Audi achieves first victory for a hybrid vehicle at Le Mans 24 hours race

Audi achieved a technological milestone in motorsport at the 80th running of the famous Le Mans 24 Hours in France when its hybrid drive vehicle, the Audi R18 e-tron quattro, triumphed for the first time. The four competing Audi R18 cars were the quickest and most reliable vehicles and after 24 hours occupied positions one, two, three and five.
June 19, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
RSS2125 Audi achieved a technological milestone in motorsport at the 80th running of the famous Le Mans 24 Hours in France when its hybrid drive vehicle, the Audi R18 e-tron quattro, triumphed for the first time. The four competing Audi R18 cars were the quickest and most reliable vehicles and after 24 hours occupied positions one, two, three and five.

"With the e-tron quattro in combination with ultra-lightweight design, we put a completely new technology on the grid and immediately won with it - this cannot be taken for granted by any means, particularly here at Le Mans,” commented Rupert Stadler, chairman of the board of management of Audi.

Operating at the rear of all four Audi R18 cars was the latest evolution of the compact V6 TDI engine with VTG mono turbocharger that was used at Le Mans for the first time in 2011. The new ultra-light transmission with a carbon fibre housing - a novelty in a Le Mans sports car - held up to the Le Mans endurance test covering a distance of 5,151 kilometres in all four vehicles without any problems.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Global number of car sharing users to reach 650 million by 2030
    March 12, 2015
    Car and ride sharing is just one example of the new on-demand economy allowing real-time matching of supply and demand through connected smartphone applications. According to ABI Research, successive forms of vehicle sharing approaches represent paradigm shifts in uptake and popularity; each new generation seeing adoption rates at least an order of magnitude larger than the previous: Car sharing 1.0 - street rental service: Cars parked on the street can be located, unlocked, used, and left behind. Examples
    Read More
  • All-electronic toll collection success in Denver
    January 30, 2012
    Teri England, Diamond Consulting Services Ltd, describes the E-470's switchover to all-electronic toll collection. In June 2007, the E-470 Public Highway Authority made the business decision to transition to an All-Electronic Toll Collection (AETC) system - in other words, become a cashless road.
    Read More
  • Same old mistakes? Try something new
    June 28, 2018
    There’s nothing for it: we need to talk about Mobility as a Service (MaaS). The late Stephen Hawking’s publisher once told him that his readership would be cut in half for every equation he put in a book. Well, here goes nothing… One of the most famous equations in physics is Isaac Newton’s Second Law of Motion: Force = mass x acceleration. With a little tweaking, I think we
    Read More
  • Strabag investing in Irish motorway network
    May 9, 2014
    Construction group Strabag, as part of the DirectRoute consortium, will finance, plan, build and operate the 57 kilometre long section of the Irish N17/N18 motorway between Gort and Tuam near Galwayon behalf of National Roads of Ireland. The public-private partnership (PPP) project has a total private sector investment value of about US$459 million.
    Read More

Highlighted Content