The 2021 championship is going to be an historic season for Formula E. For the first time ever, it will be held as an official FIA World Championship and Audi plans to dominate it with its new car.
The Audi e-tron FE07 that has been developed by Audi Sport will be incredibly fast as it will go from 0 to 62 mph in a just 2.8 seconds. It will be powered by the new MGU05 motor-generator unit, an electric one-speed drivetrain with an internal rotor concept, external magnets, a highly efficient cooling system and six electrical phases.
Even though this is the seventh year for Audi in the competition, this will be the first time ever that the vehicle powertrain will be fully developed by the German automaker, according to Stefan Aicher, Head of Development e-Drive at Audi Sport.
“The Audi e-tron FE07 has an all-new electric powertrain that was developed in-house for the first time,” he said. “We went to the limits in all areas of this project.”
The engineers led by Stefan Aicher focused on massively decreasing the weight from the previous unit by using lightweight materials and intelligent integration inside the vehicle.
“We were able to directly reinvest these savings in the new MGU for the benefit of enhanced efficiency,” Aicher said. “Even so, the new MGU inverter unit weighs less than 35 kilograms. This was an exceptional achievement by the whole team.”
The power unit is a true engineering wonder as it will be extremely light but also very powerful. According to Audi it will have a comparable power output of 250 kW. This is the most efficient powertrain that the Ingolstadt company has ever built.
Audi Sport has done extensive work with in-house test benches. They conducted numerous tough testing cycles where the entire powertrain was stressed to its limits in order to raise the whole high-voltage system to a maximum performance level. The results were outstanding according to Tristan Summerscale, Formula E Project Leader at Audi Sport.
“We have achieved an overall efficiency of more than 95 percent for our powertrain. The new MGU inverter unit has an efficiency of even more than 97 percent in all relevant driving conditions,” he said.
Visually, the Audi e-tron FE07 of Lucas di Grassi and René Rast is presented in a refreshed design. In addition to the elements in spectacular bright orange and the striking green from technology partner Schaeffler, the entire front end is given a white primer coat.
The e-tron FE07 will make its public debut on the racetrack in Valencia in December. Then we will have to wait until mid-January in Chile when the season will kick-off.