The EcoGP, officially the Eco Grand Prix, is a European 24-hour car race for electric cars. Race teams from around the world compete at different locations to see which strategy will come out victorious! Most recently, the 24-hour Eco Grand Prix was held in Transilvania, Romania, where Itheum sponsored The Tesla Happy owners Romania, also known as T.H.O.R, who finished the race in second place after battling out at first place for the majority of the race! It certainly was a thrilling event, and Itheum looks to extract tons of data from the car itself and potentially mint the data into Data NFTs, thus, converting unused data into a highly valuable and rare asset class for the first time ever.
T.H.O.R is a Non-profit organization (NPO) whose mission is to leverage its diverse expertise to sustainably empower, connect and foster networking amongst all EV and Tesla owners or fans and those who promote and are pushing for the world to become more sustainable. T.H.O.R are striving to host various events within Romania and the EU to continue its mission.
One of the Founders of T.H.O.R, and a team member of the Business Development and Partnerships team at Itheum, Vlad Radulescu brought this event to life, along with five other team members. Relating to this event at the ECO GP, Vlad became Head of Strategy and spoke before the event, stating, “my aim is to optimize the efficiency of our cars and essentially going as fast you can while consuming the least amount of energy.” Vlad was also one of the race drivers and thus, had to follow his own strategy to maximize their team’s performance.
The rise of the EV motor industry
The EV industry has continuously grown since 2012, reaching a combined market share of 4.6%. The YoY increase from 2020 to 2021 has been staggering, +66% for Europe, +155% for China, +96% for North America, and +115% for the other markets. Tesla, in particular, has had spectacular growth, the Model 3 being named 2021 Car of the Year on Cars.com American-Made Index. It is also the first EV to reach over 1M units sold.
Event Details
The EcoGP, officially the Eco Grand Prix, is a European 24-hour car race for electric cars. The green series was conceived in 2013 by the world record holder Rafael de Mestre. In 2018, the world’s first 24-hour race for electric cars started in the Motorsport Arena in Germany. The series has been a member of the DMSB (German Motor Sport Federation) since 2020. The recent event was certainly thrilling, with the electric vehicles competing in a new form of racing, where strategy and efficiency are more important than speed and power.
The 24-hour race is won by the car that covers the greatest distance in 24 hours, following the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans model.
- Teams involved:
- Teslicka CZ, from the official Czech Tesla Club
- Team THOR (Tesla Happy Owners Romania)
- ePulse
- SUVCARS
- TRON
The team maintained an extremely efficient race throughout, averaging around 100% efficiency with an average consumption of around 140Wh/km and a speed of 70 km/h. They held first place position for most of the race, but unfortunately, they were overtaken in the last laps and could not catch the Czech team. Despite this, it was an amazing learning experience, and they look to develop an improved strategy for the next event.
Strategy
Developing a genius strategy for this race was the key to their success. When it comes to the traditional races, the aim is for maximum speed without taking into consideration fuel or other factors (since refuelling is a fast process, unlike vehicle charging). In comparison, however, with electric vehicles, you still look to go as fast as possible, but you also have to strategize and be extremely efficient, using as little energy as possible while going as fast as possible. Makes sense? This means no sudden acceleration but a gradual application and finer throttle control. Restricting the usage of brakes in favour of electric engine braking, which is also a recovery system, that converts kinetic energy and stores it back into the battery, getting rid of any unnecessary weight such as charging cables and accessories, and minimal usage of non-critical electronic systems such as especially heating or air conditioning. This does mean the drivers have to also cope with changes in weather conditions which is a crucial part of the challenge as well!
Why Itheum is entering the Motor and electric vehicle industry
You may be wondering exactly why Itheum, a decentralized data brokerage is so interested in this event and industry in particular. As we know, data is quickly becoming one of the most valuable resources in the world and is not limited to just one vertical. Data in every industry is extremely valuable and important, and the electric vehicle and motor industry is no exception.
In order to extract the data from the event, the team granted permission via a key from the Tesla API to TeslaFI. This meant real-time parameters from the car could be shown. In addition, they also had a device connected to OBD to give further analytics from the race. The data produced was very valuable and opened up many possibilities for Itheum to explore.
In the future, we could see data from these races and the electric vehicle industry being transferred into highly valuable assets, like Data NFTs or Data Packs, which would be unique to each car, event, and so on. The potential is groundbreaking, and we look to unlock countless use-cases for data ownership for this industry which was previously locked and inaccessible. As we know, the electric vehicle industry is on the rise, and for governments and regulators to be able to regulate energy usage, the key for them to succeed is through data. Data is rapidly becoming the new oil, and its value continues to grow.
What did the team learn from analyzing the data
Following on from the race, the team dove deep into the data, and the findings were fascinating, to say the least. Crucial data: being too slow at the beginning of the race, and being too aggressive at the end, were highlighted. Additionally, the data showed patterns in the drivers’ throttle application, and most importantly, they could paint a broad picture of how their competitors were performing in comparison. This is key for these events, opening up the avenue for understanding the core strengths and weaknesses, fostering innovation and progress, and ultimately bringing the performance to another level. Looking forward, Itheum could see the opportunity for all this crucial data to be collected and available to trade on the data dex. Therefore, for the first time, high-level data that has never been accessible could now become a valuable asset and be traded using Itheums decentralized data brokerage technology and blockchain-powered tools.
About Itheum
Itheum empowers data ownership in the Web3 and Metaverse ecosystems and creates new market value for your data. It enables this by providing “decentralized data brokerage” technology. It’s a suite of tools that enable high-value data to be bridged from web2 to web3 and traded via peer-to-peer sales. It allows for “viral adoption” via our creative “Data NFTs” (provide “inner value” to NFTs and enable royalties / limited supply) and “NFMe ID” technology (a living Metaverse avatar representation of you — wrapped as an NFT and backed by personal data) and our innovative Data Coalition DAOs (which bulk trades your data). It also aims to be fully privacy-preserving, regulation-friendly and cross-chain, making it the most comprehensive core blockchain data infrastructure available in the market with use-cases in both the enterprise and retail space.
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