I REALLY like this car.

It is looking OK. But driving something like that is like shtooping rubber doll: it is not a real car.

A rubber doll with rocket boosters…

Borat, you always make the weirdest, albeit funny, comparisons with cars. Plus, you often stick your foot in your mouth, as well. I mean, only you would know what it’s like to shtoop a rubber doll. This isn’t you, is it?:

http://failblog.org/2009/11/27/girlfriend-fail/

I just hate those wheels!!!

Beatus, probably I did not want to be captured in the act and did not commit doll f*cking (although some choices during my youth were equally repugnant – read drunk or stoned). Relax, none of the boyz in the picture is me (and hopefully not a doll). You see, if I could make only funny and not weird comparisons with cars I could be Jay Leno, but I am not.

i think they’re getting their paint choices from lamborghini.

I like the side profile, but the wheels are on the wrong car! They belong on a ghettoed out, 70’s cadillac!

Borat, if you were on Leno the ratings would undoubtedly go up. OK, that’s a backhanded compliment… Slap Chop Vince could host that show and the ratings would go up.

And just to clarify, I do not love his nuts.

@johnny: Do you hate making salad?

They need to market this car with the “E-Tron” name.

‘E-Tron’ > another boring alphanumeric.

I have always loved the R8.. but it will rapidly lose most of its cachet if the R4 comes to market looking just like it!

WTF @ 3,319 lb-ft or torque. If this is not a typo this thing can rotate earth

its not a typo, and btw, your average heavy duty semi truck only makes 1650 lb-ft, this e-tron makes more than double the lb-ft of a semi like this.

http://www.brucknersales.com/Upload/Uploads/8011_8011%20002.jpg

Not a typo. EVs are torquey, which is why they usually don’t have transmissions and therefore low top speeds. But this one has four motors.

I was skimming this article, and my eyes just bled after seeing 3.3k torque. I mean, the Tesla only has 200 lb ft….

Yeah GeL, and the Tesla Roadster is just about as quick and goes up to 100miles further on a charge. The E-tron is just sad in my eyes. It’s like AUDI is trying to make EVs look bad.

Wait till SSC rolls out their EV then we’ll have a game.

About the torque..electric motors make their peak torque at 0 RPM, and the torque decreases from there. And I would assume that the 3k peak is the combined peak output of all 4 motors. Regardless, thats a hell of a lot of torque–I like it.

3,319 lb-ft of torque, is that legal?

If someone floored it I would be afraid if an earthquake happened on the opposite side of the world

Oh, come on, guys. Top fuel dragsters have twice the torque this thing does. And although they rip your heart out of your chest from 5 miles away, they most certainly don’t “stop the world and melt with you.”

Keep in mind that there’s a point where street legal tires just can’t stick to the road anymore, which is probably why this doesn’t seem to perform as well as the Tesla Roadster. However, I’m betting that the monstrous torque actually translates into unreal handling ability, as the motors control the wheels separately.

Another thing: With 4 motors draining the batteries instead of one, I’d imagine the E-Tron has a shorter range than the Tesla Roadster. Yet everyone who’s ever talked about their experience with the Tesla at the track has said that the Tesla didn’t get anywhere near the range Tesla touts. I’m wondering if the E-Tron is actually a bit more realistic in their numbers. Just a thought…

I still can’t even comprehend what type of machine can measure that accurate amount of torque from a supercar. They must have used the same dyno Caterpillar uses for those massive dump trucks. Or they called Cern and borrowed the particle accelerator. Or something.

They probably just meaured it one wheel at a time, and added it up.

i’m sure this car goes about 4 feet if the motors are fed enough power to generate that much torque, at which point the wheels fly off in 4 different directions as well…

with 3,319 lb-ft of torque, you would think the 0-60 time would be a negative number

@ beatusmongous , 4 small motors may be more economical than a big one and because the motors are inside the wheels there is no parasitic power loss because of the transmission.

i expected a sub 4 seconds to 100km/h from all that torque… now the only problem electric cars have is the range and recharge times.

This is a hot car. Why can’t all cars look like this? They better produce it. I didn’t realize battery packs could weigh so heavy. Hopefully, with more advances, they can make them lighter in the next few yrs. That torque is outrageous. Even if it a little slower than the Tesla, 0-62 in 4.8 is not bad. I can accept that. But the price of the car, that would be another factor. I would say in the $50,000 range would be what the price point would be, if it is made that is.

@Scratchy, you may be right. However, I don’t think these motors are all that small. Heck, even at 1/3 the size of the Tesla motor, four motors would still require more energy. I think these are actually pretty big, though, and I am actually hoping the range they quote is realistic. As far as 0-60 times go, I think wheel spin is probably a major factor, especially with that kind of torque.

@NRG, because if all cars looked like this, we’d all fawn over the Toyota Sienna.

To everyone confused about the TORQUE:

“You see, Audi measures the E-tron’s 3319 lb-ft of torque at the wheels. Automobile Magazine—and any other automotive publication worth reading—reports peak torque at the output shaft of a motor or engine. The difference between torque at the wheels and at the powerplant is typically about ten-fold due to the torque multiplication effect of transmission and final drive gears. If we reported torque at the wheels, a manual-transmission 1.8-liter Toyota Corolla would be rated at 1747 lb-ft and a 3.6-liter Chevy Malibu would be right up with the E-tron, packing 3115 lb-ft of torque.” – automobilemag.com

@ beatusmongous , a possibility could be using two motors on normal cruising and city driving and all motors for the sport mode.

