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Wheels:
Audi EV goes from PlayStation to race track

[All images courtesy: Audi Motorsport ]

 

 

How often does this happen? Audi has made a video-game vehicle come to life.

The all-electric Audi e-tron Vision Gran Turismo concept car, originally developed exclusively for virtual races on PlayStation 4, will do laps in Formula E.

The vehicle made its debut as a race taxi in Rome on April 14 and is scheduled to perform that role in other upcoming European races. Although it is not a hardcore competing racer, the concept car was developed as a way of "turning electric mobility into a tangible experience for our customers and guests," particularly because Formula E races are run in major cities throughout the world. In other words, it's a show car -- but one that can really take off.

The one-of-a-kind EV took Audi engineers and builders 11 months to create based on the example of the Audi e-tron Vision Gran Turismo from the best-selling "Gran Turismo" PlayStation game. "Gran Turismo" is 20 years old and has a cult-like following around the globe. Audi designers created the Audi e-tron Vision Gran Turismo for the "Vision Gran Turismo" competition for the game's 15th anniversary, where the game's founder (and also professional race car driver), Kazunori Yamauchi, asked manufacturers, "Would you design your rendition of the ideal GT for us?" [Note: If you love to look at great concepts, you can see the results here. So fun!]

Audi e-tron Vision Gran Turismo as it appeared in the "Gran Turismo" PlayStation game.

 

 

Many of the competition concept cars were subsequently built as full-scale models and presented at trade shows. The Audi e-tron Vision Gran Turismo, however, is the first concept car of this range to be deployed to real-world race tracks as a fully functional vehicle.

"Our aim was a fully functional car," says Audi's chief designer, Marc Lichte. "The Audi e-tron Vision Gran Turismo shows that electric mobility at Audi is very emotive. This car incorporates numerous elements of our new design language such as the inverted single frame in the vehicle's color that will be typical for our new e-tron models."

Audi has adopted the design elements and color of its legendary Audi 90 quattro IMSA GTO from the 1989 North American IMSA-GTO racing series. Featuring a combination of systematic lightweight design and quattro drive paired with a powerful five-cylinder turbo engine, that car was far ahead of its time back then.

The Audi e-tron Vision Gran Turismo has permanent all-wheel drive also, although with variable power distribution. Three electric motors, each with an output of 200 kW, propel the concept car. Two electric motors drive the rear axle, and the third one drives the front axle.

System output is 600 kW (815 hp). With a curb weight of 1,450 kg, the electric race car has a power-to-weight ratio of 1.78 kg per horsepower, with ideal 50:50 percent weight distribution between the front and the rear axle. Acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h is less than 2.5 sec, which will be quite a thrill for guests and potential customers who get a chance to ride in it -- and maybe even fulfill a video-game dream come true.

Source: Audi

Published April 2018

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