The Paris Dakar Rally, a professional off-road rally held every year, is a professional cross-country rally where drivers and cars experience temperatures of 40 degrees during the day and minus zero at night. In addition to the usual racing failures, once you lose your way, you will face the situation of running out of fuel, food or even abandoning racing. Therefore, it is a real contest between man and nature.
The rules of the race are incredibly simple, and whoever can reach the finish line in the shortest time is the champion of this stage. What is shocking is that a dangerous cross-country event not only ushered in the first new energy vehicle, the Audi RS Q e-tron, but the "troublemaker" also won 3 of the 12 stages.
From Audi's participation in Formula E in 2014 to the end of the Formula E journey in the first race in Berlin, in six years, the Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler team has reached the podium 43 times.
And when we hear that Audi is going to participate in the world's toughest rally with an electric car, many people will wonder, electric car? Off-road rally? Where is the connection between the two, even if it is a mature fuel vehicle that needs to be respected, whether an electric vehicle can finish the race normally, can it break the rules of the traditional game?
Now as the debut of the electric drive car, the Audi RS Q e-tron in the Carl halfway through the race, Audi three RS Q e-tron successfully finished, in such a "thrilling" way, Audi opened a new era of electric in Dakar.
From Audi 'Dream Team': Rally legends Stephen Peterhansel, Carlos Sainz and Matthias Extröm driving three Audi RS Q e-tron cars to highlight the field, it has already marked the beginning of a new era in Dakar.
As one of the last epic endurance races in motorsport, the Audi e-tron technology ushered in the ultimate test, the first stage RS Q e-tron encountered some trouble, but from the second stage, the Audi RS Q e-tron finished third in the stage.
In the third stage, RS Q e-tron won 1/3/5 of the stage, this time the stage champion is not only Audi's first victory in the top cross-country race, but also the first stage championship won by an electric car in Dakar history.
In the ensuing schedule, the RS Q e-tron won the championship in the eighth and twelfth stages respectively, and as a "cutting-edge" team, it won the third title of the event, which was enough to witness the performance and strong adaptability of the Audi RS Q e-tron car.
This year's Dakar "spoiler" once miraculously created the indispensable Quattro four-wheel drive system, and now the strength of the e-tron has been tested in the rally, which is undoubtedly a confirmation of Audi's pioneering role in leading the development and change of technology in the field of racing.
As the first brand to challenge the Dakar rally with electric racing, Audi RS Q e-tron integrates a series of innovative technologies such as pure electric drive, e-Quattro four-wheel drive, cooling system, safety system, high-tech cockpit, etc. In Dakar, a number of traditional fuel vehicles in Dakar have always been a closely watched outlier, and the results of the three stage champions are an affirmation of the latest achievements in Audi electrification products.
As Markus Duesmann, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Audi, said: "The Dakar Rally is the toughest race in the world and the perfect stage for Audi to develop and test innovative technologies. “
The RS Q e-tron is a purely electric-powered racing car with an extended-range hybrid system consisting of a 2.0T engine + 3 electric power, which is derived from the same electric motor set of the e-tron FE07 car, which has won many championships in FE races, and the components are adjusted to meet the power needs of the Dakar Rally.
Audi has achieved more than 97% system efficiency through the precipitation of Formula E over the past seven seasons, and has once again explored the development potential of electrified components for the complex Dakar, further research and development for battery and energy management, and accumulated experience for future electrified product models.
Considering that it cannot be recharged during the race, in order to ensure that the car can complete the course of nearly 1,000 kilometers per day, the Audi RS Q e-tron car adopts an innovative charging method, using the 2.0-liter TFSI high-efficiency engine from the DTM car as an energy converter to charge the battery pack on the RS Q e-tron car, while working with another generator set derived from the FE car to provide energy for the car.
However, in the face of the complex natural environment in the Dakar route, even if there is enough endurance performance to complete the race, due to the complexity and particularity of the structure such as battery pack and energy management system on the electric vehicle, it is still difficult to imagine how to use electricity to drive the car to complete this challenge.
In response, Audi is clearly confident enough in its technical reserves in the field of electrification, and the RS Q e-tron is equipped with a newly designed high-voltage battery pack for extreme environments, an extremely efficient energy converter and an energy management system for long-distance extreme challenges.
For Audi, the Dakar Rally is not only the most difficult rally in the world, but also the perfect technical testing testing ground, seeking breakthroughs in motorsport and accumulating a lot of experience in the future development of mass production cars, which is the ultimate goal of the competition.
As we all know, Audi has always played a very important role in motorsport in international events such as DTM motorhome races, Formula E Formula E races, GT World Championships, 24 Hours of Le Mans, WRC World Rally Championships and so on. In the case of new energy sweeping the global automotive industry, Audi is the first brand to win the Le Mans 24 Hours of Endurance championship with an electric drivetrain.
Today, in the third decade of the twenty-first century, the glory of the internal combustion engine has long been unable to hide the rise of electrification. The future of the pioneering era always needs a leader, and this time Audi conquered the world's most difficult Dakar rally with pure electric drive RS Q e-tron, which is enough to prove that in the era of electrification, Audi has sufficient confidence and direction for the electrification of racing cars.
From the current point of view, as the first electric car to participate in the Dakar Rally, the Audi RS Q e-tron has undoubtedly achieved very good results, although we also expect Audi to bring more surprises in the second half of the schedule, but the fact has fully proved that even in the face of the most difficult rally race, the electric car is not lost to the fuel car with century-old technology precipitation.
Just like when Audi conquered the WRC Rally with quattro, leading an automaker to start the development of four-wheel drive systems. The success of the Audi RS Q e-tron will also be a revelation of success, not only in the Dakar Rally, but also in other major events, we may see more new energy cars involved.
Let's boldly imagine that the first time to participate in the Dakar Rally with a new energy vehicle, that is, to achieve such results, in the face of the next year's event, the Audi RS Q Q e-tron, which has more and more realistic technical parameters, will be the champion?
Back to the present, Audi's product layout in the civilian new energy market, the new models launched by its e-tron family are pure electric, and the emergence of RS Q E-Tron on the Dakar that uses range extender power will prompt Audi to launch mass-produced range extender models in the consumer market has also become the focus of many consumers.
Although range-extender power is a power method that can eliminate range anxiety while maintaining the electric drive, the most fundamental reason why the RS Q E-Tron uses range-extended power is that Audi is trying to meet the specific competition needs of the Dakar Rally, rather than verifying the range-extending technology.
Of course, even if the range extender can solve the problem of range, it is ultimately a temporary solution in the transition from fuel to pure electricity. In the transformation of automobile power from fuel to new energy, the realization of pure electric is the ultimate goal.