Audi has won the Le Mans 24 Hours for the 11th time in 13 years, with victory this year going to André Lotterer, Benôit Tréluyer and Marcel Fassler (the same trio as won last year), but this year they were in an Audi R18 e-tron quattro, a hybrid which uses the Williams Hybrid Power flywheel KERS system. A second Audi R18 e-tron quattro finished second, driven by Tom Kristensen, Rinaldo Capello and Allan McNish.
It was the first year that hybrid vehicles have raced at Le Mans with WHP’s electromechanical hybrid flywheel system. The two Audi R18 e-tron quattro’s dominated the race from start to finish, only relinquishing the lead once for a few laps on Saturday night. The two hybrid cars fought a close run battle throughout the night during which the lead changed several times.
WHP designed an entirely new, ultra-lightweight electric flywheel and associated power electronics for the Audi R18 e-tron quattro, working closely with Audi engineers to fully integrate the system into the car. The key features and benefits of the WHP system are highly suited to endurance racing and this made the WHP flywheel the prime candidate for Audi’s project when compared to other technologies such as batteries, ultra-capacitors or mechanical flywheels.
“This is no doubt a historic victory for Audi,” said Dr Wolfgang Ullrich, Head of Audi Motorsport. “We were the first to win Le Mans with a direct-injection turbo gasoline engine and the first to be successful with a diesel engine. It’s a great result that Audi is now the first brand to have achieved victory with a hybrid vehicle – and right on the first run, as before with the two other technologies, and – what’s more – with both R18 e-tron quattro cars on the two top spots.”
Ian Foley, Managing Director of Williams Hybrid Power, said that it was “immensely satisfying” to see the system enjoying such success.
“Our flywheel technology started its life as a motorsport application and whilst it’s since been adapted for a variety of other purposes, motorsport will always be close to our heart and is the ultimate proving ground for our technology,” he said. “Hopefully we have shown that innovative hybrid systems not only help the environment, but give a race car a fundamental performance boost in terms of power injection and fuel saving.”
The other major news from the Le Mans 24 Hours was an accident which left Grand Prix driver turned F1 commentator Anthony Davidson with fractured 11th and 12th vertebrae after an accident early in the race when his Toyota TS030 Hybrid was in collision with the AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia GTC driven by Italian gentleman driver Piergiuseppe Perazzini. The collision occurred at the Mulsanne Kink and Davidson’s car was turned sideways and took off, flipping over before going into the barriers. Perazzini’s car hit the barrier close by and was flipped over by the tyres. Davidson hopes to be back in action in a couple of months.
but how did the hybrid compare with the non hybrid car on fuel? no figures
It won.
To be fair Joe, the balance of performance is highly skewered in favour of the manufacturers.
With four hybrid entries, it would have taken some rather odd events for them to lose.
As an aside, I am quite convinced that had the Audi Ultra been leading the E-Tron late into the race, there would simply have been a little bit of positional engineering to ensure the E-tron won anyway.
Leigh only 2 entries were hybrid and they finished 3 laps ahead of the first non-hybrid R18 (who had a largely untroubled race). The e-trons were faster and more fuel efficient. I’m sure they would have swapped them around if the R18 ultra was leading, especially after Toyota went out, but this was never the case (when I was watching). Excellent advert for the strength of the William’s KERS system.
Two Audi hybrid’s and two Toyota hybrid’s equals four hybrid entries.
The first non-hybrid R18 actually had quite a troubled race – it ought to have had, it hit the wall more than enough times.
It was great watching the sun rise on the circuit!… it’s a sad thing that it doesn’t get a bigger audience, It is an incredible event.
It used to, but the world seems to only have eyes for F1 these days. I’d like to know why myself, but, as F1 is going through substantial changes in terms broadcasters maybe there will be a chance for more car motorsport on free-air TV, including the BBC at some point which is sadly lacking apart from its F1 coverage. ITV does a good job with touring cars and they seem to have built a good audience – why not with sports cars, Indycars and so forth?
The last time it was FTA in the UK was 2001, when Channel 4 covered it surprisingly well, given that it’s a general-interest channel with other commitments on a Saturday evening. That year was, not coincidentally, the first time I took a proper interest in the race. The ACO’s own webcasts on DailyMotion supplemented by Radio Le Mans for English-language commentary are a reasonable substitute for those of us who know where to look, but as with F1, hiding it away won’t attract any new fans.
