FORMULA ELECTRIC BELGIUM WRITES BELGIAN AUTOMOBILE HISTORY

This summer, the COMET, Belgium’s first self-driving electric racing car, made its debut at the European Formula Student competitions in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Germany. The student team from KU Leuven and Thomas More University College can be proud of its product and its performance. In each of the competitions, it held up well against ironclad competitors. In the Czech Republic, the Belgians even managed to cash in a crash in a Special Award.

On 7 May 2024, students from the Formula Electric Belgium team presented their latest creation at Autoworld: the first Belgian racing car capable of fully autonomous driving at competition level. “By using advanced sensors and a new steering system, the COMET is capable of covering a course full of obstacles completely autonomously”, says Business Relations Manager Rob Ulenaers. “The car includes numerous other improvements over its non-autonomous predecessors, such as a new chassis, a new front wing and a completely new in-wheel design for weight savings in the drive system.”

From 13 to 18 July, the new car appeared at the start of Formula Student Netherlands at the Assen circuit. The team participated in five of the seven tests and finished in 16th place out of 32 competitors thanks to good results in Engineering Design, Cost & Manufacturing and Acceleration & Efficiency.

Resilient

Two weeks later - from 5 to 9 August - the Formula Student Czech Competition took place at the Autodrome in Most. “During the Driverless Emergency Brake Test, things threatened to go thoroughly wrong for a while,” Rob continues. “In this test, we had to be able to prove that the remote-controlled emergency brake works. Due to a mistake by the organisers, the cones marking out the course were not set up properly. As a result, our algorithm sent the car the wrong way straight into the fence.”

However, the team did not let its guard down and repaired the damage the same evening to pass the test flawlessly the next morning. This extraordinary performance impressed. For their resilience and efficiency, the competition jury awarded the Belgian team with a Special Award.

In the self-driving cars group, the COMET eventually achieved a well-deserved sixth place out of 12 participants with an eye-catching 4th place in the Trackdrive section. In the regular electric vehicle competition, the team also finished just in the middle (24th out of 47 participants) with positive outliers in Acceleration (11th place), Cost & Manufacturing (16de place) and Engineering (18th place).

Milestone

The tournament in Germany is the largest and most important Formula Student Competition and is therefore often considered the unofficial world championship. From 12 to 17 August, 80 electric racing cars competed against each other on the Hockenheim circuit. “The three static events did not cause us any problems at any point”, says Rob. “In the Business Plan Presentation we finished 53rd and the Cost & Manufacturing event yielded a 31st place. We scored the best results in the Engineering Design Report with an 18th place in the overall and a 13th in the driverless section.”

After the problems during the track drive in the Czech Republic, the Belgian team drove out a driverless event in Germany for the first time. “The autocross ran almost perfectly,” Rob told us proudly. “The car sent itself to a nice 8th place. That was a real milestone for the team. In the Driverless trackdrive, we finished tenth. This made us 16th out of 32 competitors in the whole driverless competition. In the electric vehicle competition, we achieved a 42nd place out of 80. When you consider that we were competing against the best teams in the world in Germany, we are quite happy with these results.”

With the competition in Hockenheim, the Formula Electric Belgium team concludes a successful working year and racing season. In Leuven, a new team is already ready to take up the torch. The successors are determined to ensure a decisive breakthrough in 2025.

Yves Persoons

https://formulaelectric.be