The August 2022 issue of IEEE Spectrum is here!
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The SF90 adds oomph with an auxiliary force of electrons
The SF90, Ferrari’s first plug-in hybrid, can provide pure-electric drive on the front wheels or add engine power in the back.
Something strange is happening in the Ferrari SF90. With a silly-sounding 1,000 metric horsepower under my right foot, the SF90 should be sliding sideways through this devilish stretch of the Pista di Fiorano test track. Especially since I’m straining to keep pace with Raffaele de Simone just ahead, the Ferrari test driver who routinely sets lap records on this historic circuit, just a few pasta lengths from its factory in Maranello, in northern Italy.
Instead, the silver-and-yellow Ferrari pirouettes through the corner with balletic grace, without so much as a chirp from its tires. Next stop, hyperspace: The SF90 bullets toward the next corner at a pace that I simply can’t relate to any other car I’ve driven here.
Yes, behind my helmeted head there’s a twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V-8 shrieking, as technically advanced as any automobile engine ever. It generates a seismic 780 metric hp (or 574 kilowatts), sending it rearward to gummy Michelin Pilot Sport Cup2 tires. But that leaves two wheels and 220 hp unaccounted for. Which brings us to the Ferrari’s secret sauce: electricity.
The same sauce is cooking at every automaker that hopes to keep up in this record-smashing era of speed. The world’s leading sports- and luxury-car brands, together with muscle-car mavens like Dodge, are now pushing the envelope of the relatively inefficient internal combustion engine (ICE). Call it Peak ICE—the last hurrah of a technology that governments are ushering off the stage to combat climate change. But even now, years before EVs can finally put ICEs out of business, automakers are finding that electricity provides performance benefits that are too good to pass up.
Michael Leiters, who was Ferrari’s chief technology officer (he recently left the company), says there’s no denying that electrification in the car industry is largely being driven by the need to comply with strict emissions regulations, including for carbon dioxide. Yet Ferrari, and brands like it, are in a tricky position, having to always put speed and handling first. Customers who plunk down millions of dollars for classic Ferraris, or more than US $500,000 for the SF90 Stradale, wouldn’t have it any other way. “We firmly believe that everything we do in the electric field must be in line with our DNA, which for nigh on 75 years has meant obtaining performance with the shrewd use of technology,” Leiters says. “Our electric power trains are not there just to counter regulations but also to improve performance in a way which would not have been possible by using ICE power trains only.”
The twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V-8 generates 780 metric horsepower; another 220 hp comes from the plug-in hybrid’s electric motors.Ferrari
As Ferrari’s first plug-in hybrid, the SF90 integrates a trio of electric motors. Spinning at up to 25,000 rpm, two permanent-magnet motors independently power the front wheels, or regenerate energy from braking to recharge the batteries. Wizardly digital controls, developed in Formula 1 racing, optimize traction and driver control, including the “torque vectoring” of individual front wheels to claw out of corners or stabilize the car under braking. A third axial-flux motor is sandwiched between the mid-mounted engine and the dual-clutch transmission. It fills in electric torque at low engine rpms or during gear changes that take as little as 200 milliseconds. Those motors are fed electrons by a 7.9-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack (with 84 pouch-style cells courtesy of SK Innovation) that’s laser-welded behind two racy sport seats. A powerful brake-by-wire system blends hydraulic and regenerative braking so smoothly that your foot won’t feel the difference.
The result is Ferrari’s fastest road car ever, peaking at 339 kilometers per hour (211 miles per hour). It’s also a joy to drive—exhilarating yet approachable, a car that your grandmother could learn to drive fast with a few lessons.
I take the Ferrari on a run down Fiorano’s straightaway, and it’s spooky quiet. Because the front wheels are driven independently, the car can travel 26 kilometers (16 miles) on electricity alone, at speeds up to 135 km/h (83 mph). That front-drive mode gets the car a green light in cities like London and Rome as they begin to bar polluting cars from their downtown areas. You switch the mode on by dialing it up on the Ferrari’s dramatic steering wheel, which integrates a cool arc of LED lights on its carbon-fiber rim to cue drivers to shift.
Drivers push a button on the steering wheel to choose one of four driving modes: all-electric drive (eD); hybrid (H); performance mode (represented by a checkered flag, selected); and qualifying mode (a clock).Ferrari
Select performance mode and the V-8 will fire up to recharge a depleted battery on the fly. Electric motors disconnect above 210 km/h, because there’s no need beyond that speed for inputs from the front wheels. Dial into qualifying mode and you unleash the Kraken, maximizing the full 162-kW electric capability.
