Audi R18 TDI Hybrid (Continued)

As I mentioned before, Audi designed and built two examples of their R18 Diesel-powered endurance race car with a hybrid drive train.  Now we find out that the hybrid system used in the R18 is very similar to the one used in the Porsche GT3 R Hybrid, which is not surprising, since both companies are part of the Volkwagen Group.  Autoblog tells us:

Unveiled yesterday, the R18 e-tron Quattro takes the same form as the conventionally powered R18 Ultra, but with one important difference: its TDI diesel engine is assisted by a regenerative braking system that gives it not only hybrid power but (through-the-road) all-wheel drive.

Schematic of Audi's Diesel-Hybrid racing power train.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm very excited about these new racers and the technological advancements they represent.  Unfortunately, I'll be "off the net" when the 24 Hours of Le Mans runs this June.

Oh, well.  I guess Aimee will just have to get me the highlights DVD as a present.  Hint, hint.

The Audi R18 TDI Ultra (left) and R18 e-tron Quattro endurance race cars.

The best thing about these cars is that the technology Audi developed for them will likely end up in street legal cars ordinary people can buy (okay, ordinary people with lots of money).  After all, Audi first developed "Quattro" (I have no idea why they insist on misspelling it) all-wheel-drive for rally racing, and their Diesel technology is slowly trickling back down to their street legal cars.

Man, I love racing!  Okay, not NASCAR.  NASCAR is crap.  The cars are far more antiquated than anything on the road (they just stopped using leaded gasoline a few years ago and they still use carburetors!) and all they do is drive in circles.  And to demonstrate how tough they are, they cancel a race any time a few drops of rain fall on the track.  Not even the perfumed princes of Formula 1 do that!

Anyway, racing is supposed to improve the breed.  That's its ultimate purpose; to develop technologies that are useful in production vehicles.  NASCAR can't do that because the rules keep the cars in the stone age.  Endurance racing, on the other hand, does.

Audi R18 TDI Hybrid

Revisiting the post on fast hybrids, now Audi confirms that their R18 TDI endurance racer will feature a hybrid electric drive system for 2012.

The diesel era at Le Mans may not be over yet, but already we're seeing the emergence of a new propulsion trend: hybrids. Toyota recently announced the TS030 Hybrid LMP1, Peugeot was working on a hybrid version of its 908 prototype before it killed the race program, and now Audi has confirmed a hybrid version of the R18 TDI.

Few details were released, but what we can tell you is that Audi will field four cars at Le Mans this year: two with hybrid assist and two without. One will be headlined by Allan McNish, one by Oliver Jarvis, one by Timo Bernhard and one by André Lotterer, with supplemental drivers to be announced sometime before the 80th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans kicks off in June.

I wonder why Audi went with two hybrids and two pure Diesels.  Maybe they're not convinced that hybrids are the way to go and want to test their viability against their well-tested, dominant counterparts.  I also wonder which drivers will be driving which cars.  After all, the skill and talent of the driver is still the most important variable in racing, and McNish is Audi's most experienced driver.  The car they give him to drive may indicate which they suspect is the best.

Here's Allan McNish explaining the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the coolest Audi commercial ever.
 

And here's the horrific crash that took him out of contention in 2011.

Fast Hybrids

These ain't no Prii, tree huggers!



Gotta love the Stig reference.  To be precise, they're not really testing which car is faster; meaning that they would test both cars for top speed.  They're actually testing which car is quicker.

According to the post-jump press release, the M35h is "faster" than the hybrid Panamera from 0-100 (11.54 seconds) and in the quarter mile (13.41 seconds).

On top of that, the EPA says the Infinity gets the better gas mileage of the two.

[T]he EPA estimates that the M35h will manage 27 miles per gallon in the city and 32 on the highway, for a combined rating of 29. The Porsche Panamera S Hybrid is rated at 22 city, 30 highway and 25 combined. 

Not that 32 mpg or 30 mpg on the highway are all that stellar.  But, I guess if you're rich and feel guilty about your sins against Gaia,  you can buy one of these to soothe your pseudo-Druid sensibilities while doing absolutely nothing to actually reduce your environmental impact.

Porsche GT3 R Hybrid

The article should've specified that the Infinity is the quickest production, street legal hybrid, because they're certainly slower than the Porsche GT3 R Hybrid.  The Wall Street Journal describes it this way:

What you have here is an experimental, 670-horsepower, all-wheel-drive, 2,860-pound gas-electric cyclone...

[U]nlike battery-equipped hybrids, the Porsche stores its amperage mechanically, spooling up a 31-pound flywheel operating in a vacuum chamber in (one hopes) a crash-proof box beside the driver. Under acceleration, the flywheel's enormous kinetic energy is converted back to electrons and returned to the front-wheel motors, helping the car go farther and faster. There is also the not-inconsiderable thrust provided by the 4.0-liter, 470-hp flat-six in the back, churning the rear wheels through a six-speed sequential gearbox. This car can accelerate and decelerate at about 1 g and corner at nearly 2 g, which is pretty physical, let me tell you. 

Audi's all-conquering R18 TDI; their third generation
Diesel (not hybrid) race car.

Most importantly, it's winning.  Why would a race car use a hybrid drive system designed to improve efficiency?  For the same reason Audi built a Diesel-powered race car - endurance racing.  When you race for many hours straight (the pinnacle of endurance racing, Le Mans, is a 24-hour race), making fewer pit stops can mean victory.

At the American Le Mans Series' six-hour endurance race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in September, the GT3 R Hybrid walked away from the field, posting the fastest laps in the GT class and stopping only three times for fuel, compared with other competitors' five or more stops.

Check it out in action.



Not to be outdone, Toyota, the king of hybrids, will return to Le Mans this year with their own hybrid race car.



And now Audi may add a hybrid system to the R18 TDI.

Greenie weenies whine incessantly about racing.  It's wasteful and unnecessary, they say.  What they don't realize is that racing is like natural selection accelerated, thus the old saying; "racing improves the breed".  Nothing improves things more quickly or effectively than intense competition (keep that in mind, Socialists).  They also fail to realize that the same technologies that make a car faster - light weight materials, low-friction materials, direct injection, turbocharging - are easily modified to improve efficiency.

Face it, tree huggers; racing is the best thing to happen to hybrids.