Looking at the torque figure one would think I’m about to get into a discussion about trucks. Not at all. This is the Audi R8 e-Tron Concept car which was just unveiled at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show. It’s obviously based on the R8 but it’s a whole lot different.
Firstly its power is all electric, meaning there’s no V8 or V10 petrol under the rear bonnet. Consequently that means there are no C02 emissions coming from exhaust smoke, and of course there are no exhaust pipes either.
Instead you have four electric motors planted on all four wheels to produce a total system output of 230kW which may not seem like a lot for a super car. Scratch a little beneath the surface and you realise the torque figure is a colossal 4500Nm! That’s like an 18-wheel truck! It takes a claimed 4.8 seconds for it to reach 100km/h from standstill and it has a top end of 200km/h. Not exactly super car performance I must say. But gee, that torque!
They say it has a range of 248km when fully-charged which basically means recharging everyday. That takes about 6 to 8 hours on a normal 220V household wall plug but if you have access to a 400V socket you can recharge in only 2.5 hours.
The e-Tron is made of space frame aluminium body construction, measures 4.2m in length and weighs about 1.6 tonnes. That’s quite heavy but considering the gadgetry like rear view cameras instead of side mirrors and the batteries, it is not too shabby.
Let’s hope they produce it to take on the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG eDrive and the production model of the BMW EfficientDynamics, as well as Tesla electric super cars.
