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Watch: Record-Holding Electric A3 Does Perfect, Stationary Donut

Remember that electric A3 that outran a GT2 RS in reverse a few weeks ago? Well, it’s back and the uncanny feats of speed continue.

As you’d expect, the only appropriate next feat is, as it has always been, doing a donut. And so it shall ever be.

Except that this is less like any automotive donut you’ve ever seen than it is like a skid steer’s. And, well, that’s because that’s what’s going on.

Unlike your average car, in which all of the wheels pretty much have to be moving in the same direction, the A3 shown here can make its wheels spin in different directions.

So, as was the case with the reverse drag race, it can make the wheels one side of the car spin backward with all the motors’ might, while the others spin forward. And as a result, it can spin like a top.

Along with just being kind of cool (and a little uncanny), the tiny donut shows just how effectively the car can differentiate power from one side to the other. In practice, that means this car can send more power to the outside wheels in a corner to make it go faster.

A Tweet in this thread claims that Audi had already pulled this trick off with the R8 e-tron, but this seems to be the first footage of something like this happening

The A3 was built by Schaeffler, one of Audi’s Formula E partners. Which may be where they got the Formula E motors that power this car from. With nearly 1,200 hp on tap, it’s less than surprising that this car is quick in any direction.

[via: Jalopnik]

The post Watch: Record-Holding Electric A3 Does Perfect, Stationary Donut appeared first on VWVortex.



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