Ever wondered what would happen if you shoehorned four motors from Lucas di Grassi's Season 2 ABB FIA Formula E Championship car into a four-door family saloon? Well, wonder no more because the Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler driver and components company Schaeffler have partnered up to do just that.
Introducing the monstrous 4ePerformance concept. The Frankenstein-like Audi saloon sports four electric motors pulled from the Brazilian champ's car. With each motor producing 220kW, Schaeffler has divided them up with one per wheel, connecting them via a spur gear unit. The result? Nothing short of a whopping 880kW, which is equivalent to 1,184bhp. That's more power than a Ferrari 488 GTB and a Lamborghini Huracan put together, just to put things into perspective.
The whole package is powered by two batteries with a capacity of 64 kWh and, because there's one motor per wheel, there's torque vectoring, giving it the best chance of an effective blast off the line. So how fast are we talking? In short, very, very fast indeed. To go from a standstill to 200 km/h (124mph) takes - wait for it - less than 7 seconds. And remember, we're talking about a four-door saloon here.
While the 4ePerformance might be a concept, there is a good reason behind it. With the ABB FIA Formula E Championship serving as a testbed for car manufacturers to develop road-going technology, the idea was dreamt up by reigning Formula E champion Lucas di Grassi and Schaeffler CTO Prof. Peter Gutzmer, keen to see just how far they could push Formula E technology in a road car environment. “In the same way as Schaeffler has contributed its technical expertise to Formula E from the very beginning, it also plays a pioneering role and is a partner for components and complete system solutions when it comes to applying electric mobility to volume production vehicles and putting them on the road,” says Gutzmer.
With more manufacturers like Audi turning to electric to power future high-performance cars, don't rule out seeing something similar to Schaeffler's race-powered road car on a street near you soon. In the meantime, you'd best keep it locked to Formula E.