Ferrari conservatively quotes a 2.5-second launch from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph), and 0 to 200 km/h in 6.7 seconds. In a test by Car and Driver magazine, the car exploded to 60 mph in 2.0 seconds, breaking a seven-year-old record for production cars that had been set by the roughly $1 millionPorsche 918 Spyder Hybrid. The SF90 also holds the lap record for production cars on the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
On its home court, with de Simone at the wheel, the SF90 dominates Ferrari’s 488 Pista, with a ridiculous 2.5-second lap advantage over that ICE-only supercar. The SF90 also beat its previous record holder, the LaFerrari, by 0.7 second, a significant edge on this tight, 2.99-km circuit. That limited-edition LaFerrari cost more than $1 million new, and a used model recently sold for $3.1 million; by those cockeyed standards, the SF90 is a relative bargain.
Regulations aren’t the only thing putting heat on automakers, of course. From rocket-sled sedans like the Tesla Model S Plaid and Lucid Air to the Croatian-built Rimac Neverahypercar , EVs are challenging everything we thought we knew about speed. The Rimac starts from $2.4 million, nearly five times the Ferrari’s price. But its four permanent-magnet motors deliver a loopy 1,408 kW (1,914 metric horsepower) and a claimed top speed of 412 k m/ h (256 mph). The Arizona-built Lucid Air that I recently tested amasses up to 1,126 metric hp . In its Dream Edition Performance trim, the Lucid can blast through a quarter mile in 9.9 seconds at 144 mph, not far off the Ferrari’s 9.6-second pace. Lucid’s spacious sedan can also travel an EV- record 837 km (520 miles) on a charge, 185 km more than Tesla’s best.
Eventually, people will want vehicles powered by internal combustion because they are quaint.
Automakers are finding it difficult to challenge those boldface numbers with internal combustion alone, especially as engines are relentlessly downsized to meet regulations. In recent times, turbocharging has played technological savior, sweeping the global industry, and squeezing massive power from even the tiniest three-, four- or six-cylinder engines. Ten- and 12-cylinder engines are on a virtual death watch, with V-12 purveyors like Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bentley, and BMW widely expected to eliminate these longtime markers of automotive prestige.
That makes the one-two punch of turbocharging and hybridization the only viable option to keep performance customers happy and their cars competitive. Porsche, McLaren, and Bentley are all developing hybrid models to bridge the gap, with the Porsche Taycan taking on Tesla on the full-electric front. A hybrid Chevrolet Corvette is expected to deliver about 662 kW (900 hp), even as its GM parent readies a 1,014-hp GMC Hummer EV. Lamborghini has been the stubborn holdout among speed merchants. But even Lamborghini recently relented, announcing plug-in hybrids throughout its model range by 2024, including a hybrid V-12 for its flagship Aventador, followed by its first all-electric sports car. At a private showing near the track, in a new building crammed with knee-wobbling historic racers, Ferrari gives us a glimpse of its near-term future: the 296 GTB plug-in hybrid, and a display of its magnificent new V-6 engine. The 296 GTB will become the first V-6 powered road car to wear a Ferrari badge. (The lovely Dino of the 1960s and 1970s, named for Enzo Ferrari’s late son, wasn’t officially a Ferrari.)
The upcoming Ferrari 296 GTB [top] has a transparent cover in the back to show off its V-6 engine [bottom]. Ferrari
The 296 GTB squeezes a shocking 663 hp from just 3.0 liters of displacement, for an industry-record 221 hp per liter. Now add 167 hp (122 kW) from an electric motor and a 7.5-kWh battery and you’ve got an unfair fight: The GTB’s total 830 hp gallops all over the 710 of the Ferrari F8 Tributo and its larger, twin-turbo V-8. Ferrari’s 812 Competizione, its traditional, front-engine V-12 flagship, makes the identical 818 horses but requires a 6.5-liter V-12 to do it—more than double the 296 GTB’s displacement. Is that a clock we hear ticking?
EV proponents may ask: Why not just skip this middle hybrid step and fully embrace the electric future? Some luxury brands, including Cadillac and Lotus, plan to do just that. But even as many automakers pledge to phase out ICE power trains between now and 2030 or 2035, some have been more circumspect. They surely see that EVs still make up fewer than 4 percent of new-car sales in the United States. For all the media clamor, it seems clear that many buyers are perfectly content with their ICE cars. That may go double for wealthy people who collect both new and classic cars like brightly colored candy. These people are used to getting what they want, and perhaps that includes garages filled with both EVs and ICE models.
