Audi unveils its RS Q E-Tron Dakar beast

Audi has dropped the curtain on its RS Q E-Tron, giving us our first complete look at the racecar it hopes will make it the first brand to win the world-famous Dakar rally with an electrified vehicle.

As these fresh images reveal, the RS Q E-Tron is an uncompromised take on a desert weapon not unlike Peugeot's 2016 contender. Audi has built it from the ground-up in less than 12 months for an attack on the two-week Dakar rally.

Besides a very compressed single frame grille at the front and contrived sport back silhouette, the RS Q E-Tron bears little resemblance to any Audi before it, be it on road or track.

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Audi says it’s so ground-breaking, sporting regulation did not exist for it when the project begun. Under that imposing carbon-fibre skin is a spaceframe chassis constructed around a driver’s cell, while the roof-mounted scoop hints at the huge cooling demands of the power unit below.

The general layout of the powertrain would be familiar to anyone versed in modern performance EVs, as two electric motors drive an axle each for computer controlled all-wheel drive. They can offer as much as 500kW combined, but the final output is still to be finalised.

The RS Q E-Tron diverges from other racecar hybrids, or EVs on this matter, with a four-cylinder petrol TFSI engine mounted mid-ships. Running between 4500rpm and 6000rpm, it’s responsible solely for charging the main 50kWh battery.

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The project is a segue from Audi Sport’s two outgoing motorsport projects. The electric motors and motor-generator unit hooked up to the petrol engine are pinched from its last-ever Formula E racer, while the engine is from its DTM campaign.

And if the name didn’t make it obvious, the Dakar program should feed into the brand’s electric ambitions to have 30 electric models on the road by 2025.

Pop-culture fans might remember the last time Audi’s Q, RS and E-Tron sub-brands joined forces in 2019, when Audi unveiled the RSQ E-Tron concept vehicle within the animation movie Spies in Disguise.

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Of course, that vehicle looked very different, with classic mid-engine proportions dictating the electric animated concept’s ground-hugging stance and features – and it was touted as autonomous, too.

This time around, the new RS Q E-Tron will very much be driver controlled, with an esteemed line-up of pilots planned to tackle the gruelling rally.

Audi has comprised its Dakar driver team with two-time WRC champion Carlos Sainz Snr, two-time DTM champion Mattias Ekstrom and 14-time Dakar winner Stephane Peterhansel.

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They will be matched with co-drivers Lucas Cruz, Emil Bergkvist and Edouard Boulanger.

The car has also been optimised for servicing during the race, and while things like sensors were eliminated where possible to reduce complexity Sven Quandt, the founder of rally partner Q Motorsport, says it’s still one of the most complex cars he has seen in his life.

The 2022 Dakar rally in Saudi Arabia will mark a return to roots for Audi, which has not been officially involved in top-level rallying since the Group B era with its Quattro S1.

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The brand name was re-introduced to the WRC recently, after Mattias Ekstrom launched an attack on Rally2 (WRC2) with a purpose-built Audi A1, with Bergkvist at the wheel – albeit, without factory support.

Whether this new Dakar effort will pave the way for an official return to the sport which made the quattro brand famous when WRC goes hybrid in 2022 remains to be seen.

For now, eyes remain fixed on the RS Q E-Tron as it undergoes an intensive testing schedule, including cross-country rallies, in the lead up to the Dakar rally in 2022, January 2-14.