Audi will reveal a new concept this month during the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. It will be an electric-drive supercar concept. It is called the PB 18 E-Tron. PB refers to the Pebble Beach venue of the event and 18 stands for the year of its unveiling.
Audi says that the prototype will serve as a “design study for a puristic sports car of the future.”
By now, we only know that the car will be equipped with some pieces of the technology used in the Le Mans-series winner R18 E-Tron and that the car was designed and conceived by the new Audi Design Loft down the coast in Malibu. All we know about the design is the silhouettes we have seen on a darkened teaser image. It shows a road-going car with a squat profile, elegant and aggressive slime LED headlights, bulging wheel arches, and a raised rear spoiler.
The R18 E-Tron racer used a hybrid technology. Audi used 4.0L V6 TDI with an electric turbocharger. Therefore, there are possibilities that we can see a similar powertrain in the next hybrid. Another member of E-Tron family, crossover prototype, was rated at 248 of range on the European WLTP cycle from its 95-kWh battery and dual motors.
Actually, PB 18 E-Tron will not be their first electric-drive supercar. They built and sold a battery-powered version of the Audi R8 marketed as the ‘Audi E-Tron’.
The Audi E-Tron was first unveiled in 2009. The German automaker claimed it could travel up to 280 miles on a single charge and accelerate from 0 to 62 mph in 3.9 seconds, with a top speed of 155 mph. However, the vehicle failed and sold less than 100 units in two years. It wasn’t surprising since it was selling for 1 million euros.
The debut of the electric-drive supercar concept will be on Aug. 23 at the Laguna Seca racetrack, if not earlier.
[Via Autoblog]