Good news for WHP. Pity they can’t make use of it in F1. I can’t help feeling that there’s more of the pioneering spirit that first attracted me to F1 thirty years ago around sportscars these days, what with that, the diesels, and the Delta Wing. F1′s hardly a spec. series yet, but when I look at the sheer variety on display at La Sarthe, I can’t help feeling that we’ve lost something.
Yes, radio le mans is the way to listen. In oz we had one of the free to air channels webcast the whole 24h from eurosport, which was nice of them. I just turned the sound down
How likely are we to see a VW group tie up with Williams? I understand that they are now tied in with Renault but surely a tie with VW is not out of the question?
i would say likely after renaults big announcement that come 2014 they cant supply four teams
Actually, current rules limit an engine manufacturer to supplying only three teams. Renault want that limit removed so they CAN supply more than three teams and spread costs over a larger customer base, possibly up to six teams.
Le Mans was a real showcase for the future of the automobile this year, with various hybrids, and the Nissan Deltawing.
Still, I’m sure the presence or not of small holes in the floor in the vicinity of the rear wheels have road car applications…
Hopefully the DeltaWing concept will inspire others to think ‘out of the box’ in order to ensure the long-term viability of a great sport.
As for the commercial viability of ‘small holes in the floor’ – might come in handy should rear-seat passengers suffer from travel sickness.
The ‘others’ to think ‘out of the box’ have to be the organisations that stage the events, be it Le Mans or F1, otherwise it just won’t happen. I mean Charles can’t even get the holes in the floor right!
Yes, I think the hybrid engine concept is perfectly suited to endurance racing, where the advantage of a lighter fuel load, and consumption, become apparent before our eyes.
Le Mans also requires a steady older head as well as a fleet foot, proving the wisdom of using mature drivers over “shavers”. The combined age of the winning Team this year is 144 years! Not a bad gross.
Ah!, sat working in Gouvieux right now. Are you up for a beer? (I can tell you where to visit in Rajasthan when you next go to Delhi as a trade)
I think that vertebral injuries are going to become an increasing feature of accidents to racing cars with ultra strong centre sections, which suffer either roll over or high G impacts. I have had this happen in a high G impact in a Lotus 62 and another family member has had it happen twice in roll over accidents, where the car landed back on its wheels in both cases.
I feel this another area to which perhaps, the FIA should be applying some modern safety technology. I wonder if there is a role for the sort of mini-airbags that Moto GP riders use, to cushion spinal impacts. If there was an airbag fired in the seat cushion, firstly this would tighten the over the shoulder belts, which is always desirable, secondly it would prevent any tendency for submarining and reduce the always painful compression from the crutch harness and finally as and when the car landed on its wheels again, would cushion the spine.
Any opinions?
Wilson
It is something that is on the increase. Also look to Justin Wilson’s IndyCar crash last year where he broke his back in a much smaller looking incident going over an access road.
There are a number of ways this can be tackled. Airbags are a good choice but even simple springs or shock absorbers could be enough when under the seat but held in place until required, then provide some cushioning. I wouldn’t be surprised if different solutions are required for different types of cars.
There is always another area that can be improved, no matter how good it is already.
Yes, I thought of using MotoGP back braces too, but I didn’t know they included air-bags, I assumed they were just some tough material acting as a brace.
An airbag firing in a racing car seat, and tightening the straps, could be as lethal as the impact itself: Instant asphyxiation, too dangerous.
There must be a safer method of shock absorption.
A fantastic result for Audi and Williams, but nowhere near as smooth as the results suggest. The Toyotas were more than competitive, which is in itself a huge achievement considering this is their first year, and had Davidson not been punted off they may well have taken the fight to Audi for much of the race. Toyota taking the lead from the Audis was done on merit, not luck. Then the Audi 2 and 3 cars contrived to almost remove themselves from the race, the #3 on more than one occasion.
Nevertheless, a huge result for Williams. Glad to see that their share price has taken a 2.3% uptick today, presumably on the back of the weekend (although the volumes are still piddling). I hope that gave Patrick Head some satisfaction as he’s now getting more involved in that side of their business. Well done all.