As for pure performance, for all the hype over Tesla’s straight-line feats, its cars are still no match for the best of ICE, whether on a racetrack or winding road, or in the driver engagement and stimulation that separates performance buyers from their wallets. EVs have disadvantages that many fanboys simply refuse to acknowledge: heavy batteries, short ranges, and slow recharging.
For performance, mass is perhaps the biggest challenge. EVs still haul around battery packs that weigh hundreds of kilograms, whether they’re full of energy or tapped out. A Tesla Model S Plaid weighs 4,833 pounds (2,192 kilograms), compared with 4,000 pounds or less for a comparable midsize ICE sedan. Despite a modest edge due to low centers of gravity, that EV mass takes an unavoidable toll on top speed and handling, and it puts huge stresses on tires, brakes, suspensions, and cooling systems. A Formula 1 ICE car can still flick aside a Formula E racer like an underpowered, short-range toy.
The Tesla Model S Plaid claimed the track record for production EVs at the Nürburgring, the German circuit that’s the testing benchmark for one-upping automakers, with a lap of just under 7 minutes, 36 seconds. It can accelerate to 60 mph in about 2.0 seconds (Tesla claims 1.95, but only on a specially prepared, sticky drag-racing surface that’s moot for most drivers). That roughly equals the Ferrari’s performance. But when the road begins to curve, Tesla’s electric porker is left for dead by a long list of more-agile, better-braking ICE models—including cars from Ferrari, Porsche, and Lamborghini that can run the ‘Ring in 7 minutes or much less. The Tesla also requires several minutes of battery and systems prep to perform a single automated launch; the Ferrari’s drag runs are easy and repeatable. Even for the Ferrari, its full monty of electric, qualifying-mode torque lasts only about seven laps at Fiorano. Coincidentally or not, that’s nearly the exact length of a lap at the Nürburgring.
The superfast SF90 plug-in hybrid is a pioneering step from Ferrari and an augury of what’s to come in performance cars. Ferrari
Ferrari, for its part, refuses to sacrifice its fabled handling and sensations on the electric altar. Including its 72-kg Li-ion battery, the Ferrari’s hybrid hardware adds just 275 kg, a gain that’s more than made up for via improved power and traction. Total curb weight remains a slender 1,570 kg. A jaw-dropping weight-to-power ratio of 1.57 kg/hp tips the scale in Ferrari’s favor: It’s a new record for any volume-production supercar.
Seeking every edge, my SF90 trimmed another 30 kg via its optional $56,240 Assetto Fiorano package, which includes titanium springs and titanium/Inconel exhaust system, carbon-fiber door panels, and underbody and racing-derived Multimatic shock absorbers. And don’t forget sound. EV proponents may scoff, preferring the blissful near silence of electric motors. But there’s a reason EV makers are pumping digitized engine sounds through their audio systems, even if it’s more a Star Trek whoosh than a literal translation of a stonking V-8. To many enthusiasts, those soundtracks—heavy metal, for a Detroit V-8, or a hollow rasp, for a Porsche inline six—are a key reason for their purchase. The Ferrari hybrid, for its part, still wails like a La Scala tenor to an emotional, 8,000-rpm peak.
Those Tesla-thrashing ICE sedan s include Cadillac’s new CT5-V Blackwing, which is basically a street-legal race car that combines a 685-hp, supercharged V-8, a 202-mph top speed, and endorphin-rushing handling. I drove that $84,940 CT5-V at the Virginia International Raceway for hour after hour on a scorching summer day, where its all-day stamina and capability were thrown into stark relief.
“It’s going to be a long time before you can do what we did at VIR with a battery electric vehicle,” says Tony Roma, the CT5-V’s chief engineer. “Gasoline is just a fantastic storage device for energy. That’s not a political statement, just physics. But the tech is changing so fast that 10 years from now we’ll have a completely different discussion.”
Indeed, Cadillac says the Blackwings will be its final gasoline-powered, V-badged performance models. Roma and his team are busily developing EVs, including the Lyric SUV and Celestiq sedan.
Why not just skip this middle hybrid step and fully embrace the electric future? Some luxury brands, including Cadillac and Lotus, plan to do just that.
While dual-power-train hybrid tech may be fine for Ferraris and other cost-is-no-object brands, Cadillac intends to jump straight from ICE to electricity. “By the time costs come down enough to make a great, affordable ICE-hybrid performance car, we’ll be able to make you a full-electric car that you’re going to love,” Roma says.
Most improbably, perhaps, Dodge—creator of the notorious Demon, whose drag-race times challenged Bugatti’s million-dollar models—intends to design an electric muscle car that will be even faster.
“Our engineers are reaching the practical limit of what we can squeeze from an internal combustion engine,” Dodge-brand boss Tim Kuniskis says. “We know that electric motors can give us more.”
