Future of 1/8 E Buggy?
 

Hi.

What do you think and see as the future of 1/8th electric buggy?

Will the class grow or will nitro always be the class with the most drivers? Even if they keep putting regulations on nitro fuel.

What kind of technical improvements could be done to the class if you could wish?

Anyone that has both nitro and electric car that prefers the electric one?

Would love to see a discussion and hear you thoughts.

Here in Idaho ebuggy has been the biggest class overall for years. We can have up to 20 ebuggy entries while nitro is dwindling. Our last race had like 3 entries for nitro buggy.

Personally as a former nitro buggy racer, (long before ebuggies were a thing) I can't stand nitro. I want to just charge my packs, run my 7 - 10 minute mains and go home lol.

I don’t know that there could be any significant “technical” improvements that can be made to the cars - heck, all of the major brands are pretty much using the same parts between their Nitro/Electric counterparts now, save for the parts unique to each powertrain. I suppose that advancements will continue to be made in terms of motor efficiency and battery output on the electric side.

Keep in mind that 1/8th Nitro has a World Championship title, the electric classes don’t. There’s a certain allure for up and coming drivers when you know that there’s a significant goal/dream to shoot for.

That being said, electric has its conveniences. As mentioned above, it all depends on where you race. I think that E-buggy/Truggy will always have its loyal following, and it seems to me like a lot of people run both anyway. It’s certainly economically feasible, given the parts share.

Here in central Texas, eBuggy is far more popular for regular club racing, 37 electric buggy to 20 nitro buggy for a recent series race, nitro is hit and miss for regular club races and sometimes they don't even have enough entries to make a nitro class at all.

The bigger issue I see is that nitro isn't sustainable because they need an extra pit man which limits the number of classes people can run. I often help a friend to be his pit man, and that usually means I can only run 1 electric class instead of 2 classes just so I can pit for him... that hurts turnout for the program because that's fewer entries. Something needs to be figured out on how to reduce the number of pit men necessary to free up drivers to increase turnout. The way I see it, nitro is killing club level RC, doh!

Now the big races are a completely different story... when there's at least 10+ heats, then there's no problem getting enough folks to pit the nitros.

When are electronic fuel injection and onboard starters coming to nitro engines? That would go a long ways to helping things.

Nitro is the glory!

Do you guys think that better Lipos and cooling in the future could lead to longer mains?

The future of 1/8 E Buggy is quite promising. It is inevitable 1/8 E bug will displace its nitro counterpart at the world championship level. Once that action is finalized, E bug will become the type-of-choice for most competitors in the 1/8 buggy class.

Factors external of the sport are driving a move away from IC to EV. This is occurring rapidly in 1:1 and the trickle down to RC is assured. Reluctantly, I come to this assessment as I have raced 1/8 nitro bug in the past. So, yeah, 1/8 E bug has a solid future in front of it.

'AC'

lol, but ebuggy pays the bills

At our track there was one nitro last month and none this month. I have heard that there are fuel restrictions coming in Europe. Like other classes, it seems to vary from track to track. I doubt it will disappear though.

https://www.rctech.net/forum/chat-lo...onroad-v2.html

https://www.rctech.net/forum/racing-...dying-off.html

https://www.rctech.net/forum/racing-...out-class.html

https://www.rctech.net/forum/racing-...ox-racing.html

https://www.rctech.net/forum/chat-lo...oad-2020s.html

Depending on your area I have seen a rise in Ebuggy & Etruggy classes here in Wisconsin and even when I lived back in Ohio, the electric classes were bigger.
Back in June our track in Wisconsin held Nats Warm-up race and there was more Ebuggies than Nitro. Our club races we typically have over 150 entries and last race 73 of them were Ebuggy.

So alot depends on your area and tracks around you.

Not sure what else could change on these almost every brand is pushing what you can currently do with them and now most are able to switch between Elec & Nitro with their brand conversion parts.

Actually, this part is relatively easy to solve. You know that ramp pit lane thingy that they use for pits? Make it higher so that it comes up to the driver's stand, and let the driver perform the pit stop themself.:ha:

Couple this to the guy who suggested EFI and onboard starter and I think it might make nitro a whole lot more easier....

Might be a saftey issue there. Some of these track have very high drivers stands.

I have seen very high drivers stand, most of them do not need to be that high. this is a very interesting thread. keep productive comments coming . keep going guys.
I run both, prefer Nitro, but for convenience e-buggy by far. Cost to operate this class of vehicles must also be considered as well.

YES
 

of course eventually the batteries are going to stop evolving but right now they just keep getting better and better