Silent speed never looked so appealing
The Audi R8 E-Tron was a revolutionary study in making a proper electric sports car that unfortunately never came to be. After all, what can possibly be bad about the beautiful lines of the R8 supercar combined with an environmentally friendly electric powertrain?
Good news is the R8 E-Tron has lived on in spirit, reincarnating itself in the new Audi F12 supercar. Still sporting the same good R8 looks, this new viewpoint of electric performance ups the performance ante even further. Where the R8 E-Tron had two electric motors, the new F12 will have three, sending power to all four wheels for extreme grip and traction in any conditions.
In collaboration with Bosch, the F12 sports new battery technology aimed at improving safety and performance. With an overall capacity of more than 38 kWh, the F12 houses two separate blocks of batteries. Using a new battery design, each block is made up of 200 macrocells that feature beveled walls to allow the cells to shift among each other for added safety during an accident.
As for performance, the F12 takes an innovative approach to combining efficiency with all-out speed. With one electric motor housed in the front axle, the remaining two motors find themselves in the rear axle, owing to typical performance car rear-biased power deliveries. During typical, slow speed driving only the motor in the front axle is active. Decide to play a bit, and the motors in the rear axle come to life. With all three electric motors doing their job, performance enthusiasts can count on 204 horsepower, but that isn’t the whole story. The real story is the mountain of torque, 406 pound-feet to be exact, that accompanies that horsepower figure. Take that torque and combine it with all-wheel drive, and there’s no denying the performance at hand.
All of us here at DCH Audi of Oxnard are excited about the developments coming from Audi in search of the harmonious blend of efficiency and driving pleasure. If we keep seeing cars like the Audi F12 on the horizon, the enthusiast base has little to worry about.
