The Story of Nissan's Banned Formula E Design

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

I'm sorry to say you there is a fundamental flaw in what is otherwise a great video. You have misinterpreted what the exploit was. They were using the second motor to store energy as a makeshift flywheel, as you explained in the video, but what that was actually allowing them to do was store energy that other teams were having to waste (as per the regulations on what they cold recover under braking). Nissan was at the minimum allowed weight, so there was no disadvantage to the twin-motors, but that was because they were spending WAY more on lightweight/carbonfibre parts that allowed them to hit that target. By using the extra energy stored in the flywheel, it allowed them to accelerate along the straights for longer, giving them an advantage during the race. The reason this was banned was because the FIA didn't want other teams to have to spend that extra money on similarly expensive materials and because the use of a flywheel to store energy (a far less effective method than simply making the battery larger) flew in the face of the rules. A road car would never do this because it was only a method to circumvent the rules, not because a twin-motor setup is inherently more energy efficient. For a road car without having to worry about FE rules, they would just make the battery bigger for whatever additional weight they wanted. I actually think the qualifying results are simply indicative of a well performing team (e.dams) with two strong drivers, and not representative of some major drivetrain advantage Nissan had (other than being at the minimum weight, which not all of the others were).

[@SB10_FE]

Hey, Thank you so much for the explanation! I've pinned your comment so others can see. Wouldn't accelerating for longer along the straightaways using the energy that other teams were 'wasting' give them an inherent advantage during qualifying though? I do agree on the basis of expense, and I overlooked the weight saving with carbon parts. Do you have a source for the info? If so I'd love to drop that in the description as well.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

@@SB10_FE I don't believe it would give them an advantage in qualifying because the teams aren't energy limited like they are in the race. The twin-motor design was supposed to be good at punching out of the turns if I remember correctly (an advantage others who tried the design in the Gen1 era were aiming for but struggled to achieve). I definitely recall drivers on the radio back circa S5 reporting the Nissan's incredible acceleration as well. I don't have a source for this I'm afraid, I'm just going off half-remembered articles and discussion from half-a-decade ago, so I might be mistaken on what the key benefit was, but it was definitely banned for circumventing the rule on recoverable/useable energy.

[@SB10_FE]

@ Ah sorry it was the extra kick out of the corner I meant that would give them the advantage. It’s interesting, I couldn’t find much information on how Virgin and Nio did with their twin motor designs, but as you said I can only assume it didn’t work as intended. No worries! One of the things I love most about the Formula E fanbase is that everyone is so well informed with great technical knowledge and insight. Really appreciate the comment

[@verticalflyingb737]

​@@SB10_FE A video essay KZbinr admitting their mistake? In 2025?? Impossible! Props to you!

[@SB10_FE]

@@verticalflyingb737 Least I can do! Top priority is to make sure the audience aren't receiving the wrong information. Props to him for reaching out

[@Thaisistercunny]

If the Fia banned it then it’s a good car

[@Syritis]

please read the comment, above, it was an expensive and inefficient design that only advantage was that it circumvented the rules by storing energy in a flywheel rather exceeding allowed limits of power regen and storage.

[@ObiWanShinobi67]

Nissan just got a W today in Mexico.

[@SB10_FE]

I know! Perfect timing on my upload lol

[@dominicbarden4436]

Tell you what, I really miss the DAMS team speaking in French over the radio in the first five years, Buemi and his engineer had some real gems. One of my favourite exchanges was in the first Hong Kong race in 2017: Buemi: "Di Grassi a un problème, il est dangereux. Il est dangeruex." Engineer: "Ok Séb, faut le dire en anglais, et tu nous donnes ta conso." Buemi: "Di Grassi's got a problem, it's dangerous." It was surprising because isn't there a rule that radio communication has to be in English or something (if there is, it's a bit silly I think)? But I think they stopped the French radios around Season 6 or so. Certainly I don't recall many, if any, from after 2019. And then Nissan fully took over the team anyway in 2023. Admittedly, part of this might just be because I like French (an Englishman liking anything French!? C'est un scandale!). Which, funny story: I did French at school from Year 3 (7-8 years old, no idea what that age group equates to in the American system) all the way up to A Level (so Years 12 and 13; 16-18 years old), and I did Spanish (Spanish Spanish, mind you; I assume you tend to do Latin Spanish in the States?) from Years 9-11, the GCSE years (the exams you take at 16). Weirdly, and I reckon that one lot of exams was marked more harshly than the other which led to this, my GCSE results for the two languages were A for French and A* for Spanish, when I was fully expecting it to be the other way around (I had more experience in French after all)! And as if that wasn't enough, I even did Latin from Years 6-8! Which was cool. And seeing the little similarities between the languages was cool as well, but if you were doing both of them you had to be careful to say, not speak French when you were supposed to be speaking Spanish!

