The Audi e-TRON Prototype will carry out energy recovery tests at Pikes Peak

Pikes Peak, the mountain located in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in the American state of Colorado, is about to become an idyllic place for the VAG Group. As you will recall, just a little over a month ago the spectacular Volkswagen I.D R made history by achieving an impressive record in the 100% electric vehicle category during the famous Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.

Now, a month later, the VAG Group is once again heading to Pikes Peak, but this time the mission falls to the engineers of Audi, because the demanding climb up Pikes Peak will become the test track for the Audi e-TRON Prototype. Under the official team’s banner, Walter Röhrl took victory at the wheel of the Audi Sport Quattro S1 in 1987 in the Unlimited category. Thirty-one years later, this legendary mountain will once again welcome the brand of the four rings for a rather different activity.

The reason for the tests that Audi will carry out on Pikes Peak with the e-TRON Prototype is to perform energy recovery tests on its batteries. As you can imagine, these tests will be run in the opposite direction to the race, that is, downhill, and the 4,403 metres of altitude at Pikes Peak make it the ideal setting, since the Audi engineering team will face an altitude difference of around 1,900 metres.

In any 100% electric vehicle, energy recovery is vital, but perhaps even more so the more powerful the vehicle is, and it should be remembered that the Audi e-TRON Prototype uses two asynchronous electric motors that generate 360 CV and a maximum torque of 561 Nm. These figures can be increased to 408 CV of power and 664 Nm of maximum torque if the driver activates the Boost function, which would allow it to reach 100 km/h in less than six seconds.

The energy recovery system of the Audi e-TRON Prototype influences the vehicle’s range by up to 30%, hence its importance, recovering energy with a torque of up to 300 Nm and 220 kW of electrical power, which translates into more than 70% of the power of its system. This makes the Audi e-TRON Prototype a vehicle unique to date, since no production model has yet achieved these figures.

The e-TRON Prototype will allow the driver to select how they want to recover energy, which can be done using the paddles behind the steering wheel, thereby selecting three modes:

• Manual: this is the most basic mode and the one that recovers the least energy, as the vehicle coasts without the additional resistance of the brakes when the driver lifts off the accelerator.

• Automatic: with this mode selected, energy is recovered while coasting through the predictive efficiency system.
• Via the brakes: this is the system that recovers the most energy and, therefore, the most complex. The e-TRON Prototype is capable of reducing its speed using only the electric motors when the driver lifts off the accelerator. To use the conventional brakes, the driver must press the pedal they have always known, causing a deceleration that exceeds 0.3 G of force. Even if the emergency braking system is activated, the braking system is capable of engaging the brakes within 150 milliseconds between the start of deceleration and the moment of maximum braking, which translates into a reduction in braking distance of 20% compared with a conventional brake system, giving an idea of the effectiveness of its brakes and technology.