Audi and Hino aim hybrids at Dakar

A scene from the all-time classic race flick, Ben Hur. 

Ever since the first nameless charioteer rubbed sheep fat on his axles for a bit of extra speed in the Greek Olympics over 2 700 years  ago, racing is where new vehicle technology gets tested.

Continuing this ancient tradition, Audi Sport and Hino have announced they will be adding new hybrid fat to the racing fire with an petrol-electric car and a diesel-electric hybrid truck.

Audi Sport plans to race the Audi RS Q e-tron in the Dakar Rally in January 2022. The company said in a statement that it wants to be the first car manufacturer to use an electrified drivetrain in combination with an efficient energy converter to compete for overall victory against conventionally-powered competitors in the world’s toughest rally. 

The Audi RS Q e-tron.

“The quattro was a game-changer for the World Rally Championship. Audi was the first brand to win the Le Mans 24 Hours with an electrified drivetrain. Now, we want to usher in a new era at the Dakar Rally, while testing and further developing our e-tron technology under extreme conditions,” said MD of Audi Sport, Julius Seebach. 

“Our RS Q e-tron was created on a blank sheet of paper in record time and stands for Vorsprung durch Technik.”

The RS Q e-tron will not be the first electric car to race in the Dakar. That honour goes to Spanish-based global group Acciona, whose all-electric car managed to finished the 2017 Dakar in South America without burning a drop of fossil fuel. 

The Acciona came in last, but it finished a race which saw 26% of the field retire.

In what many fans will see as sacrilege, Audi will use its TFSI engine  as a generator to charge the high-voltage battery during the rally. 

The Acciona all-electric car during the 2017 Dakar. 

Audi said that since the small internal combustion engine will run in the particularly efficient range of between 4 500 and 6 000 rpm, the specific consumption will be well below 200 grams per kWh.

The 50 kWh battery powers motor-generator units mounted on both the front and rear axles. These units were developed for the current Audi e-tron FE07 Formula E car, which has been developed by Audi Sport for the 2021 season. Only minor modifications had to be made to use the MGU in the Dakar Rally, said Audi.

A third motor generator is part of the energy converter and serves to recharge the high-voltage, 370 kg  battery while driving. 

“The battery is also a proprietary development that we have realised together with a partner,” said Stefan Dreyer, head of development at Audi Sport for motorsport projects. 

“As engineers, we basically see development potential in every component. But in terms of the drivetrain system, we have already achieved a system efficiency of over 97% in Formula E. There’s not much more room for improvement. The situation is quite different with the battery and energy management. This is where the greatest development potential lies in electro-mobility in general. What we learn from the extremely challenging Dakar project will flow into future production models. As always, we are also working closely with our colleagues from road car development on this project.”

The maximum system power of the e-drivetrain is 500 kW. How much of this may be used during the Dakar Rally is still being finalised by the organisers. 

Only one gear forward

Of interest to racers is that the Audi RS Q e-tron only needs one forward gear. 

The front and rear axles are not mechanically connected, as is also common in electric vehicles. 

The software developed by Audi takes over the torque distribution between the axles and thus creates a virtual and freely configurable centre differential, which has the positive side-effect of being able to save the weight and space that would have been required by propshafts and a mechanical differential.

Team principal Sven Quandt said the electric drivetrain requires a lot of different systems to communicate with each other. “Besides reliability, which is paramount in the Dakar Rally, that’s our biggest challenge in the coming months,” Quandt said.

Quandt compared Audi’s Dakar project to the first moon landing: “Back then, the engineers didn’t really know what was coming. It’s similar with us. If we finish the first Dakar event, that’s already a success.”

Hino's hybrid diesel-electric Dakar entry.

Hino race in the big league

Hino Motors, a regular competitor in the gruelling Dakar Rally since 1991, will enter its first diesel-electric hybrid truck in next year’s Dakar. 

Diesel electric hybrids have been proven for decades in harsh transport conditions, with the giant trucks in pit mines, as well as diesel-electric trains, using this combination of power sources. 

Hino races its 500-Series 4x4, powered by a 550 kW (738 bhp)  9-litre turbocharged diesel engine in the 2020 Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia. 

The new hybrid power unit makes 794 kW (1 065 bhp), which means the Japanese truck builder will be challenging the Russian and Dutch trucks with engines of more than 10-litre capacity for the first time.

Hino is already selling the hybrid power train in its 600-Series, but only in the United States. 

Experienced Dakar racer Teruhito Sugawara of Hino Team Sugawara, will steer the hybrid truck in the Dakar. Hino has been very secretive about its new race truck.

“Up until now our hybrid truck has been built and developed by a well-qualified and experienced team of engineers and technicians under a cloak of secrecy, and will only debut at the 2022 Dakar Rally,” said Teruh Sugawara who has competed in the past 22 Dakar races.

Hino last won the truck category in the Dakar Rally in 1997, when the 8 015 km route in Africa went from Dakar in Senegal, to Agadez in Niger, and then back to finish in Dakar. 

Three Hino 500-Series took first, second and third places overall in this event, a feat that was only equalled by Kamaz in 2011, and repeated by the same Russian truck in 2013.