@Scratchy, most likely that’s the case. In fact, I believe I read about that earlier on here when they introduced the concept.

FN HYBRID PIECE OF CRAP….

I HATE YOU AL GORE….!!

RicerisNicer, the motors are in the wheels anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.

@Pazzo – Correction: it’s an EV. No combustion engine on it anywhere.

Oh, and I hate Al Gore, too.

I still think this car is pretty cool, though.

A radiator grille on an electric car? I think thats funny

RICERisNICER,

Torque does not quite work like that in a car. If that were the case F/econ would not be so fragile a thing as to crack the window will lose you 1-2 mpg or carrying an extra 50+lbs will impact acceleration and speed performance. In fact, very few cars can claim to make even as much at the wheel as the engines on the other end of the drive train otherwise most sports and performance cars should be knocking out 0-60 in under 3secs without trying.

The E-tron likely has very slow motors as electric motors make more torque to lower their max revs. This is not unlike torque leveraged Diesel or Gas ICEs, where they make most of their usable torque at a just above a fast idle. Motors though have excitingly broad torque bands spanning from under 1rpm to their designed max. But like an ICE, a motor will make less torque if it is capable of going faster with the same Voltage/Amperage.

Each of the 8 motors in the 8WD Ellica EV made only 80hp (Still looking for the torque spec on the motors but you can easily assume at least 100 lb/ft each) but each motor topped out at over 12,000Rpm. 0-62mph or 0-100Kph is about 4seconds with a top speed of 230mph. Range was only 120miles but governed to 190mph, it will go 200miles on a charge. The Ellica is a 5000+lb limo-sized car.

I’m going to say the motors in the E-tron are slow. Powerful as heck but slow.

Loco667,

One of the biggest errors that EV designers make is thinking that Motors need no cooling thus not cooling ducts, or allowance for radiators and such. Motors are more sensitive to cooling issues than ICEs and I predict that motors will have integrated cooling systems like ICEs in the near future, the next 2-3 years. This will help enormously with reliability, as heat will weaken magnets and cause what few moving parts there are to wear faster, and efficiency, heat causes electrical resistance in most conductors creating more heat like a heating element only making things worse.

The Tesla Roadster’s biggest problem is that the motor is literally buried inside the car with little or no cooling comparable to its actual needs. If Tesla fixes that, the car will not die of overheating and may go max out for over 100miles on a charge.

Well my point wasn’t really to say that the etron doesn’t have much torque but rather you can’t say 3319 ft-lbs torque and pretend it’s the same thing when you say a Volvo semi has 2000 ft-lbs torque. It’s not like you’re going to see e-trons hauling heavy loads (if by chance it actually had a decent range).

Also, does anyone know how fast this torque decreases as its revs increase?

RICERisNICER,

Generally, when someone makes a claim of engine power this is usually off a dyno. The GT-R35, one of the most heavily scrutinized cars in the last decade, really only puts around 400hp and 420lb/ft to the ground. It was setup to shift to manage its torque like it was propelled by a 400hp, 420lb/ft, electric motor. Thus you get a 3800-3900lb car that can do 0-60 in under four seconds.

In the case of the E-tron, it is going to be the case of the motors having their individual stats added together. With four motors that would average 829.75lb/ft and only 78.25Whp per motor. This assumes that the motors may NOT be identical on all four wheels. Again this does not mean that Torque spec is not for real. As I said before, I think the motors are slow. After all, there are lots of Gas cars that are just as quick and certainly faster with a little more than one-tenth the total torque. I named one, The GT-R35.

One of the issues of performance I had been looking at was whether having four less powerful motors working together added up to a being like having one massively powerful ICE or singular motor. It is my experience and understanding that Motors are extremely different from ICE’s in almost every way.

The short of it is, that because a Motor makes max or nearly max torque from 0rpm to max revs, and Horsepower is actually very similar in delivery, that teams of motors will not result in additive power, except if they are mated to the same input, a spur gear, a flywheel, an out drive, a wheel hub, etc. It’s like the E-tron is propelled by a single 78hp, 830lb/ft motor or engine. It’s got the torque to make it really give it get-up-and-go but has no horsepower for actual speed.

Blakkarr, I think what they were going for in this model was something akin to the vectored thrust of a Harrier. It’s almost like AWD to the extreme level, and I think it will effect handling in an absolutely nucking futs sort of way. I’m interested to see how this thing moves.

beatusmongous,

Actually I would get that if they said so themselves. It would be easy to use “torque vectoring”with independently powered and controlled motors. Sound familiar? NISSAN made a really huge deal about it for the GT-R35. But the GT-R35 uses a LOT of heavy and complicated hardware to do what four motors and a computer will do. A lot of stuff that can break and cost heaps to fix it if and it will does.

This system is going to behave like their Quattro system as traction enhancement not a substitute for All-Wheel Steering, as NISSAN’s does for the GT-R35. Its what they are familiar with and works better when deliberately driven to extremes. But because this car is not going to be that fast, drifting in the E-tron is NOT going to be an issue.

Impressive engineering and and an interesting color but if i could afford it, would still never buy one.

What I would like to see is a feature allowing the driver to switch between RWD, FWD and AWD spontaneously. If there’s no transmission to worry about then one should be able to flick a switch, so to speak, and turn a motor supplying direct power off or on. I think, theoretically, this would allow the driver more corrective power when experiencing loss off control in slides providing they don’t freak out and select the wrong mode.

Opinions? Anyone with more technical expertise have something to correct?