Audi will compete in January’s Dakar Rally with the all-electric RS Q e-tron off-roader, and it recently undertook a grueling eight-day endurance test under the Spanish sun. The test was conducted near the city of Zaragoza with Audi Sport drivers Stéphane Peterhansel and his co-driver Edouard Boulanger driving the RS Q e-tron from Friday to Sunday, Mattias Ekström and Emil Bergkvist testing it on Monday and Tuesday, and Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz from Wednesday to Friday. Throughout the test, the off-roader hit a top speed of 180 km/h while the 34 degrees Celsius weather served as an important test for its cooling systems. The RS Q e-tron covered more than 1,700 km during the tests.
The Audi RS Q e-tron is powered by a battery pack that weighs approximately 370 kg and has a capacity of around 50 kWh. It feeds front and rear electric motors that combine to produce 671 hp, although it remains to be seen if the Dakar Rally organizers will allow all of this power. As it will need to complete stages that are up to 800 km long, and there are obviously no chargers in the desert, the electric race car also features a 2.0-liter TFSI four-cylinder engine that acts as a generator to recharge the batteries.
