Audi’s EV Dakar rally car is reviving range extender

Audi’s intentions Participate in the toughest rally in the world Electronic car Started with a blank sheet of paper 15 months ago. company As early as the late 1980s, it closed its former rally department, and it admitted that due to employee turnover, almost all the knowledge gained during Audi’s 1982 and 1984 World Rally Championships was lost.

The Dakar Rally is a very challenging off-road endurance race. The distance of each stage can reach 900 kilometers (560 miles) per day. The terrain traversed is much more difficult than seen in a traditional rally, so vehicles must be built specifically for this task-only modified road vehicles cannot meet the requirements.

The race originated in December 1977, after Thierry Sabine lost his way in the Ténéré desert during the 1975 “Cote-Cote” Abidjan-Nice Rally. In this unexpected transfer, he decided that the desert would become a good place for regular competitions. Approximately 182 cars held the first rally in Paris. Only 74 people passed the 10,000-kilometer (6,200-mile) route through the Sahara Desert to Dakar, the capital of Senegal.

Due to the pandemic, it was impossible to fully test any equipment under race conditions. Audi’s goal in the first year of the rally was to complete the Dakar. However, in the middle of the race, the three cars were still running, and the team even won the 636km third stage, driven by 59-year-old rally veteran Carlos Sainz. It’s running,” a team spokesperson told Wired magazine.

At first glance, Audi’s 2022 Dakar competitor doesn’t have much in common with your average family car. RS Q e-tron is a huge Toy, 4.5 meters long and 2 meters high. Under Darth Vader’s body is a tubular frame supported by carbon fiber panels and equipped with batteries, three electric motors and a gasoline engine. It is safe to assume that it will not drive on the streets near you.

So why does Audi do this? Of course, this is part of Dakar’s prestige: from the beginning, this event has always been synonymous with adventure and desert romance. After initially running from Paris to Dakar, the event was transferred to South America after a terrorist attack in North Africa in 2008. Despite being geographically displaced, the name still exists, and Dakar moved to Saudi Arabia again in 2019, this time to evoke the desert origins of the event. Winning the Dakar still has a reputation, and 2022 is Audi’s first attempt.

But at the same time, Audi is determined to become a high-quality electric brand and hopes to win Dakar through battery power. This is extremely challenging, as the contestants must travel 600 miles a day, traversing some of the most remote and desolate landscapes on the planet. They can barely see camels, let alone electric car chargers.

But what Audi sees is an opportunity-an opportunity to try an old idea that is making a comeback: range extender. This is a battery-driven electric car with a gasoline engine onboard as the power source. The engine never drives the wheels, it just keeps the battery full while you are driving. Ten years ago, range extenders were the “future”: both Vauxhall (Buick in the US) and BMW provided them, while Audi developed a concept car.