“A little late to the party” you might be saying but fear not, Audi will be making quite an entrance. I swear, having seen and experienced what I did on this faithful day, Audi has been planning this electrified onslaught from the very beginning. It's as if they had stood on the sidelines, carefully and wisely, waiting for the right moment to pounce. That moment is right around the bend.
Electromobility is what they call it and, my guess is, that it will be a word that shall soon be accepted by the spell-check on my laptop. In a very brief nutshell, this term encompasses all vehicles that will have some form of electric propulsion or assistance.
Along with its four pillars of sustainable mobility, TFSI, TDI, biofuels and e-tron, Audi will address four areas of action, if you will: a range of 200 km or less, intermediate distances, range-challenged technology (EVs with range extenders) and long distances which they equate to 500+ km.
Audi is basically setting down a platform on which they consider they will be best positioned when the electrification of the automobile reaches its first peak which will be, according to them, in 2020.
In the course of the Audi Tech Day, we were schooled in technology, limitations, performance, reliability, efficiency, batteries, cooling; essentially a complete barrage of information that helped us understand the true complexity behind simply plugging in your car overnight to refill the battery pack or driving a nowadays common hybrid vehicle.
The first lesson involved the core of any electrified vehicle, the batteries themselves. Lithium-ion, a blend of elements that has become a household name, was described as, for the moment, offering the best energy density (volume vs power). Funnily enough, we also learned that chocolate holds more energy than lithium-ion which begged the question as to why battery packs were not made of...
The key element with the batteries is longevity. To ensure that the expensive pack lasts 8, 10 or even 15 years, it needs to be constantly monitored. The cells are perpetually kept in check with sensors, actuators and, lots and lots of cooling. I knew batteries had optimal operating temperatures, but I had no idea that a separate, independent cooling system (which in and of its own consumes enormous amounts of energy) existed for the pack. Furthermore, the cells can be cooled from between, from the bottom and the top, all this to ensure equal ageing of the cells. The Audi reps said it best when they described that a battery's performance is only as good as its worse cell. By the way, did you know that the by-product of charging a battery is heat? More cooling!
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| Photo: Audi |
Electromobility is what they call it and, my guess is, that it will be a word that shall soon be accepted by the spell-check on my laptop. In a very brief nutshell, this term encompasses all vehicles that will have some form of electric propulsion or assistance.
Along with its four pillars of sustainable mobility, TFSI, TDI, biofuels and e-tron, Audi will address four areas of action, if you will: a range of 200 km or less, intermediate distances, range-challenged technology (EVs with range extenders) and long distances which they equate to 500+ km.
Audi is basically setting down a platform on which they consider they will be best positioned when the electrification of the automobile reaches its first peak which will be, according to them, in 2020.
In the course of the Audi Tech Day, we were schooled in technology, limitations, performance, reliability, efficiency, batteries, cooling; essentially a complete barrage of information that helped us understand the true complexity behind simply plugging in your car overnight to refill the battery pack or driving a nowadays common hybrid vehicle.
The first lesson involved the core of any electrified vehicle, the batteries themselves. Lithium-ion, a blend of elements that has become a household name, was described as, for the moment, offering the best energy density (volume vs power). Funnily enough, we also learned that chocolate holds more energy than lithium-ion which begged the question as to why battery packs were not made of...
The key element with the batteries is longevity. To ensure that the expensive pack lasts 8, 10 or even 15 years, it needs to be constantly monitored. The cells are perpetually kept in check with sensors, actuators and, lots and lots of cooling. I knew batteries had optimal operating temperatures, but I had no idea that a separate, independent cooling system (which in and of its own consumes enormous amounts of energy) existed for the pack. Furthermore, the cells can be cooled from between, from the bottom and the top, all this to ensure equal ageing of the cells. The Audi reps said it best when they described that a battery's performance is only as good as its worse cell. By the way, did you know that the by-product of charging a battery is heat? More cooling!
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| Photo: Audi |