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The Volkswagen I.D. R, an electric race car that looks like a cross between an iMac and the Batmobile, has just made history.
Led by French race driver Romain Dumas, the ID R broke the overall record at the 2018 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The electric VW covered the 12.4 mile course in 7: 57.148, not only canceling the record previous 8: 57.118 for the electric cars that Volkswagen tried to beat, but winning the title of the fastest car of the season.
Pikes Peak is the second oldest race in the United States (after the Indianapolis 500), and one of the toughest. It's also one of the few where electric cars compete head-to-head with good internal combustion. The VW R ID car beating to take the registration was the Peugeot 208 T16, which was powered by a 875 horsepower twin-turbo V6 and went up Pikes Peak in 8: 13,878 in 2013 in the hands of a other French, Sebastian Loeb.
VW's dominant win should clear any doubt that electric cars can match the performance of gasoline or diesel – even in one of the world's toughest races. And VW claims I.D. R will inform the development of its future production electric cars.
Why Pikes Peak?
Volkswagen Motorsports director, Sven Smeets, told Digital Trends that the brand has come to Pikes Peak for the challenge it represents for both man and machine and for ongoing business.
"The biggest obstacle, in fact, was the weather."
"Thirty years ago we did not reach the summit, it was something we wanted to settle," said Smeets. In 1985 Volkswagen was introduced to Pikes Peak with a monstrous twin-engine Golf twin engine; a motor powered each axle. This unorthodox (but somewhat surprising, and not unique) all-wheel drive approach did not allow VW to win that year or the automaker's return in 1986 and 1987. In its final year of competition, the Golf has only broken a few bends of the finish line.
As VW's previous experience has proven, finishing Pikes Peak is a success. The pilots do not face each other; they run against the mountain. The route includes 156 bends, some with steep cliffs just beyond the road. Any pilot who crashes through the barrier at the corner of the well-appointed Bottomless Pit faces a 2,500 foot drop. But as the I.D. R rolled off the stands, the weather was the biggest concern of the VW team.
While team members and reporters stood around the Volkswagen pit waiting for the ID. R was released for his run up the mountain, all eyes sprang from the smooth racing car to the clouds that slowly replaced the blue sky. From the starting line to the finish line, the Pikes Peak course rises to 4,725 feet over its 12.4 miles, and the weather can vary greatly on different parts of the course.
"The biggest obstacle, in fact, was the weather," said Smeets after the record.
But the climate at Pikes Peak also provides electric cars with an important advantage. The summit of Pikes Peak is 14,115 feet above sea level and, like humans, internal combustion engines may have difficulty breathing at such a high altitude. While gasoline and diesel cars can lose power in the air, electric cars like the R-ID are not affected because they do not need air to generate motion toward l & # 39; before.
That's why competitors have been racing electric cars at Pikes Peak for decades. The first electric car to climb was a Sears XDH-1 – a Fiat 128 coupe converted into electricity by Sears, Roebuck and Company. The rise of Pikes Peak took 35 minutes in 1981. In 2016, the New Zealander Rhys Millen's eO PP100 crossed the mountain in 8: 57.118, setting a record for electric cars without overshadowing the overall record of Sebastian Loeb and Peugeot. . Enter Volkswagen, Romain Dumas and ID. R.
Identity R
To understand why VW built the I.D. R, you need to go back to "Dieselgate". After being caught using illegal "Defeat Device" software in its diesel cars to cheat on US emissions tests, Volkswagen has existed under a cloud of suspicion as thick and toxic as the darkest diesel smoke. But business leaders are trying to turn things around positively.
"The diesel crisis is potentially a kind of awakening."
"The diesel crisis is potentially a kind of awakening, which now gives us the momentum and the consequence towards something that we probably would not have done in the same rhythm without this unfortunate disappointment," Hinrich Woebcken, President and CEO of the Volkswagen Group of America, said.
In order to show that he was doing the housework, VW put more emphasis on electric cars, promising to launch a handful of new models in the early 2020's. What better to prove the car manufacturer was serious about going electric (and against the persistent elements of the scandal) than to beat the record of the electric car at Pikes Peak?
Volkswagen announced its Pikes Peak plans in October 2017, and the I.D. R was shown in public six months later. The car was designed for the Pikes Peak Unlimited class, which means that everything is fine as long as certain safety rules are followed. Thus, VW built a car with two electric motors – one fueling each axle – developing a combined horsepower of 680 horsepower and 479 lb-ft of torque. The car weighs around 2400 pounds thanks to the intensive use of carbon fiber that helps counteract the weight of its lithium-ion battery.
Off the line, Volkswagen claims I.D. R will make zero at 62 mph in 2.25 seconds. It's faster than a Formula 1 car, although some production cars are getting closer. The maximum speed is estimated at less than 150 mph. The car is not based on any production model, and VW has used this clean sheet to develop elaborate aerodynamic elements that generate massive amounts of support, helping to stick the ID. R on the sidewalk once it's ready. Porsche has contributed some of its expertise to the Pikes Peak project, but the R shares none with the 919 Hybrid that won the Le Mans.
"We knew after qualifying [runs] that the car had a huge potential. "
Even the best race car is useless without a good driver, and Volkswagen has also done it. Driving the I.D. R was Romain Dumas, three-time winner of Pikes Peak, and two-time winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In 2018, Dumas was the reigning Pikes Peak champion two years in a row. Not a bad resume.
Until the moment Dumas left the starting line, Volkswagen executives insisted that they were only interested in breaking the record for electric cars, not the general record of Pikes Peak, which required a lot more time. While the I.D. R had been extensively tested and completed qualifying practice on sections of the course, it had never run in one shot before race day.
"Of course, we knew after qualifying [runs] that the car had a huge potential. But with all we needed to do to make sure we were on top, no, [record] the weather was not on our map, "Smeets said.
L & # 39; s future
"The countdown to the future has begun today," said Woebcken in the Volkswagen pit after the record crush. "This ID[R] is a messenger for the big family of electric cars that arrive on the road for American customers. "
Indeed, Volkswagen plans to launch a I.D. family of electric cars based on a new platform called MEB over the next few years. Everything will be inspired by recent concept cars, including the I.D. hatchback, I.D. Cross Crozz, I.D. Vizzion sedan, and the I.D. Buzz. Woebcken said that, for the moment, VW's electric models will probably not become bigger than the compact model ID. Buzz, a modern interpretation of the iconic Bus Back. Internal combustion models will continue to occupy larger vehicle segments and, like most other automakers, VW is planning more SUVs to meet insatiable consumer demand.
"We do not see a rapid transformation … into electric cars," said Woebcken at a media roundtable, predicting that electric and internal combustion cars will continue to coexist for many years. Even if Volkswagen decided to make its entire range fully electric, it would take time to imbue the road models with the technology of a race car built for this purpose, such as ID. R.
Volkswagen is heading for an electric future, but it will take much longer to get there than for ID. R to get to the top of Pikes Peak.
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