Derek Jenkins, Lucid’s chief designer, naturally agrees, even as he acknowledges the current limitations. “You’re dead on about the weight factor; that’s a huge disadvantage, today,” he says, while allowing that EV technology will finally overcome all disadvantages.
And where costs are plummeting for EVs, they’re already rising for ICE cars, as automakers divert resources elsewhere. Soon enough, automakers will refuse to pour money into ICE development just to win the arms race.
“You have these corner use cases, but even for lap times, EVs will give access to new levels of power, and the ability to put down that power,” Jenkins says. “If you want, say, 1,500 horsepower and torque vectoring in an ICE car, that’s going to be tough to do, and very expensive.”
Eventually, he says, people will want vehicles powered by internal combustion because they are quaint. “It will be purely nostalgia-driven, with nothing to do with value or performance.”
Lawrence Ulrich is an award-winning auto writer and former chief auto critic at The New York Times and The Detroit Free Press.
CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 provides billions for new fabs and other incentives
Chip manufacturers are hoping their expansions will be less costly now.
Legislation aimed at increasing semiconductor manufacturing in the United States has finally passed both houses of Congress, following a multiyear journey that saw many mutations and delays. The CHIPS and Science Act, provides about US $52 billion over 5 years to grow semiconductor manufacturing and authorizes a 25 percent tax credit for new or expanded facilities that make semiconductors or chipmaking equipment. It’s part of a $280 billion package aimed at improving the United States’ ability to compete in future technologies. And it comes amidst efforts by other nations and regions to boost chip manufacturing, an industry increasingly seen as a key to economic and military security.
“This is going to make a huge difference in how the U.S. does innovation,” says Russell T. Harrison, acting managing director of IEEE-USA, who has been involved in the legislation since its beginnings more than two years ago.
The bill’s $52 billion includes $39 billion in grants for new manufacturing, $11 billion for federal semiconductor research programs and workforce development, and $2 billion for Defense Department–related microelectronics activities.
“Twenty-five percent [tax credit] means we’re in it to win.” —Ian Steff, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce
In addition, the bill directs $200 million over five years to the National Science Foundation to “promote growth of the semiconductor workforce.” The Commerce Department expects the United States will need 90,000 more workers in the semiconductor industry by 2025.
And there’s a further $500 million for “coordinating with foreign government partners to support international information and communications technology security and semiconductor supply-chain activities, including supporting the development and adoption of secure and trusted telecommunications technologies, semiconductors, and other emerging technologies.”
The 25 percent tax credit goes a long way toward making the building of new capacity in the United States comparable with building it offshore, according to Ian Steff, former Assistant Secretary of Commerce, and now a consultant advising Minnesota-based chip foundry Skywater Technology. “Twenty-five percent means we’re in it to win,” he says.
The legislation has been variously sold as an opportunity to create well-paid jobs, a chance to strengthen the semiconductor supply chain following the chip shortage of 2020, and as a national-defense imperative that would lessen the concern that China might strangle the supply of 90 percent of the most advanced logic by attacking Taiwan. It might be all of that.
Big chip manufacturers have been planning to add and expand fabs in anticipation of government incentives. GlobalFoundries is doing a $1 billion addition in Malta, N.Y.TSMC is already building a $12 billion facility in Arizona. And Samsung plans a $17 billion fab outside Austin, while dangling the possibility of nearly $200 billion in the future. Intel was probably the most explicit in its expectations. When it announced a plan for a $20 billion fab complex in Ohio, Keyvan Esfarjani, Intel senior vice president of manufacturing, supply chain, and operations made the strings explicit: “The scope and pace of Intel’s expansion in Ohio...will depend heavily on funding from the CHIPS Act,” he said at the time. The company said its investment could reach $100 billion over ten years with the proper government backing.
Getting this far has been “an effort that has transcended administrations and gotten bipartisan support since its early inception,” says Steff. Still, the legislation was stalled for a long time. The bill that passed in Congress largely appropriates funds for things that were already authorized in a the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021, which passed in January of that year.
Within the U.S. semiconductor industry much of the debate fell into what Harrison calls the “normal legislative process.” Companies or industry sectors not covered under the legislation fight to gain inclusion, while those already on the inside fight to keep it exclusive, concerned that the pool of funds will become diluted. Some initial outsiders succeeded: Chip packaging, which has grown increasingly important as advanced processor makers find they cannot get enough computing from a single sliver of silicon, was swiftly added. Efforts to expand the bill beyond its manufacturing scope continued nearly up until the end. According to reports, chip designers whose processors are manufactured by others, including AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm, indicated their displeasure that they would not get in on the act.
