Audi teases mean-looking off-road electric SUV for Dakar entry, exits Formula E
Just after showing its 2021 Formula E car, the German marque pulled out of the motorsport to focus its efforts on rally racing with a zero-emissions twist.
Looking mean.
It's lights out for Audi's factory-backed Formula E team, and hello to the Dakar Rally. The German brand made the somewhat surprising news on Monday, and also said it plans to return to Le Mans with a new LMDh race car.
With Audi's full support thrown behind Dakar and cross-country rally racing in the future, the brand teased a new electric SUV prototype without a name for now. The machine looks properly menacing and I'm sure Audi will be keen to draw parallels between this new off-road SUV and its glory days of Group B rally racing. For youngsters out there, no, Audi is not new to rally racing. Look it up.
Details are rather slim on the technical side of things, but we know this electric SUV will actually have an internal-combustion engine. For what reason? It's going to act like a power generator for the battery pack to charge the vehicle on the fly. The combination should be pretty nifty if Audi pulls it off without dropping tons of extra weight into the SUV.
Although Audi was one of the Formula E's first major adopters, it looks like the brand sees a lot more value in alternative propulsion and off-roading. The company traces its roots to Formula E back to 2014 when it supported ABT Sportsline. In 2017, the company itself provided factory backing to create the Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler team. Audi exits the sport with 43 podiums, 12 wins and a team title in 2018. Now, it's onto new ideas, though Porsche remains part of Formula E to represent Volkswagen Group.
Aside from supporting rally racing for its electrification works in the future, Audi will also return to Le Mans with a new entry in the revamped LMDh class. The move has dual benefits for Audi. One, it can run the car in both the IMSA SportsCar Championship and the FIA World Endurance Championship. Two, LMDh regulations are exclusively for hybrid racing machines, so Audi can extract that much more out of its engines as the brand inevitably moves to a totally electric future.
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