Trevor

...that there are up to 45 1.5-liter PET bottles in the seats of an Audi A3? Another 62 PET bottles are recycled for the carpet. ...that the Audi Q4 e-tron has a seat cover made of 45 percent recycled material? The Dinamica fabric looks and feels like suede, but is nearly half recycled polyester. This comes from textiles and PET bottles, for example. By the way, the trunk cover is also made of recycled material. The flooring even contains more than six kilograms of recycled material. …that the plastic filament used to make the thread for the seat covers in the A3 speeds through the spinnerets at 280 km/h? …that you can make pyrolysis oil out of plastic waste from automotive manufacturing? This can then be turned back into plastic. Audi discovered this in a pilot project with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and has already achieved initial success with it – the process is technically feasible, now the partners are working on scaling it up. …that old fishing nets are used in the production of the Audi e-tron GT? The carpet and floor mats are made of Econyl, a material that consists of 100 percent recycled nylon fibers. They come from production waste, fabric and carpet scraps, or plastic waste from the oceans. In addition, one of the Audi e-tron GT’s 20-inch wheels is made of aluminum manufactured in a low-carbon production process. ...that two used e-tron battery modules provide power to merchants in Uttar Pradesh, India, so they have electricity and can work at night? The Audi Environmental Foundation is providing funding to the German-Indian startup Nunam, which manufactures the energy storage systems. ...that the storage unit made from used lithium-ion batteries from Audi development vehicles on the Euref campus in Berlin, with its capacity of 1.9 MWh, could supply the entire 5.5-hectare campus with electricity for just under two hours on its own? ...that the Audi charging hub’s three storage cubes, with a combined capacity of 2.45 MWh, each require only a standard 400-volt high-voltage connection to power a total of six charging points with a charging output of up to 300 kW? …that at Audi’s Győr site, 36,400 solar cells produce 9.5 gigawatt hours of power annually on an area the size of about 22 soccer fields? …that around 507,000 tons of primary aluminum were produced in Germany in 2019? This required around 7.6 terawatt hours of power – slightly less than one nuclear power plant generates in a year. That’s why it’s worth collecting aluminum sheet scraps and remelting them. To this end, Audi introduced the “Aluminum Closed Loop” at its Neckarsulm site in 2017, and has now also implemented it in Ingolstadt (2020) and Győr (2021). This resulted in the net avoidance of a total of 165,000 metric tons of carbon emissions in 2020 alone.

On the way to its debut at the Dakar Rally in January 2022, the team of Audi Sport has taken another important step: The new Audi RS Q e-tron completed an eight-day endurance test in sweltering heat in Spain on gravel sections of the kind typically used in cross-country rallies The roll-out in Neuburg an der Donau on June 30 was an initial functional check for the innovative rally car. A test in the area of Magdeburg in mid-July was focused on gathering initial experiences on unpaved ground. Now the first test in realistic conditions followed at a test area near the Spanish city of Zaragoza. All three of Audi Sport’s driver teams took part in the test in Aragon. Dakar record winner Stéphane Peterhansel and his co-driver Edouard Boulanger drove the first stint from Friday to Sunday. Mattias Ekström and Emil Bergkvist took over the Audi RS Q e-tron on Monday for the next two test days. Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz concluded the intensive trials from Wednesday to Friday. The three driver teams were obviously impressed with the handling and reliability of the futuristic SUV on the fast gravel sections. “For a first test in proper conditions for the car I’m really happy how the car behaves already,” said Carlos Sainz on behalf of his fellow drivers. “I had a really good feeling straight away. Of course, there is fine-tuning to be done – but the starting point is good.” On the 10.5-mile long gravel sections, the Audi RS Q e-tron achieved a top speed of 112mph. In addition, temperatures of up to 34 degrees centigrade in the shade marked an initial litmus test for the cooling concept of the complex vehicle. “This test was focused on getting in as much driving as possible and detecting weak spots,” development engineer Arnau Niubó Bosch said after more than 1,000 test miles in extremely harsh conditions. “The next test in September will take us into the dunes for the first time.” The Audi RS Q e-tron uses an all-electric powertrain with two motor-generator units (MGU) from Formula E. The high-voltage battery that has been newly developed by Audi Sport is recharged while driving via an energy converter consisting of the efficient TFSI engine from the DTM and another MGU.