It looks as though it may have been the landing that injured Ant’s back rather than the abrupt halt in the tyres. It’s a sore one when the front right hand wheel hits the deck although he would have been properly knocked about throughout. He was lucky. The horror of it reminded me of watching Webber do his version.
completely unrelated but thought Joe and all the readers would get a chuckle.
http://livesniffpetrol.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/SPAD_LotusExigeS.jpg
To be fair, the Toyotas (using supercapacitors instead of a flywheel) were on the pace of the Audis in the first quarter of the race and briefly lead on merit…whether they would have made it to the end without reliability problems is questionable though. In any case, they probably did better than anybody expected them to do on their debut.
Fantastic demonstration of Audi’s and Williams’ engineering capabilities to be able to win first time out. Hopefully this will gain wider adoption into other applications in the future.
Terrible news about Ant. Wish him a speedy recovery. Le Mans is always so very dangerous, what with the various vehicle types & drivers.
I know this is off on a tangent, but does anyone else agree with me that the hideous fin on the LMP-1 (which is supposedly in place to prevent the cars from going airborne) could actually be the cause of Ant’s car going airborne? Having done quite a bit of sailing, I know that when one has a beam wind (coming towards the side of the vessel), the boat will heel over. The fins on the cars act just like a sail, causing the car to heel over, thus exposing the flat bottom at such an angle to build high pressure. This causes lift, therefore you have a flying car. Has nobody else thought of this?
A number of the Eurosport commentators mentioned that the ‘sail’ was ADDED to reduce the tendency of the LMP cars from getting airborne, and that Ant’s car appears to have clipped a kerb immediately before tipping up. I have to say, though, that your ‘beam wind’ logic makes a great deal of sense to me too.
Otherwise, this was the first time I’ve been able to watch significant parts of the Le Mans race, and I was impressed. I’ll definitely be ‘back’ next year, and will make more of an effort to see the final hour or two (hours 20-22 are impossible due to other commitments on a Sunday morning).
BenK
Yes, Ant’s car clipped a curb but I thought it came down square on it’s wheels, travelling sideways I think, before flipping. It’s an intresting theory but I just wonder whether it’s right. It needs some serious investigation though.
Martin
Intuitively it feels like it could have that effect. The idea of the fins was to stop cars yawing in the first place iirc, but if the car is forced broadside on to the direction of travel by an impact, you’d think the fin would help tilt up the ‘leading’ side of the car as you suggest.
On the other hand, you’ve got to think this was CFD’d and tested in wind tunnels before the rulebook was finalised. Surely.
Actually, I think the fin (ugly as it is) did a pretty good job of stalling the flight and bringing the car back down quickly – like McNish last year.
Joe, on the subject of France and motor racing, since you live there, who among the French commentators/journos/bloggers on F1 do you rate [if any]?
I dont read everything but I have a lot of time for Jean-Louis Moncet, Renaud de Laborderie and Cedric Voisard when it comes to news and politics.
Excellent post re airbags, Wilson. I know that Prof Watkins and Co looked at them for head-on accidents some years ago after the Zanardi Spa shunt in 1993 and Hakkinen’s in Adelaide, and came to the conclusion they weren’t appropriate, but it would be very interesting to hear some FIA safety peoples’ thoughts on this type of application.
It would also be a good idea not to have jodrell – sorry, gentleman – drivers at Le Mans who don’t think to look in their mirrors and open their ears before turning in. If I were driving there in such circumstances at Piergiuseppe Perazzini, I’d be looking behind me more than I would be looking in front.
Remember what happened to Mike Rockenfeller at Le Mans last year, too.
Good luck with the recovery, Ant.
To be fair David, Rocky was at fault for his Le Mans accident last year.
The lapped drivers are told to stay on the racing line and let the faster cars go around – that way it is much safer. Sadly, Rocky decided to ignore that advice.
In this instance, Perazzini seemed in two mind as to how quickly Davidson would make the bend. A shame – it’s probably best to chastise Perazzini rather than amateur drivers as a whole.
Realistically, it’s the Am drivers that are keeping much of GT racing alive. There’s certainly little appetite on the outside to watch endurance racing – which is sad, because it is brilliant to watch.
Toyota next year, with Porsche – acting as an Audi rival – in 2014. Mazda entering LMP2 from next year. Now this will be fun.
Nice hair Leigh.
Its one thing for lapped drivers to stay on their line but I think a degree of common sense needs to be applied as well. Mike was already going for the apex of that corner when Robert Kauffman closed the door on him. At the speed differential of the cars down on that approach to Indianapolis, its not possible for Mike to (in the words of DC) put his car in helicopter mode. Robert was removed from the race following that incident but I notice he was back on the weekend.
