It started life as a series of binary surges inside Sony’s popular racing simulator; Gran Turismo, but now Audi has announced that its e-tron Vision Gran Turismo will make an appearance at the Rome leg of the Formula E championship.
The e-tron Vision Gran Turismo was originally created by Audi’s designers to form part of the ‘Vision Gran Turismo’ competition that celebrated the 15th anniversary of the ever-so-popular GT video game. While several other full-scale concept cars were also built for this competition, the e-tron Vision Gran Turismo is the first fully functional vehicle of its kind that will attack the tarmac around real-world race tracks.
According to design chief at Audi, Marc Lichte, the design freedom they enjoyed with this project also came with a unique set of challenges since they wanted to create something that worked as more than just a design statement.
“Although the design of a virtual vehicle allows much greater freedom, we didn’t want to put a purely fictitious concept on wheels. The aim was a fully functional car,” Lichte explained.
The Audi e-tron Vision GT is also not just functional but blistering quick. The electric car is powered by three electric motors, each capable of producing 200 kW for a combined output of 600 kW, which is then transferred to the road using Audi’s permanent all-wheel drive technology. The result is a brisk 2.5 second sprint from zero to 100 km/h.
The GT version of Audi’s first all-electric car will be sharing the spotlight with the Formula E racers at all 2018 Formula E European races.
