Monday, January 11, 2010

Lithium and REE: Detroit Auto Show: Audi’s Second Electric e-tron TNR.v, CZX.v, WLC.v, LI.v, RM.v, LMR.v, SQM, FMC, AVL.to, RES.v, QUC.v, HEV, AONE, F

Audi e-tron was unveiled in Frankfurt.

"We have tested our Next Big Thing idea with Macro View on Micro Cap and we have wrote about Electric cars intensively with our idea of Lithium and REE: How to invest in the Next Big Thing - Electric cars and Green Mobility Revolution. Now it is time to bring Political Will into the picture. We will make a few social economic observations crucial for our investment thesis and recent policies confirming our conclusions."


The Audi e-tron that was unveiled at the Detroit auto show on Monday. It is the second concept Audi has revealed with the e-tron name


Wheels:

"Detroit Auto Show: Audi’s Second Electric e-tron


DETROIT — Audi introduced a second electric car prototype in Detroit today, and it’s a family affair. Like the two-seater sports car Audi showed off recently in Frankfurt and Los Angeles, the new concept is also named e-tron. The automaker is not trying to be confusing, said Michael Dick, a member of Audi’s Management Board, interviewed in Detroit. Audi says that “e-tron” will be the name for a family of electric cars — hopefully to gain the same kind of resonance as “quattro” and “TDI.”
Mr. Dick describes the Detroit e-tron as a kind of mini R8, or alternately as the “little brother” of Audi’s other electric e-tron concept. “It is smaller and lighter than the other e-tron, and the technical investment is not so great,” he said. “It is completely new, and something of a scaling exercise from the other car.” The new e-tron, with two electric motors in the rear axle (the other e-tron has four motors), is capable of zero to 62 miles per hour in 5.9 seconds, with speed governed at 124 miles per hour. Range is estimated at 155 miles.
Weighing just under 3,000 pounds (with almost 900 pounds of batteries), the aluminum-and-plastic-bodied, rear-wheel-drive concept car has a combined output of 204 horsepower. A big 45-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack is behind the passenger compartment and in front of the rear axle.
“It is a little bit wider and flatter than the TT,” says Filip Brabec, general manager of product planning for Audi of America. “The DNA is closer to the R series, so it could be the second member of that family.”
Audi will produce at least 100 of the earlier and larger e-trons in a small series beginning in 2012. After that, Mr. Dick said “the customers will decide what happens next.” Audi seems interested in offering an e-tron to the public, but is unable to estimate the cost of such a production vehicle — other than to admit that it won’t be cheap. The market would be “for customers who like extraordinary and very sporty cars,” Mr. Dick said. “They’d have to be ready to invest a lot of money in a car that shows off all possibilities of the electrification of the automobile.”
That sounds a bit like the Tesla Roadster, and a production-line e-tron could occupy basically the same space in the firmament of electric exotica."

No comments: