Audi RS Q e-tron – finally Vorsprung durch Technik again?

With the Audi RS Q e-tron, many skeptics of electromobility could be silenced in the future. They do exist, the skeptics who repeatedly refer to the supposed superiority and lack of alternatives of the internal combustion engine in extreme situations, be it in a lap race, in the event of a catastrophe or similar situations that occur rarely in everyday life.

With the participation of the Audi RS Q e-tron in the Dakar Rally in January 2022, the skeptics will in future have one supposed argument less in the quiver. The Dakar Rally is considered the toughest rally in the world and, with a few exceptions, electric cars have not yet been considered.

Because there are no charging stations in the desert, Audi has chosen an exciting concept here. The Audi RS Q e-tron is basically an electric car with a built-in range extender.

There is an electric motor each on the front and rear axles. These were taken directly from Formula E and only had to be adapted minimally for the new assignment. Together they have an output of 500 kW (680 PS).

“As engineers, we basically see development potential in every component. But we have already achieved a system efficiency of over 97 percent for the drive system in Formula E. There is not much leeway left. The situation is completely different with the battery and energy management. This is where electromobility generally has the greatest development potential. What we learn from the extremely challenging Dakar project will be incorporated into future series models. As always, we are working closely with our colleagues from series development on this project. ” Stefen Dreyer – Head of Development at Audi Sport

The battery has a capacity of 50 kWh and weighs around 370 kilograms. You don’t have to be an electric car expert to notice that you would have to make a lot of charging stops with this battery in order to cope with daily stages of sometimes more than 800 km.

For this reason, a combustion engine from the DTM is installed in the Audi RS Q e-tron, which can charge the high-voltage battery while driving via a third electric motor. Unlike the other vehicles with internal combustion engines that take part in the Dakar Rally, this one will always run in the optimal speed range between 4,500 – 6,000 revolutions per minute.

This means that the consumption is well below 0.2 l / kWh. While other vehicles therefore drive the rally with more than 500 liter fuel tanks on the stages, a significantly smaller tank is sufficient for the Audi.

Audi also describes that the use of an electric motor would also offer many advantages for rally operations:

The electric motors can be controlled extremely precisely and thus ensure good drivability. In addition, braking energy can be recovered. The Audi RS Q e-tron gets by with one forward gear. As is usually the case with electric vehicles, the front and rear axles are not mechanically connected to one another. The software developed by Audi takes over the torque distribution between the axles and thus creates a virtual, freely configurable center differential – with the positive side effect of being able to save the weight and space required by Karadan shafts and a mechanical differential.

Audi RS Q e-tron finally Vorsprung durch Technik again?

While I have personally been a little disappointed from afar with the Audi e-tron GT, because for me it is more of a Porsche Taycan in an Audi dress that does not do justice to the brand claim Vorsprung durch Technik but rather had a different slogan: Audi e-tron GT – Advantage through solidity and price (mobilegeeks.de)

The Audi RS Q e-tron finally seems to be a vehicle from Audi that is choosing a courageous way to develop a possible lead through technology.

“Audi has always chosen new, bold paths in racing, but I think this is one of the most complex cars I’ve ever seen. The electric drive means that a large number of different systems have to communicate with one another. In addition to reliability, which is the top priority at the Dakar Rally, this will be our greatest challenge over the next few months. ” Team principal Sven Quand

At Audi they are aware that this is a very difficult undertaking and success in the rally is by no means guaranteed.

For my part, I will keep a close eye on the RS Q e-tron. I am sure that the skeptics mentioned at the beginning will apparently rush with joy that the Audi RS Q e-tron does have an internal combustion engine, but they fail to recognize that this is only a question of battery technology. I’m sure that as soon as batteries are available that have the right capacity, the combustion engine will also be thrown out.