VW fully electric sports car

Volkswagen reveals its fully-electric super sports car, the I.D. R Pikes Peak.

With 500 kW (680 hp), 650 Nm of torque and weighing less than 1,100 kg, the super sports car will take on the iconic Pikes Peak hill climb in Colorado Springs, USA, in June 2018. The goal is to beat the existing record of 8:57.118 minutes for electric cars. To achieve this, the I.D. R Pikes Peak will race 0 to 100 km/h in 2.25 seconds, which is faster than Formula 1 and Formula E cars.

‘The car looks fantastic and has already been attracting a lot of interest from the media and on social media channels for a few weeks,’ said Jürgen Stackmann, member of the board of management of the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand. ‘This project shows once again that Volkswagen is on the right track with its major E-mobility strategy and the introduction of the I.D. family. The I.D. R Pikes Peak and the start at the most iconic hill climb in the world offers Volkswagen the magnificent opportunity to charge the topic of E-mobility, both emotionally and from a sporting perspective.’

The I.D. R Pikes Peak features two electric engines, generating a system capacity of 500 kW (680 hp). As in production vehicles with electric drive, lithium-ion batteries are used as the energy storage system. Their power density is the crucial factor for the system when producing high voltage. Unlike in the manufacturing of production vehicles, the goal of the motorsport engineers was not maximum range, but the highest possible power output on the way to the Pikes Peak summit.

Roughly 20% of the electric energy required is generated during the 20-kilometre drive. The key here is energy recovery: when braking, the electric engines convert some of the braking energy into electricity and feed this into the battery.

Romain Dumas will be driving the Volkswagen I.D. R Pikes Peak for the attempt to break the existing record for electric cars.