As one of the most recent additions to the Formula Student EV scene, Tecnun eRacing are joining FSN2019 as a beginning of their determined long way journey in climbing the podium ladder. Although they have been competing in CV for eight years, the team has decided to go fully electric and constantly expand their knowledge in the automotive industry to ensure future development.
Tecnun eRacing Team Photo
Introduce your team briefly
Tecnun eRacing is a relatively new Spanish team, as it was created in September 2017. For almost 8 years, our university had two different Formula Student teams, a combustion and an electric one. But last season we decided to join both teams to become just one EV team. By becoming a 100% electric team, we would be able to optimise the available resources and enhance the areas with a bigger development of each team. This translates as integrating the chassis, suspension and aerodynamic package of the old CV team and the drive-train, LV and HV areas of the old EV team. Uniting both teams has been a hard challenge, but we have worked as hard to make the best out of it… and we can assure you that it has been a success!
Tell us about your team’s history with Formula Student
As mentioned above, our team is a new one. Thus, we haven’t had much time to build a car and attend many competitions. Last year we attended FSS and had valuable feedback in both the static and dynamic events. This season, we are being more competitive as we plan to attend both FSN and FSS events.
What does joining Formula Student Netherlands mean to you?
FSN is a great opportunity for our team to demonstrate our hard work and ability to develop a competitive car. Attending the competition is also the perfect occasion to meet with automotive experts who can give us the feedback we need to improve our race car, and to meet with other international teams, which is always one of the best experiences of the Formula Student competition. We really like the friendly environment, where we have the opportunity to learn and show our project.
What are your main goals for this year?
Our main goals include: having a competitive car with a 1000 km of test before the competition season starts; attending both FSN and FSS competitions; building a great team that will take the lead next season; generating more than 80 kg of down-force @ 17m/s; designing a lighter drive-train while maintaining the maximum power allowed (80 kW/ 107 CV); reducing weight in the chassis and at the same time increasing rigidity; redesigning the LV BMS and ECU to have a fully reliable car; designing our own BMS and reducing weight in the battery box.
What made you think of/choose FSN?
The high level of the competition, with a professional organisation that will allow us to fully test and show our project, is the main reason why we chose FSN. The high level of the technical inspection is a challenge that we are confident we can face with success. In addition, FSN is a completely new competition for our university, as it is the first time we are going to be attending it. We have seen that the teams attending FSN other seasons ended up pleased and happy with the event. The teams competing are ones that we admire and we are excited to be joining them this year.
What makes you different than the other teams?
We are a hard working team that, even with a limited budget, has managed to design, build and test a fully operating race car, the TeR18, and is in the process of doing the same with the TeR19. Being an EV team you may assume that the amount of electric engineering students in the team would be high. This is not true in Tecnun eRacing, as we only have 3 electrical engineering students! But this is not stopping us. Our team members are committed to the project and this is the best ingredient to be successful in such a project as Formula Student!
What is your biggest achievement in Formula Student so far?
Uniting two teams with different working habits has been a great accomplishment. We are really proud of saying that our attitude towards difficult challenges enables us to overcome the problems to get to our goal: educate ourselves in the automotive industry while building a race car each year.
Describe your car in three words
FasTeR, drifTeR, smarTeR.