fuel production companies over how to produce the future-friendly power source.