Audi R8 E-Tron Will Go into Production After All
Electric cars are the future. I’m not saying electricity will be the only means of automotive propulsion 25 years from now, but electric vehicles will continue to gain popularity in the automotive marketplace.
The announcement that the Audi R8 e-tron is once again being planned for production is a great example of why it may be unwise to laugh at electric vehicles. Consider this: internal combustion engine technology is only being furthered within the automotive industry. By comparison, battery technology is not only being advanced by researchers in the automotive industry, but also the huge mobile electronics sector and other industries as well. So much more brainpower is being focused on electric tech as opposed to internal combustion tech; as a result, the capabilities of lithium-ion batteries are advancing at an astounding rate.
In fact, those advancements in lithium-ion battery technology are the reason the Audi R8 e-tron is back in the production pipeline. The original R8 e-tron had a rather short 134-mile range, which Audi felt was too limited to warrant further production planning. The new R8 e-tron, which is said to be based on the second-generation Audi R8, will have a range close to 250 miles. Imagine gasoline’s energy potential nearly doubling in the course of a few years, and you can begin to quantify how rapidly electric technology is advancing. Also imagine your smartphone having to be powered by an internal combustion engine, and you can begin to see the inefficiency of petroleum-based tech.
Autocar reports the R8 e-tron will enter production sometime in the second half of 2014, but few other details are being revealed at this point. The original R8 e-tron was fitted with two electric motors that worked together to produce 376 horsepower and 605 lb-ft of torque — enough to get the car to 62 mph in 4.2 seconds on the way to a top speed of 124 mph. It will be interesting to see how much more robust those figures become with the next e-tron’s power-dense battery technology.
via [Autocar]
