From online racing to real-life car technology: why MOZA is all-in on the race for driving innovations

MOZA’s combined hardware and software research brings you virtual racing that feels real, and real driving so smoothly it feels like a videogame

Sim racing – also known as competitive virtual motorsports – is serious business, and if you need proof, just look at the 2023 movie Gran Turismo, which tells the true story of a Playstation gamer turned real-life racer. 

MOZA, one of the leading tech companies powering sim racing, is introducing a series of innovations that show the link between the virtual world of high-octane competition and the most advanced road cars on the market. 

Servo Direct Drive Technology: the power behind the simulation

In the 2013 film Rush, Formula 1 champion Niki Lauda (played by Daniel Brühl) explains how great drivers understand the feel of the car through their, er, butt. In the absence of a full-sized sportscar, however, sim racers must rely on their hands to get that all-precious feedback about their performance. 

That’s why MOZA has developed its unique Servo Direct Drive Technology, which combines software and hardware innovations to offer sim racers a new standard of fidelity. 

Let’s start from the nitty-gritty: the premium professional MOZA RACING Bases R21, R16, and R12 produce powerful torque outputs of 21Nm, 16Nm, and 12Nm, respectively, ensuring your sim racing wheel can offer you robust feedback. But it’s not just brute force. MOZA has tackled significant engineering challenges to provide a top-end driving experience.

The same cutting-edge motor protection technology that powers high-end cars such as the Tesla Model S Plaid found its way into MOZA’s pro-level bases, including the R21, R16, and R12. It’s a Carbon Fiber Wrapped Rotor that reduces motor weight while ensuring long-term stable high-performance operation and avoiding the pitfalls of inefficient metal rotors (namely, heat dispersal and power loss). To use carbon fiber, a lightweight material that’s a staple of racecars engineering, MOZA had to overcome technical and manufacturing challenges, achieving sustained high-performance motor output. 

The top-of-the-line MOZA R21 adds another groundbreaking innovation to the package: the very first application of industry-leading Slanted Pole Technology to motors within the realm of sim racing. The rotor design takes on a unique structure divided into irregular segments, each offset at a specific angle. This novel rotor design method significantly diminishes motor cogging torque, torque ripple, electromagnetic vibration, and overall noise levels. While this process relies on sophisticated automated motor equipment, MOZA was able to crack the code and introduce it on the market.

In addition, MOZA has made significant technological progress on the software side of the equation with the NexGen 2.0 System, which aims to eliminate the need for frequent hardware updates by innovating on key aspects of the simulation. The algorithm provides numerous enhancements, including immediate response, vibration filtering, torque adjustments, and full customization, offering an incredibly realistic driving experience.

Road relevance: Active Suspension Technology

The jump from sim racing technology to actual road cars, while ambitious, comes naturally for MOZA, given their approach to innovation and research. That’s why the company has also ventured into the world of intelligent driving, focusing particularly on its active suspension technology. 

MOZA’s Full Active Suspension Digital Chassis represents a cutting-edge integration of hardware and software that made its debut at the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show and is now being implemented in road cars. The system allows the suspension to adapt dynamically to the terrain, ensuring a comfortable ride on uneven forces, and providing stability at high speeds by reducing oscillations – thus making driving safer.

The Full Active Suspension also makes the in-car experience more accessible, reducing the effects of motion sickness by targeting low-frequency vibrations, and allowing for integrated entertainment to be enjoyed smoothly by passengers.

A shared mission: MOZA and Jimmy Broadbent

English social media personality and racing driver Jimmy Broadbent is adamant that sim racing can have real-world applications. The partnership with MOZA, then, makes perfect sense, with the brand supporting Broadbent since 2023 in his content creation and racing activities – both in real life and in online spaces. 

It’s a partnership rooted in a shared commitment to innovation and an unwavering passion for motorsport – on both sides.