Think about driving down the street in your car. There’s enough space for you and a car coming in the other direction. There’s also just enough room for a parked car on one side of the road. All up, there’s about three car widths across the whole road.
Now imagine the street is one way and the road is clear, so no parked cars.
Let’s take this a little further shall we?
Imagine you’re now driving down that normal street with metal barriers either side of you. And you’re also driving in excess of 200kph. Just to make things interesting, there’s another driver behind you. And as you both head towards the corner, he’s desperately trying to pass you.
He has a bit more speed than you. He pulls to the left to come up your inside and take the corner first.
Free Reports:
Before either of you brake for the corner, you pull to the left to try and block his move. You don’t see he’s already there. That’s a problem. That’s a big problem…
You make contact with him. You’re both still doing about 200kph. Your car snaps its front wheel and you head straight on. However, you still have enough control to apply the brakes.
He, on the other hand, has now lost control after you turned into him. He’s travelling sideways, out of control at 200kph. You both miss the corner. But he hits the kerb on the way through
This launches his car into the air. He’s now airborne.
Mid flight, he hits a wall…roof first. The exact speed is unknown, but it’s easily in excess of 100kph by this stage. When he hits the wall this makes his car flip twice — higher in the air still — before landing upside down.
If you were both in normal cars, you’d probably be OK, but he’d likely be dead.
What I just described to you isn’t fiction. It’s real. And on Saturday, I saw it happen with my own two eyes.
In the first ever Formula E race, Nico Prost and Nick Heidfeld had a horrific crash. Prost was in front with Heidfeld charging behind. Prost unknowingly, yet recklessly, turned into Heidfeld.
Heidfeld went airborne, hit the wall, flipped his Venturi Racing Formula E car and landed upside down.
A couple of weeks ago I saw the entire Formula E field race around Donington Park. Here’s what Heidfeld’s car looks like when it’s racing and in one piece.
On Saturday they were racing again. But this time on the streets around the Olympic stadium in Beijing.
These are everyday, normal streets that for one day became the venue for the most high-tech racing series in the world, Formula E. There are nine more races, all street circuits. The series culminates in London next July. As all the races are street circuits, the race organisers install temporary kerbs to make the track.
One type of kerb used is a ‘sausage kerb’. It gets its name because of its sausage-like shape. It was the sausage kerb that launched Heidfeld into the air on Saturday.
To make this all the more interesting, Prost was in the lead of the race. Heidfeld was second. And the corner they were heading to was the final corner on the final lap. The winner would have been the first ever winner of a Formula E race.
Instead this happened…
That’s Heidfeld just after hitting the sausage kerb and taking off. Yes, he’s airborne at this stage.
Just a few seconds later he hits the wall at well over 100kph. He flips and lands upside down. This is what Heidfeld’s car looked like when it came to rest…with him still in it. That’s one mangled mess.
Watching it at the time I thought Heidfeld was a goner. As I said before, in any other car, Heidfeld would have been dead.
But about three seconds after the crash, he crawled out from beneath the wreck. He then sprinted over to Prost to remonstrate with him over the crazy move.
Heidfeld was very much alive, very much in one piece and very much annoyed.
There’s only one reason why Heidfeld is still alive. And that’s the supreme safety of the Formula E cars. These high-tech Formula E cars, aside from being fully electric, are nothing short of extraordinary when it comes to their construction.
The Dallara Group built all the cars for the first Formula E season. Dallara is a specialist racecar manufacturer. But more than that, they’re specialists in carbon fibre.
You see, the Formula E cars all have a carbon fibre monocoque. That means the cars’ strength and rigidity is their structural skin. And it’s all carbon fibre.
The main benefits of carbon fibre are its high strength and extremely lightweight properties. This is why it’s the only material race cars like Formula E and Formula 1 use.
When you see a driver hit a wall airborne, flip twice, land upside down and walk away, you know this is one special, super material.
Not only high-tech racing cars benefit from carbon fibre technology. Your average road car maker is now also using more carbon fibre in the cars you and I drive.
The benefit to carmakers is they can build far lighter and far stronger cars. By making the car lighter, you also make it more fuel efficient. And by making it stronger, you also make it safer.
In today’s world, safety and fuel efficiency are two key selling points when it comes to cars. Of course, cost is a factor too. And for a long time, carbon fibre has simply been too expensive to use.
Thankfully, that’s changing, as the cost of carbon fibre is falling. That’s why you’re beginning to see more of it in new high tech cars like the BMWi range. We’re in no doubt that the future of carbon fibre technologies is strong. And companies are working on projects to make it easier and cheaper for carmakers to use.
Aside from cars, you’ll begin to see carbon fibre more in other aspects of everyday life. It will find its way into consumer devices and electronics. Into construction and building. It will even be one of the driving forces behind the next huge wave of consumer technology…home robotics.
Whichever way you look at it carbon fibre technology is extraordinary. It’s the super material of the future. And if you don’t believe me, this is what Nick Heidfeld looked like after race…
In other words, he was alive.
Sam Volkering+
Technology Analyst, Revolutionary Tech Investor
Ed note: The above article was originally published in Tech Insider.
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