Finding the balance of who’s in and who’s out meant making the terms broad enough to accomplish the goal of bringing chip manufacturing to the United States “without making it so broad that it becomes mush,” says Harrison. “They have now settled on something a little bigger than they had at first, but it’s focused on chips and their manufacture.”
The Ingenuity-size helicopters may help return samples to Earth by the mid-2030s
NASA has announced a conceptual mission architecture for the Mars Sample Return (MSR) program, and it’s a pleasant surprise. The goal of the proposed program is to return the rock samples that the Perseverance rover is currently collecting on the Martian surface to Earth, which, as you can imagine, is not a simple process. It’ll involve sending a sample-return lander (SRL) to Mars, getting those samples back to the lander, launching a rocket back to Mars orbit from the lander, and finally capturing that rocket with an orbiter that’ll cart the samples back to Earth.
As you might expect, the initial idea was to send a dedicated rover to go grab the sample tubes from wherever Perseverance had cached them and bring them back to the lander with the rocket, because how else are you going to go get them, right? But NASA has decided that Plan A is for Perseverance to drive the samples to the SRL itself. Plan B, if Perseverance can’t make it, is to collect the samples with two helicopters instead.
NASA’s approach here is driven by two things: First, Curiosity has been on Mars for 10 years, and is still doing great. Perseverance is essentially an improved version of Curiosity, giving NASA confidence that the newer rover will still be happily roving by the time the SRL lands. And second, the Ingenuity helicopter is also still doing awesome, which is (let’s be honest) kind of a surprise, considering that it’s a tech demo that was never designed for the kind of performance that we’ve seen. NASA now seems to believe that helicopters are a viable tool for operating on the Martian surface, and therefore should be considered as an option for Mars operations.
In the new sample-return mission concept, Perseverance will continue collecting samples as it explores the river delta in Jezero crater. It’ll collect duplicates of each sample, and once it has 10 samples (20 tubes’ worth), it’ll cache the duplicates somewhere on the surface as a sort of backup plan. From there, Percy will keep exploring and collecting samples (but not duplicates) as it climbs out of the Jezero crater, where it’ll meet the sample-return lander in mid-2030. NASA says that the SRL will be designed with pinpoint landing capability, able to touch down within 50 meters of where NASA wants it to, meaning that a rendezvous with Perseverance should be a piece of cake—or as much of a piece of cake as landing on Mars can ever be. After Perseverance drives up to the SRL, a big arm on the SRL will pluck the sample tubes out of Perseverance and load them into a rocket, and then off they go to orbit and eventually back to Earth, probably by 2033.
The scenario described above is how everything is supposed to work, but it depends entirely on Perseverance doing what it’s supposed to do. If the rover is immobilized, the SRL will still be able to land nearby, but those sample tubes will have to get back to the SRL somehow, and NASA has decided that the backup plan will be helicopters.
The two “Ingenuity class” helicopters that the SRL will deliver to Mars will be basically the same size as Ingenuity, although a little bit heavier. There are two big differences: first, each helicopter gets a little arm for grabbing sample tubes (which weigh between 100 and 150 grams each) off of the Martian surface. And second, the helicopters get small wheels at the end of each of their legs. It sounds like these wheels will be powered, and while they’re not going to offer a lot of mobility, presumably it’ll be enough so that if the helicopter lands close to a sample, it can drive itself a short distance to get within grabbing distance. Here’s how Richard Cook, the Mars sample-return program manager at JPL, says the helicopters would work:
This assumes that Perseverance didn’t explode or roll down a hill or something, and that it would be able to drop its sample tubes on the ground for the helicopters to pick up. Worst case, if Percy completely bites it, the SRL could land near the backup sample cache in the Jezero crater and the helicopters could grab those instead.
Weirdly, the primary mission of the helicopters is as a backup to Perseverance, meaning that if the rover is healthy and able to deliver the samples to the SRL itself, the helicopters won’t have much to do. NASA says they could “observe the area around the lander,” which seems underwhelming, or take pictures of the Mars Ascent Vehicle launch, which seems awesome but not really worth sending two helicopters to Mars for. I’m assuming that this’ll get explored a little more, because it seems like a potential wasted opportunity otherwise.
We’re hoping that this announcement won’t have any impact on JPL’s concept for a much larger, much more capable Mars Science Helicopter, but this sample-return mission (rather than a new science mission) is clearly the priority right now. The most optimistic way of looking at it is that this sample-return-mission architecture is a strong vote of confidence by NASA in helicopters on Mars in general, making a flagship helicopter mission that much more likely. But we’re keeping our fingers crossed.
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