[@SB10_FE]

I agree! I always do appreciate when drivers go out of there way to speak another language on the radio comms, even if I can't fully understand it lol. Shoutout to Vettel Yeah here in the states the most common language we learn in High School is Spanish, that's the one I learned, but there are surprisingly a lot of students who learn French too. Super impressed you were able to excel at both, and Latin! Languages are hard haha

[@superdood551]

Great video! This was one of the more peculiar things to happen in FE's history so I'm glad such an in-depth video explaining what the dual motor provided compared to the single motor the rest of the teams ran exists👌

[@SB10_FE]

Thank you!

[@AlanFormula12022]

The Nissan E DAMS FORMULA E Team could get double crown in Season 11.

[@SB10_FE]

They're a serious threat for it, though I do doubt Nato a bit for the teams

[@adelhied034]

One of the reason I think is the future. They know at Gen 3 cars the battery capacity will be larger and the twin MGU, if manage carefully, will dominate the race with more powers to the wheels and looking at the Gen 3 evo with the front motor then you will be 1 more motor above the rest.

[@marcosvazquez6775]

it was fun while it lasted, some other drivers complain about the accelerating speed, it was fun

[@Manuel_B.]

this was before the fast charging pitstops... I think Nissan would have dominated if that were the case back then, they wouldn't have to have worried about energy management.

[@Codi95]

They should allow the teams to modify their cars again like that, imagine FIA giving them as much liberty as F1 had in 1980s to 1990s

[@jacekjagosz]

I thought they would have each engine attached to each wheel, and could then do torque vectoring, but I guess that is against the rules. Using it as a flywheel seems wasteful

[@AmberHeardofme]

Thank goodness they’re is somebody covering this sport

[@SB10_FE]

Thank you! If you're interested, @formulaezone and @formulaeverything are also FE youtubers i'd check out! As well as @MissedApexFormulaE if you'd like a more podcasty sort of review show

[@BionicBurke]

My guy, you need a pop filter and to put a HPF on the mic. The plosives are out of control.

[@SB10_FE]

Yeah it's definitely my biggest issue right now. I have a fairly cheap microphone and it's making it a bit of a nightmare to record audio at a decent level. What you see here is me having to turn up the gain by quite a bit to get it at the somewhat normal levels. I'm working on it though, have a pop i'm planning to use

[@BionicBurke]

@SB10_FE There are a few tricks you can use after recording to get more volume out of your track. Compression is one good way of smoothing out the dynamic range while giving you an output gain to boost overall level. You can also try Loudness Normalization to bring everything up. Hope this helps!

[@pyrdepavkki1601]

There is a Formula E -based KZbin channel? Finally!!!

[@SB10_FE]

I'd recommend checking out @FormulaEverything and @formulaezone as well!

[@abe164]

Peak video (peak color change aswell) Is this a sign of regular ish uploads?

[@SB10_FE]

Thank you! Thought i'd freshen up the channel for the new year and purple is my favorite color (also fits with Sam Bird a bit haha) As for regular uploads.. I'll definitely try to do them more often. It just depends on the length of the next video, I do like longer projects haha

[@pavarottiaardvark3431]

Man, I love flywheel energy storage cars

[@tedpowertrain]

This basically the early gen of KERS which isn't any cutting edge technology. FIA just wants minimize costs - great vid anyways.

