COMMENT: Audi hints at production plans for flywheel tech

Audi’s revolutionary R18 e-tron quattro takes to the track this weekend in round two of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) at Spa. This marks the first time that a Le Mans sportscar with diesel hybrid drive and two driven axles will compete in a race.

One of the interesting things about the racing car is the prominant positioning of the e-tron logos on the bodywork. Don’t forget that the company has committed to launching a plug-in version of the R8 from late 2012. But e-tron doesn’t seem to be just for electric cars: the company has revealed prototypes of range-extender series hybrids at the last two big motor shows in China (A6 L e-tron and A3 e-tron concepts).

Audi is taking a risk by pushing the e-tron sub-brand so publicity ahead of the launch of its first plug-in passenger vehicles. But if the R18 wins at Spa-Francorchamps this weekend, I would expect Audi to start promoting the e-tron name pretty heavily – the aim being to associate this invented term with a high tech image. Done properly, it could well be a clever move – does anyone think of a Nissan Leaf as a must-have object of desire? Exactly. If any company has the marketing muscle to make plug-ins exciting, it’s Audi.

What about the other technology that Audi’s new racing car incorporates, the flywheel for storing kinetic energy? In the R18, a V6 diesel engine sends drive to the rear wheels, while for the front axle, the energy is electrically recuperated and fed into a flywheel. This can then be returned to the front wheels during acceleration. Of interest here is that Audi has chosen this technology over batteries. Why? According to Wolfgang Ullrich who heads up Audi’s Motorsport division, even the most advanced cells would have been too heavy.

“I can safely state that the things we’re testing with flywheel energy storage are of interest to our production colleagues too. The combination of different systems is an aspect that will have to be considered in various applications in the future,” Dr Ullrich states.

I don’t expect to see flywheels in production cars in the next year or two, but then five years ago, would any of us have expected Audi to be launching a plug-in supercar in 2012? With that in mind, if we hear of this company patenting a marketing term for flywheel energy storage, we should probably take notice.

Author: Glenn Brooks