It is not really known what the automotive world will be like in 10-15 years. Will there be an invasion of electric cars? Will we have a hybrid interregnum? Will hydrogen develop peremptorily? These questions are difficult to answer today. But one thing is certain: the car manufacturers are all preparing some battery-powered cars. Above all, luxury and super sports car manufacturers are expected to churn out allegedly extraordinarily valuable cars. They will be machines that will flood the circuits and will be the protagonists of the so-called ‘track days’in order to be tested in non-traffic conditions.
A problem arises here: Are today’s tracks equipped to provide assistance to electric cars? Absolutely not, he replied Jonathan Palmer, former F1 driver and owner of MotorSport Vision (MSV). For this reason Palmer, father of the former F1 Jolyon, wants to build, in the north-east of France (near Laon), a circuit suitable for track days dedicated to electric cars.
It would be an eco-sustainable and self-sufficient route, built using an old military air base. The route would exploit a large solar park nearby, in order to generate enough renewable energy to power the structures, and eventually sell it to neighboring communities. MSV already bought the land in 2015, providing in the final project a 3.5 kilometer track as a central feature, around which to set up specific structures such as boxes and conference centers. One above all? A network of fast, easily accessible columns. The track will be called Couvron Eco Circuit.
Approval of the solar park is awaited, which will be one of the largest in Europe: 300 hectares for 350 MW of power to be produced. Hopefully, it will be ready by 2025 and it will certainly interest a long series of electric car owners, attracted in particular by the green energy available and the possibility of charging on site, an element that traditional circuits have not yet implemented, let’s say, at the state of the art.
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