[@SB10_FE]

In a way, Formula E's whole energy recovery is KERS. This is manipulating the KERS system to get more energy out of it

[@pyrdepavkki1601]

Do you have a discord or anything like that? Been looking for a community since season 2😅

[@SB10_FE]

Yes, I believe on the r/formulae page, there is a link to their discord, it's fairly active, especially around race time.. if you catch what i'm saying ;)

[@lind2235]

peak video

[@toxy3580]

Stopper watching at "Renault relinquished control to their parent company Nissan". Renault literally bought Nissan and saved it from bankruptcy. On what planet does Nissan own Renault 🤣

[@HighFell]

Both of you are wrong, Renault and Nissan entered an Alliance where each company had a stake in the other. Mitsubishi was effectively absorbed by Nissan but later added the Mitsubishi name to the Alliance. The majority of Mitsubishi products are Nissan based. Initially Renault owned a 43.5% share of Nissan and Nissan owned 15% of Renault, now both have 15% and equal voting rights. 15% of Renault is owned by the French Government.

[@toxy3580]

Either way the characterisation of the parent company and larger company in the equation being Nissan is ludicrous and clearly spoken by an American who has no idea what exists out of his borders just because Nissan is in America and Renault isn't.

[@SB10_FE]

You'd be correct, as Highfell points out here, it was an alliance. My mistake

[@timmurphy4844]

I the world of Japan I think

[@connarcomstock161]

tl;dr Nissan cheated used the smaller second motor as an MGU-K, so they could apply more power than they could get out of the battery, got caught, and the whole thing got banned, but it didn't really work in races anyway. ...anyone else smell pizza? Man I'm craving Italian for some reason... >_>

[@CatfishSprinkles]

IDK how any of this works but FE should use Nissan's Delta Wing design

[@FurryestX]

Tahta should not be banned It wpuld actually amke the competition Interesting

[@naufalkusumah2192]

if this kind of banned technology is in F1 people will still talk about it till now, too bad nobody is watching FE 😂

[@jessechu2224]

damn wtf did I just play cs today with you on dust LOL

[@bigbuckoramma]

Thats literally a Prius Gearbox. So innovative... 🙄

[@Super_Black1]

Shit is basically like anti-lag and an extra little battery

[@thegroundhurts]

It’s a KERS system.

[@fullcircle6107]

What is the point of racing if we ban innovation

[@literallyhuman5990]

Exactly my point when I'm talking about F1 to allow two stroke turbo diesel. It's too reliable, has too much torque to tow a few tanks, and it's easier to work on. Gearbox? 3 high and 3 low just enough, the car is basically an automatic that that point

[@fullcircle6107]

@literallyhuman5990 😂

[@needles_balloon]

Because it was an innovation that was only useful in circumventing rules and not increasing real world efficiency in road cars.

[@SB10_FE]

Ah motorsport. Treading the fine line between development, and competitiveness.

[@vaska00762]

​@@literallyhuman5990 Turbo-Diesel was dead in the water as soon as the VAG emissions cheating was uncovered. It was after that, Audi stopped running a diesel engine in LMP1, and moved to hybrid. People complain about "road relevance", but the amount of R&D cost that is involved with motorsports ultimately means that you either need a championship that pays out enough winnings to make it worth it, or have the R&D innovations feed into road cars in some way or another. The 1 litre turbo petrol hatchback I drive is a "mild-hybrid", that has, in effect, a KERS system with an MGU system that deploys and recovers energy between it and a separate 48v battery. It's the kind of thing that I remember being totally new in 2009 in F1. Now? It's all over the roads. It's why F1 is dropping the MGU-T in the 2026 engine regulations. There's no value to road cars, and only Mercedes has implemented it in a supercar.

[@fauxvier8519]

Moar Formula E content please

[@adamrobertsgb1]

P, p, p, p, p, p, p, p,.... R. I. P headphone users

[@SB10_FE]

Yeah it's been an ongoing issue, working on fixing it for the next commentary type video

[@nejNej-k5f]

Slow down. You are speed talking. Cant follow / understand.

[@Wec-Enjoyer-]

🤹‍♂️

[@didzissulcs7338]

Apparently the ev's are not the future after all, if the potential testbed for ev development and research gets strangled so much by the powers that be. Strange that, eh?

[@laughinglime]

i love you

[@SB10_FE]

i love you too

[@MMCS07]

Mid video