Recently, not a month goes by without some brand, reputable or totally unknown, announcing an electric sports car with more than 1000 hp . Most are still in the plan of intentions, scheduled to appear in the next two to three years in limited editions, destined to be bought by millionaires who like cars more than money.
But what would it be like to ride aboard one of these super-powerful trams?…
When I tested the Bugatti Veyron I got a point of reference for cars with this level of power, but an electric car is always very different: there is no sound of burning gasoline being spit out by the exhaust, no engine vibration reaching the driver's seat and, most importantly, there is no gearbox, to interrupt the flow of power. This already knew from driving several electric models, with emphasis on the more powerful Tesla.
Started as a TCR RS3 LMS
But here, what is at stake is something totally different, first because it is a competition car, an RS3 LMS, which Audi prepares according to the rules of the TCR championships and sells to private teams that want to buy them.It is an A3 with very wide lanes and the 2.0 turbo four-cylinder engine “pulled” to 350 hp and 460 Nm of maximum torque. It has a DSG gearbox and front-wheel drive, weighing 1180 kg, allowing it to accelerate from 0 to 100 km in 4.5 seconds. Not bad!…
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Who is Schaeffler?
Schaeffler is a leading supplier of components for the automotive and other industries. It started by specializing in bearings, after its foundation in 1946, but then advanced through precision engineering, reaching some time ago to transmissions and more recently to electric motors. It is even preparing an engine with more copper content than any other, which should hit the market soon. Its star product is the rear transmission of the brand new Audi e-tron.
Jochen Schröder, CEO Schaeffler E-MobilityWe continue to optimize combustion engines, which are not dead yet. But we are investing heavily in electric mobility.
If the reader follows motor racing, perhaps he has already seen Schaeffler stickers on an Audi in the DTM, or on the Formula E that the brand has inscribed in association with Audi since the first era of this discipline. They are people who like races, they are not absolutists on trams.
4ePerformance Project
It was this connection to Audi that gave them the idea of launching a project that was both marketing and engineering. Marketing, because Schaeffler is strongly developing its E-Mobility division, which deals with specific components for all types of electric vehicles, not just cars. He even made two prototypes for small townspeople, the Bio-Hybrid, which is a tricycle with electrical assistance, for urban distribution, for example, at the Post Office. And the Mover, which is a driverless self-driving electric module, is still a concept car for the future.
Gregor Gruber, Project EngineerOur main objective with Schaeffler 4ePerformance is to develop torque vectoring with a four electric motor architecture. We are also interested in exploring the transfer of technology between Formula E and series production.
Transferring technology from competition to mass production has always been an ambition of brands involved in motor sport. Not always successful. Schaeffler wants to do this in this case, albeit using an intermediate step for now.
The idea of using Formula E engines in a “normal” car seemed very interesting, but the easiest way to do it was using the TCR's RS3, not a standard car.
The engines are the same ones used by the Formula E team in the FE01 single-seater that led Lucas Di Grassi to victory in the 2016/2017 championship. But the battery is different, bigger, less sophisticated than that of Formula E, because the technical objective was not linked to the battery, but in studying the vectorization of torque in a car with four engines , that is, the way in which the functioning of each one can be coordinated.
Four Formula E engines
Each engine is mated to its own transmission, a small gearbox with only one ratio. Engines' total torque doesn't need further ratios, Schaeffler engineers announce 2500 Nm of total maximum torque , available right from the start, which demands incredible resistance from the transmission. Each motor delivers 220 kW, therefore the total power is 880 kW , those 1200 hp.
With all this force, acceleration to 100 km/h drops to 2.5s and acceleration from 0-200 km/h is done in less than seven seconds. The total weight rose to 1800 kg, due to the 600 kg that the 64 kWh battery weighs , which is divided into two parts, one at the front and one at the rear seat, underneath the power electronics that control everything. The theoretical maximum range of the battery is 300 km, but when driving on a track, it's no more than 40 km . With the proper charger, it takes 45 minutes to fully charge it.
The electrical mechanics forced the suspension to be reinforced in order to withstand the greater weight, which was now distributed by 50% on each axle, making the rear wing unnecessary. Audi's front grille gave way to the Schaeffler brand, but the air intakes remained, to feed a small radiator that cools the battery liquid.