Hey Funkmother,
Thanks for noting my hair. The effort to sculpt it into place was worth it I see.
Regarding Kauffman, there has been a feeling that he may not have been excluded if it were a different category car to be honest.
I understand where you’re coming from with regards to Rocky, but (if I remember correctly), he had to dive hard over the apex to even just make it, which brought about his own accident.
Due to the weight of competition in the LMP1 category at Le Mans nowadays, the great race has become something along the lines of a 24 hour sprint race, rather than a test of endurance.
The forceful moves and errors from the likes of McNish, Rocky, Dumas (etc) are not just drivers earnestly attempting to get on with their race – the main event for some – but an indication of how competitors now run the event at 100% all of the time.
Dear “Pepsi” Tremors,
Refreshing to see your fizzy posting at OurJoes, however the juxtaposition of Cheshire’s renowned Radio Telescope with Italian incompetence is unfortunate product placement.
Regarding driver packaging: I wonder if some kind of spinal brace similar to the protection MotoGP riders wear would decrease spinal accident injuries in four wheelers?
I”d love to know this: is joddrel rhyming slang?
I believe the term is derived from Cockney Rhyming slang. Jodrell Bank, in Cheshire, is the location of the UK’s largest radio telescope. I can only speculate about what Jodrell Bank could be rhymed with.
My next project a hedgie named Jodrell Capital then . .
new one on me, but growing up hearing every rich kid proudly proclaim their daddy was a merchant banker was very choice amusement. Of course, I got to claim my daddy was a writer, cos I could prove that. No honor in public school, eh? Every year, another lot to snigger at . . even better, there was always a crew who took it upon themselves to be the hard lads, and effect parochial London accents. Was funny as f’k . . Not my native accent (got it down pat, dint my location, though, bummer being good at accents, get in a mess if someone thinks you are fluent and talks native to you abroad . .) but since pop and uncle grew up in the thick of it, uncle’s first job down the docks, I got to take the mick. Super handy when dealing with pain in the arse call centers, to sound not from where you are.
He must mean an American then – the rhyme would be Yank, surely…?
Cockneys in Cheshire? We don’t allow that sort of thing.
Besides, Londoners develop nosebleeds if they venture North of Camden.
Fake adoptive Londoner, here, be not of where you are, try a new perspective! Nice call, though, Colin. I know a Cockney (proper one, if they dropped a nuke on this place, I say they’d regenerate from a shard of his fingernail) who thinks people would question his sexuality if he went to Camden. Not kidding, the guy got divorced, couldn’t go home, sorted him out a place to stay that way, and he looked at me as if I was mad . .
Unless you are that Colin, once of Golders’ Green, ex Manchester and a total petrol head, drives rustbuckets to make them behave like rally cars, in which case there’s a bloke called Jonathan wants a word
Incidentally, not entirely fake. First recording of my family name dates to a church a short walk from here. Never knew. Wondered why felt good around this place . . just not born and bred. Sometimes, thankfully . . .
Well done audi for the wins and williams for their hybrid technology, you must remember toyota has a much bigger budget then williams do. So all said and done williams have made a much bigger leap then you think than toyota has. No offence, toyota performed remarkably well with capacitors, only a matter of time for diesel engines with hybrid technology to enter Formula One?. Would’nt it be interesting to watch diesel power and torque against petrol hybrid cars. Who knows maybe 2024 after 10 years of 1.6 litre v6 turbo petrol could be old hat???????????
Great for Team Willie…a life beyond F1!
Sorry for Davidson…that shunt happened so fast it took my breath away.
As a racing fan with a concern for the environment, I’m still not 100% convinced that the token efforts being made in motorsport are hitting the spot. The e-tron technology is merely a way of appearing to act but actually benefitting principally from a performance AND marketing point of view. There’s no harm in it, but I’d be more excited by forms of racing that served to genuinely lead to significant advances in road car design – e.g. safer, more affordable and workable hydrogen power, better batteries, better fuel consumption etc., although the racing itself might not be as good.
I have long believed that motorsport could and should be used to advance technology in a way that benefits everyone. Competition improves the breed without doubt.
The spectacle would probably suffer, the marketing man would be less interested, so the budget is probably not around.
