Skip to main content

Audi PB 18 e-tron Marks Audi’s First Pebble Beach Debut

This wild concept car is the new Audi PB 18 e-tron concept which debuted today during the 2018 Monterey Car Week and is actually the automaker’s first exhibition of a concept car during the annual festivities.

They’re definitely making it count, as the PB 18 e-tron is an incredible attempt to fuse the world of Audi’s successful Le Mans-winning prototypes to a production car. It features some pretty wild technology including a solid-state battery and a mix of light-weight materials like aluminum and carbon fiber.

In contrast to many of the other concepts and debuts found throughout the industry, Audi claims this is a “Level Zero” on the SAE scale of automated vehicles, basically suggesting that this is an enthusiast-oriented, driver-focused vehicle. It has no heavy technology that assists with driving or comfort, and the driver’s seat can actually be moved to the center of the cockpit.

[See image gallery at www.vwvortex.com]

That’s possible due to the steer and throttle by wire system which allows for the repositioning of the driver’s seat and controls. When the seat is slid all the way to the side, it can allow for a passenger, as there is a three-point seatbelt for safety.

It’s designed to mimic a mid-engined race-car, with the center of gravity located behind the seats and ahead of the rear axle. This is made possible with that solid-state battery, a 95 kWh unit mounted mid-ship, which provides the juice to three electric motors that make a peak power figure of 671 ponies and 612 lb-ft of torque. Being an Audi, all four wheels are powered, and this concept would hit 62 MPH in two seconds.

Apparently, when it’s not driven in anger, the vehicle can travel over three hundred miles and can be charged in fifteen minutes using an 800-volt charging system, much like the Porsche Taycan. It also features wireless charging, which is convenient, if this was indeed a real car.

Being a road-car inspired by racers, it features push-rod suspension up front and pull-rod suspension for the rear wheels, and they are magnetically controlled of course. The 22-inch wheels are wrapped in wide rubber, 275 series up front and 315 in the back, and there are big 19-inch carbon disks to help slow the car down.

It’s a cool car and all, but let’s be serious, it isn’t real… but parts of it are quite possible. That powerplant can definitely be done in a modern vehicle, and we’ve been hearing about solid-state batteries entering the market any time now… it seems closer than ever.

It’s hard not to root for this kind of concept, not only because it’s Audi’s first Pebble Beach debut, but because it reminds enthusiasts that they are still appreciated by the big automakers.

a version of this article first appeared on AutoGuide

The post Audi PB 18 e-tron Marks Audi’s First Pebble Beach Debut appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex https://ift.tt/2o71riw
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Project SportWagen: Going Stage 2 with APR

    When we last left you, the humble little SportWagen was fresh from the development process with our friends at AWE Tuning, sporting a new downpipe, exhaust and intake, allowing things to breathe a bit easier.  The car sounded great, but there was no getting around the fact that our wagon was still quite, well, slow.   While we realize that nothing we do to the Golf SportWagen at this point will make it a race car, we still felt compelled to do something .  To put it bluntly, we had a fever, and the only cure was more power. Flash forward a few hours, and we found ourselves at Waterfest, staring down APR’s palatial spread and the numerous tuned vehicles surrounding it.  Earlier in the year, APR had hinted to us that their 1.8 TSI files would be quite impressive, and based on what they were able to do with the 2.0 TSI found in the new GTI and our time in their Golf R, we knew it’d be worth the wait.  So with this in mind, we lined our G...
Post a Comment
Read more

Volkswagen Group Records Best Ever First-Half-of-Year Sales

With 5.5 million vehicles in customer hands after the first six months of 2018, the Volkswagen Group is seeing the best performance of its history. Group deliveries increased significantly in all core regions,” said Fred Kappler, head of sales for the Group. “Our core brands recorded strong growth in the first half year.” For the year-to-date, all of Volkswagen’s brands had sales bumps. MAN, SEAT, and Skoda led the sales charge with performances 24%, 17% and 11% better than the previous year. The big sellers, too, had strong sales periods, with Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Audi, and Volkswagen sales rising 3.5%, 4.5% and 6.3% respectively. That last figure is particularly good new for the board, since Volkswagen alone sold more than 3 million vehicles in the first half of 2018. As Kappler stated, the numbers are equally good when you break sales down by region. Brazil and Russia were the most improved markets (22% and 20%, respectively), while strong sales in Europe and China (u...
2 comments
Read more

Project Golf SportWagen- Intro

I’ve never really been one for SUVs and crossovers.  The current offerings aren’t the body-on-frame, go-anywhere specialty tools I remember from my youth, and what they lack in capability, they also lack in on-road performance. The current crop isn’t terribly good at handling or being efficient, which in my opinion are major components of our ideal driving experience.  So when it comes to space or utility, I usually look for something of the wagon variety- and it seems that I’m not alone. We hit quite a few shows around the east coast each summer, and we see modified Jetta SportWagens at nearly every event. Even amongst common consumers, these cars are highly sought-after. They don’t depreciate much, making even early Mk 5 2.5 versions expensive in comparison to other Jettas or Golfs of the same vintage. This year, Volkswagen launched their latest SportWagen, which is now billed as a Golf.  In many ways, this latest SportWagen is the best yet and it has certai...
Post a Comment
Read more