Cockpit Details
In the cockpit, the changes are minor, but some components have been reconfigured. For example, the tabs on the DSG box are now used to navigate the eight pages of specific information that are posted on the digital instrument panel in front of the pilot.
The steering wheel has the same set of buttons, some with other functions. And a lower double tab has been added for the driver to set the system to regenerate during braking. The standard gearshift lever remained, as did the racing hydraulic handbrake.
This is a development engineering project, not a competition program. This prototype doesn't want to kick-start a new electric championship, it's for engineers to study the most important concepts. That's why the tuning of the car will not be entirely to the drivers' taste.
On a foggy day, with the track completely damp, the slick tires were on the trolley and common road tires were used for a “co-drive” in which the service driver was Daniel Abt, who lines up in Formula E.
Amazing experience
Tightly squeezed into the right baquet, Abt sticks his thumb up and off we go towards a sports driving training track, 2.7 km in perimeter. Two straights, a medium curve and some slower and that's it. I have two laps to open my eyes wide and absorb as much sensation as possible, as Schaeffler didn't allow me to drive this unique prototype: “no ABS, no ESP, or anything, we can't risk it” was the justification.
Ready to feel the 1200 hp of this very special prototype.
Stationary, the car is silent, as soon as Abt rotates his right ankle, the typical noise of electric cars begins, except that here there are no soundproofing materials and the noise comes from all four corners. Otherwise, the 4ePerformance feels like a competition car, hard, dry, with immediate reactions to the driver's movements, both in the direction and with the brakes.
On the longest straight, Daniel Abt stops the car. Count to three and accelerate to the limit. The four wheels spin furiously on the wet asphalt, the acceleration makes the front lift slightly and throws my helmet violently against the headrest.
So this is it! This is what you feel in a 1200 hp electric car accelerating at full throttle. A sudden, uncut, continuous and crushing acceleration. It's not enough to scare you, but the very strong braking at the end of the straight was the measure of the speed that the car had already gained. Next came the curves.
no risk
Daniel Abt must have been very well “brifated” because he didn't risk almost anything. On exiting such a mid-turn, it accelerates a little early and the rear tends to cross immediately, forcing instinctive corrections before fully pressing the right pedal again for another acceleration that the inner ear has some difficulty in processing .Lucas Di Grassi, Schaeffler/Audi Formula E driverIt's one of the easiest drift cars I've ever driven. It is possible to set in drift at any phase of the curve.
In slow corners, over the correctors, 4ePerformance passes with great indifference, its weight does not allow it to jump. Seen from the outside, you can see that the body has a curved lateral inclination, but there is little notice inside. One of the engineers assured that the height of the center of gravity was equal to that of a BMW Z4.
electric donuts
On the second lap of the circuit, Abt stops again on the straight, presses a steering wheel button and accelerates fully with the right steering wheel. The car starts making perfect donuts, shrouded in tire smoke until Abt thinks he's enough of the joke. In fact, what he did was put the engines on one side of the car to go backwards, one of the many possibilities of torque vectoring when you have four independent engines.
The Schaeffler 4ePerformance will have an immediate future. What he's done now, he's going to do it again on next season's Formula E tracks, carrying VIP in fast laps. However, engineers will continue to play with their computers, to see what other possibilities they can take away from this architecture.
Datasheet
| Propulsion | |
|---|---|
| Motor | 4 220 kW electric motors |
| power | 880 kW (1200 hp)/14,000 rpm |
| Binary | 2500 Nm/0 rpm |
| Drums | Lithium Ion, 64 kWh |
| Recharge time | 45 minutes |
| Autonomy | 40 km on track |
| Streaming | |
| Traction | four wheels |
| Gear box | Four boxes of one relation each |
| Suspension | |
| Front | McPherson with stabilizer bar |
| back | Multiarms |
| brakes | |
| Front back | Ventilated and perforated discs |
| Dimensions and Weight | |
| Comp. x Width x Alt. | 4589 mm x 1950 mm x 1340 mm |
| Weight | 1800 kg |
| performance | |
| Maximum speed | 210 km/h |
| 0-100 km/h | 2.5s |