I don’t buy for a minute the idea that Audi’s e-tron technology has in any way helped save the planet by winning Le Mans this weekend. Does anyone?
As with all new technology it is a question of chip, chip, chip
That’s true. Things like more affordable, more workable and better come with efficient design and production.
I’m a big fan of reducing the environmental impact but while we have motor racing series in which cars are air-freighted all over the world, efficiency measures are going to have little effect on the impact of motor racing itself.
One of the most frustrating things about motor racing series is that fact that they always seem to hamstring the innovation. Especially with this hybrid business I wish they would just have at it.
Depends on fleet replacement cycles, obviously ~ if we could miraculously swap out every motor on the road, tiny gains become significant. Japan thought this important enough to propel the Prius with subsidy to 38% of all car sales. I forget the swing, but this is one country moving the global numbers.
I don’t know enough, but it seems energy recovery can scale (maybe this is what they are working on) & haulage fleet is where I’d like to see this used. Maybe William’s flywheel can fulfil some of the function of the retarder HGVs need for a multiple win. That’s be something ultracapacitors cannot do. No word on testing for really big trucks, as yet.
I live above an intersection. If you read up on the diesel particle nasties, you’d be glad to see the back of those engine idling, and I shelled for the same (baby) air filtration sold to operating theaters and pump positive atmosphere into my place to push the crap out. (bad ass soot, and cleaning would be painting the Forth Bridge otherwise, justified in time saved, if not health fret)
Anyhow, longer term – and long term is where all the pension underfunding disaster is, not to mention the nutty Op Twist – changing respiratory problem numbers over 20 years is big money.
Globally, and obviously there are medium 20 to 30 yr nigh no hopers like China, given the universal not calming urbanification, one might change health and hence productivity in ways someone needs to get a properly qualified group together to see if it could be good money spent now to have fit people living well enough or longer to pay off the mess we’re in.
Going to ask my brother about what’s going on. Silly sod simply cannot mentally retire, and he did a huge amount of work on traffic following at intersections and the like, used to be invited regular to Tokyo on the back of that.
What I don’t believe, but for different reasons than daddycool states, is either the hype nor the immediate translation, nor any govvy policy, because this is a market of vested interests. I believe also the problems are not clearly stated, especially when it comes to secondary impacts, and the global warming /scratch that/ climate change /did the CFC ban cause the flip/ or are we cooling lot are too prominent in the debate. Meanwhile the active voting demographic in rich counties is still enjoying greatly extended life and for much of that world, unlimited insurance. The ROW has short termism ingrained. Plan to gen up on this far more, so I am just throwing thoughts, or clods of tar sand, against the wall.
Dotted around the place lately has been some very hard headed economic thinking. The reasons why the financial boys are a bit late to the blogging game are probably more how stuffed the markets are, than lack of savvy, but here’s a highly thought provoking and novel analysis as to what I started to extrapolate on a much longer timeline, about when we should have this new tech working good: http://brontecapital.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/macroeconomics-of-chinese-kleptocracy.html
I think part of the huge push now, also in terms of subsidy for “clean tech” is overcooked in many parts, cronied elsewhere, but sometimes you have to do something one fell swoop in a single term in office.
daddycool, this marketing maven / adman / sillius soddus is uninterested in the current media market for this, but highly interested in the next moves. I go so far as to speculate that clean tech public positioning is as much in support of research subsidy as it is selling the public, but I’ll take some cool racing any day.
I’m a big fan of Le Mans. I’ve always wanted to see it and managed to do so for the first time a few years ago. The last couple of years I’ve seen the whole race. Not in person unfortunately as I live on the other side of the planet and that kind of travel is not an option for me. Its an awesome spectacle though; one that is highly recommended.
FWIW I have been to lots of GP’s over the years and Le Mans once.
If I had the choice to go to only one more it would be Le Mans without a doubt.
A word of warning. If it’s hot don’t have steak tatare in the on site “restaurants”. I lost 7lb in 24 hours.
Sound advice.
Joe
What were your thoughts on the deltawing project. Do you see any future for them?
Why not?
There have been various rumours of possibly creating a category for the DeltaWing in ALMS. Also even quieter rumblings of some hook up with Audi in the future, although that far less likely.
I meant to ask if there are any +ve rumours at the moment.
