Audi has launched the RS Q e-tron for Dakar Rally in a bid to be the first car manufacturer to use an electrified drivetrain combined with an efficient energy converter to compete for overall victory against conventionally powered competitors in the world?s toughest rally.
‘The Quattro was a gamechanger for the World Rally Championship. Audi was the first brand to win the Le Mans 24 Hours with an electrified drivetrain. Now, we want to usher in a new era at the Dakar Rally while testing and further developing our e-tron technology under extreme conditions,’ says Julius Seebach, Managing Director of Audi Sport GmbH and responsible for motorsport at Audi.
The characteristics of the Dakar Rally present the engineers with unique challenges. The marathon event lasts two weeks, and the daily stages are up to 800 kilometres in length. ‘That?s a very long distance,’ says Andreas Roos, responsible for the Dakar project at Audi Sport. ‘What we are trying to do has never been done before – this is the ultimate challenge for an electric drivetrain.’ Road to Dakar ? Test Audi Sport
 
Audi has chosen an innovative charging concept as there are no charging opportunities in the desert: Onboard the Audi RS Q e-tron, there is the highly efficient TFSI engine from the DTM. It is part of an energy converter that charges the high-voltage battery while driving. Since the combustion engine operates in the particularly efficient range of betw...