RACER’s inside look at IndyCar going hybrid, part 1

The NTT IndyCar Series’ midseason shift to hybrid electric powertrains is its biggest technological change since it introduced turbocharged V6 engines in 2012. There’s a lot to try and understand in the changeover, so I’ve tried to come up with as many questions and answers as possible to help in the process.

With upwards of 50 Q&A topics to cover, we’ll break them into a multi-part feature starting with some of the background and basics and follow with one or more installments that just might be of use if you’re interested in IndyCar’s new hybrid direction.

WHAT’S THE HISTORY? HOW LONG DID IT TAKE TO GET HERE WITH INDYCAR GOING HYBRID?

The abridged version of the story starts with the announcement about going hybrid being made on Aug. 1, 2019. COVID delivered some huge setbacks in 2020 and 2021, and again in 2022 — often of the supply chain variety — but the series’ original vendor for the project also dropped the ball, which brought the initiative back to zero and forced a complete reboot.

Late in 2022, longstanding IndyCar engine suppliers Chevy and Honda took over the project to keep it from failing. To do so, they made big financial and personnel investments by rerouting their new 2.4-liter IndyCar engine development budgets to fund the project. And in doing so, they saved the hybridization initiative and got the project to a place where a heavily revised energy recovery system (ERS) concept was testing late in the summer of 2023.

Some new ERS issues emerged towards the end of the year, so the plan to go hybrid at the start of the 2024 season was pushed back. More testing followed with a “final spec” version of the technology that would allow IndyCar to become hybrid, and with newfound confidence that everything was on the right track, the series declared in May that it would cross the hybrid threshold in competition at this weekend’s July 5-7 race at Mid-Ohio.

It will end up being a long gestation period — four years, 11 months, and six days — from the project receiving the public green light to seeing the green flag wave over the field of hybrids on Sunday at the Honda Indy 200, but it’s finally happening through the resilience, expenditures, and sacrifice of some great people and companies.

SO, WHAT’S THE THING CALLED? DOES IT HAVE A NAME?

IndyCar’s new ERS does not have a custom name. But while we were chatting at the Speedway in May, IndyCar communications VP Dave Furst nicknamed it “Harry the Hybrid,” which I loved, so that’s what I’m going with: Harry the Hybrid.

IT’S ALSO BEING CALLED A “HYBRID SYSTEM” AND A “HYBRID UNIT”?

Yes. There’s the ICE and the ERS, and together, they become a hybrid powertrain, but there’s no such thing as a “hybrid system” or “hybrid unit.” Here, hybrid just means two different types of motors working together.

Even so, lots of people in racing just refer to the whole thing as a “hybrid system” or whatever because it’s easier than saying “energy recovery system” or “ERS,” I guess.

So…just go with hybrid system or hybrid unit. (And forgive me in the coming days when I give up and go with it as well.)

THE ERS IS NEW. WHAT ABOUT THE ICE?

Nope. The ERS is indeed brand-new, but the ICE is the same 2.2-liter twin-turbo V6 formula IndyCar has kept since 2012.

The ICEs Chevy and Honda just used in the cars at the June 23 race at Laguna Seca are the same for this weekend in Mid-Ohio and for years to come. Only the ERS side is new and being added to the cars.

WHO MAKES IT?

If we stick to the main items of interest in the package, it’s Chevrolet and Ilmor Engineering and Empel responsible for one half, Honda and Honda Racing Corporation US and Skeleton and BrightLoop for the other, plus Dallara, with IndyCar’s technical team overseeing all aspects of the ERS and setting the hybrid regulations.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN COMPONENTS IN THE ERS PACKAGE?

There’s an electric motor, the motor generator unit — the MGU — that connects to the ICE and the transmission and spins up to 13,000 rpm. The MGU both charges an energy bank and takes the energy back and helps to accelerate the car. It’s made by Empel under the direction of Chevy and Ilmor.

Its ERS partner is the energy storage system — the ESS — which receives, holds and returns the electrical energy the MGU makes. HRC US assembles the ESS using 20 supercapacitors supplied in each unit by Skeleton.

As part of the ESS package, BrightLoop makes the DC-DC converter, which is a small device that regulates voltage.

The DW12’s pre-existing engine control unit (ECU), the McLaren-TAG 400i that runs the turbo V6s, has also been tasked with controlling all aspects of how the ERS units function and perform.

The last significant item in the loop is the steering wheel, which is custom to each driver, and has levers and buttons the drivers use to instruct the ERS to capture energy or turn that energy into horsepower and torque.

The MGU is set to give drivers an extra 60 hp and 33.2 lb-ft of torque to go with the 700-plus hp the ICEs offer. The ESS can hold a maximum of 320 kilojoules, which is a measurement of energy. The ESS is set to have a maximum output of 60 volts and 2000 amps.