On Eurosport the Nissan PR was very evasive on all questions about the DeltaWing project post-LeMans – which is a shame. It deserves further development and looks good. I know it’s small compared by the LMPs but how could have Nakajima forgotten it was on his right?. His lack of spacial awareness is frightening!. Heroic efforts by Motoyama to get it back to the pits. Seemed particularly unfair when the Audi No. 3 hits the concrete head on (twice!) and can limp back the nearly whole length of the track but a side-swipe and the DeltaWing couldn’t get a back few hundred metres.
The front no load tiny profile tire axel, and rear weighting have direct application in, or at least interest to, road cars. Where is the boot with all your clobber? Families with station wagons, small low loader vans. Tyrrell liked, and so did Nikki, the idea of smaller front tires. Less important the drag coefficient. Think they could do two hundredths better in the 1920s, and you could sit up. Also, though they chose to sell this aspect more, they basically had a tweaked regular road engine.
Aside, what maddens me is all the really pretty motors (of that I fancy) seem to come with bog standard 6.0 liter V12 biturbos. Nope, mate, I want this LMP tech stuff. I’ve had some big lump, silly cubic inch motors, and although undoubtedly all the amazing computers inside the new ones made for a great ride, give me a niftier smaller thing and a “driver aids off” switch, any day.
Be great if some of the engineering boys here could chime in. I’m delta winging it right out of the room . . .
Regarding Alastair Davidson – there has been very little comment on what a complete and utter prat the driver of the Ferrari was. This wasn’t ‘just the normal Le Mans thing’, it was totally avoidable. He should be publicly flogged and have mirrors permanently attached to his head until he learns to use them as a matter of routine.
IMHO.
Or even Anthony Davidson…
It’s not Williams first Le Man victory either, in 1999 they designed and built the BMW V12 LMR – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_V12_LMR
1999 was also the year Mark Webber and Peter Dumbreck took to performing backflips in the Mercedes CLR near Indianapolis corner and on the Mulsanne straight…
Just got back from my annual Le Mans pilgramage, another fantastic 4 days. F1 could learn alot from Le Mans, not just in terms of proving new technologies but in terms of racing spectacle and access for fans.
The LMP1 cars going through the Porsche Curves or Tetre Rouge are immense. To me they look much faster than F1. The GT Astons and Corvettes make an earth shattering sound.
A casual walk through the paddock on Friday (which is open to everyone) i bumped into the the entire Audi driver line-up Mcnish, Lotterer, Kristenson et al, also Fisichella, Brundle and his Son. Even spotted Collin Kolles (minus the naff hat). Race ticket for the weeks events and 24hrs 69 Euro!
Thats why ive stopped going to F1.
Is the paddock open to all on race day James?
Audi has won the Le Mans 24 Hours for the 11th time in 13 years now that is an amazing accomplishment.
Also, loved hearing the Race director in the audio feed – thats something F1 can learn from.
Joe, is there any chance that Williams and Audi working together is a beginning point for Audi to enter F1 as an engine supplier????
Chipping in, Jim,
I’m betting on the following scenario:
Williams have tech VW gruppen want. Only they are smart enough not to sell all their share public, so no takeovers, it takes time to develop.
VW is a highly political company, in which there are awesome pockets of tech, but with Peach at the helm, it’s political. He wanted his inheritance back, and he pretty much got it. What else is the Veyron but a total FU? Or buying Skoda, from way way back, before the wall. . .
So, VW can be a bit thin on tech strategy.
Recall how pissed Porsche was, enough to go for the worst stock heist ever?
Think family . .
I say it’s the other way around, that Williams will exit to VW.
Now, if the only way VW can seal that is to go into F1, maybe they will.
Read the characters, not the tealeaves, even if I am probably talking out of my backside.
p.s.
not AUDI. No, AUDI is in the absolute FU category of VW brands. All their road going tech was trialled in e.g. the Phaeton, the best Passat ever. Would have to compare to AUDI to MB, which is not their game.
real world FU would be a Skoda 1.6, flipping it for pure fun, switcharoo the brand associations to where you get volume,
Rodger Waters:
Fuck all that we’ve got to get on with these
Gotta compete with the wily Japanese.
There’s too many home fires burning
And not enough trees.
So fuck all that
We’ve go to get on with these.
What are the plans of Porsche? Do (will) they use the same system as e-tron?
As far as I am led to believe, Porsche will be operating as a separate unit in competition with Audi.
Whether that happens or not we’ll have to wait and see.