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An example of one of those lessons was the need to shield electronic components. "As you switch faster, the EMI that's given off from those switching devices gets more and more and more, and you start turning off your other systems on the racecar," Charles explained. "So we did lots of technical coatings in the first unit, very simple mechanical things to start with, where we tried to stop those components, the EMI getting outside of the inverter," he continued.

A complaint that has been leveled at Formula E in the past is that the technical rules limit the amount of research and development that's possible due to a high number of spec components like the chassis and battery. Indeed, this was cited as a reason by Audi and BMW to withdraw from the sport. But Charles sees it differently.

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There are direct carryovers from the race car to road-going Jaguars and Land Rovers, too. "This inverter that we're working on now is absolutely road car-spec now," he pointed out. "So it's not like you need to say, 'Ah, that's a special one for the racecar, we'll make a road car version.' It literally is the same inverter module that can go into that car, the same cooling system."

"We also found very early on that the shuffle response in the car is really key," he said, referring to the way that torque from the motor winds and unwinds the driveshafts as well as loading the gears within the transmission. Although this is also an issue with internal combustion powertrains, it's exacerbated in an EV due to the near-instantaneous torque of an electric motor. "So we get that shuffle response happening all the time," he said.

Consequently, Jaguar Racing developed pretty substantial carbon-fiber driveshafts to carry torque to the rear wheels. "That's because we shifted the stiffness of the driveline to move that shuffle response away from the really tricky bit on the exit of corners where the drivers are at a certain partial throttle," Charles said. And that know-how has been passed along to the road car engineers at JLR as they develop EVs and plug-in hybrids.

One aspect of Formula E looks set to remain constant with the introduction of the new car—the high driver workload, which requires the driver to manage energy consumption on top of the car's balance throughout the race. "It's tricky to drive but... we are learning about her all the time," said Sam Bird, one of Jaguar Racing's pair of professional drivers. "I think that we've got the car in a window now where we're both quite comfortable in understanding what to expect from the car and its capabilities. I'm really looking forward to taking it to Valencia and then to Mexico because I do believe that with the package that we've got, we can go there, and we can compete."

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"You've got so many big changes in the systems, that that's a big integration problem even if you had a long time. We've got quite short time; racing doesn't stop, the seasons keep coming, and you've got to send the car out. So it's a really compressed and tight schedule to deliver a really ambitious step-change across all the systems on the car," Charles told Ars.

Other lessons have involved drivability. "You've got such high capability to deliver torque so quickly, and the drivability that the drivers feel is very closely linked to how well you control now, so you can deliver [torque] instantly. It's not like you've got to turn the engine to deliver more quickly, we're delivering quickly already, but we got very accurate or very strong and quick capability to move the target," Charles said.

"It's so crazy the technical freedom we have got. On the software side—completely free. On the motor and inverter—completely free, just a power limit. So we just could go completely bananas, and that's the result that you get now. I'm talking with my Jaguar Land Rover colleagues all the time because they're looking at us, going, "Wow, you did that. That's really cool. How did you deal with that? What was the problem?" And it sounds silly, but all those lessons that we learned, all the mistakes we've made, are shortcuts for these guys," he said.

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At the time, few manufacturers looked at silicon carbide power electronics for road-going EVs. "Now everyone wants silicon carbide, and the reason they want it is the same reasons we do," Charles said. "So the tech that we pushed then has really caught up now—the race to road is really clear. If I kind of map our switching speed increase, we've done five evolutions with different topologies of the in-house inverter. Now the road cars are coming along and the benefit there is range, ultimately; it means smaller batteries."

Ars Technica has been separating the signal from the noise for over 25 years. With our unique combination of technical savvy and wide-ranging interest in the technological arts and sciences, Ars is the trusted source in a sea of information. After all, you don’t need to know everything, only what’s important.

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"So we talked about the front powertrain kit... and once you start to optimize that, you then need to go back around the loop because it interacts obviously with your hydraulic brakes—sometimes you're blending between the two, but also, it's now mapping on the front axle and mapping on the rear axle. If you just did the rear axle without thinking about the front axle, it wouldn't work very well. So you learn a lot about that one. And then you say, 'Oh, that works in that way, I need to now go back and start to match or blend in the same way on the rear axle.' So maybe not the absolute optimum for the rear axle. But something that talks nicely with the front axle," he said.

Formula E's Gen3 race car has been an ambitious leap forward compared to the car that retired at the end of this season. The rear electric motor has gotten a significant power boost from 250 kW to 350 kW, and there's now a front generator unit that can't deploy energy but which can harvest an additional 250 kW under braking to make for a much more efficient race car. But development hasn't been entirely trouble-free for the teams, and the sport will begin in 2023 without its new fast-charging system, initially due to supply shortages.

LONDON—On Wednesday, Jaguar Racing became the latest Formula E team to unveil its race car for the coming season. The sport has radical new technical rules for its third-generation race car, which is smaller, lighter, more powerful, and more efficient. This will be the British automaker's sixth season competing in the series, and its participation is for more than just marketing; Jaguar Land Rover's electrified road cars have benefited in tangible ways as a result, according to the team's technical manager, Phil Charles.

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"If you rewind back to 2017, that's the first time that [we used] our in-house inverter for the racing team," Charles told Ars. "We put a silicon carbide switching device, the Wolfspeed one actually... that gave us the ability to switch super fast. That was the push on our side—we want to switch faster and see if that can give us efficiency, which it did. So we've gotten over and over and over during these inverter development cycles, switching faster and faster and faster," he said.