VW unwraps new electric racer for Pikes Peak climb
Purpose-built car has two motors delivering a combined 680 horsepower
“It lasts 20 kilometres. You only have one shot. It’s an immense amount of pressure. It’s completely different compared to other types of racing.”
These words take on a much stronger meaning when they’re spoken by Romain Dumas, a French pilot who has competed in most of the world’s top motorsport events over the course of his career. This summer, on June 24, he will race in the Pikes Peak hill climb, held annually in Colorado, behind the wheel of a battery-electric, LMP1-like prototype named Volkswagen I.D. R.
Dumas has three Pikes Peak victories on his resume, so he’s no stranger to the course. However, racing an electric car represents a new challenge for the 40-year old pilot.
“You have several points of reference when you’re racing. The engine’s noise, the transmission’s gears, and the landscape. The landscape is all you have left in an electric car. When you’re on a track, you quickly get the hang of it because you’re essentially going around in a circle, so you’re regularly driving past the same trees or signs. That won’t help you when you’re going up Pikes Peak,” he explains.
Dumas drove the I.D. R for the first time shortly after it broke cover in the south of France. He says the testing phase secretly began in November with a heavily modified Golf that swapped its four-cylinder engine for a battery pack and a motor. It was much heavier than the I.D. but it gave him an early taste of what it’s like to race an EV.
The I.D. R wears a familiar face that brings it in line with Volkswagen’s recent string of concept cars, including the I.D. Crozz and the I.D. Buzz. The similarities stop there. Built in-house, the R does not ride on the modular MEB platform and it’s not ready for autonomous driving software. It won’t join a car-sharing program, either.
It’s a low-slung, carbon fibre-
It lasts 20 kilometres. You only have one shot. It’s an immense amount of pressure. It’s completely different compared to other types of racing.
monster powered by two electric motors that deliver a combined output of 680 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque to the four wheels. While other cars on the run will have more power, getting more from the twin motors would mean using a larger battery, which adds considerable mass.
“Weight is the biggest enemy,” Sven Smeets, the director of Volkswagen Motorsport, explained after the car’s unveiling. “In an electric car, the battery is the heaviest part, so we had to find the best compromise in terms of battery weight, battery capacity, and maximum power. That was the biggest challenge for our team.”
The roughly 1,100-kilogram I.D. R takes 2.25 seconds to reach 100 km/h from a stop, meaning it’s faster than a Formula One car. It goes on to a top speed of 240 km/ h. Significantly, going electric ensures it will deliver the exact same performance figures regardless of altitude, a real boon on a course like Pikes Peak, which starts at 2,862 metres above sea level and ends at about 4,300 metres.
With that said, Volkswagen warns the 2.25-second figure largely depends on the level of available grip. François-Xavier Demaison, Volkswagen Motorsport’s technical director, tells us rain showers on race day could significantly complicate the team’s task.
“We’re all hoping for sun,” he admits.
Quick-charging hardware will fill up the lithium-ion battery pack in 30 minutes. Smeets said the team will bring an emissionsfree, glycerine-powered generator (the same type used in Formula E) to Pikes Peak to charge the car before its run. The on-board brake energy recuperation system will produce about 20 per cent of the electricity required for the R to sprint up the mountain.
Volkswagen stresses it built the car specifically for Pikes Peak and it’s going to focus on beating the current electric-car record, which stands at eight minutes and 57 seconds. It’s not currently planning on racing the I.D. R elsewhere, though Demaison tells us he’s open to extending the car’s career after Pikes Peak. Its future will ultimately depend on how it performs.
Volkswagen learned the hard way that anything can happen during the Pikes Peak race. In 1985, before officials paved the course, the brand sent a ferallooking second-generation Golf to the starting line. Power came from a turbocharged, 1.8-L fourcylinder engine that sent about 315 horsepower to the front wheels, an impressive statistic at the time. For good measure, Volkswagen added a second, identical engine rated at 325 horses in the space normally occupied by more sensible components such as the rear bench seat.
With German pilot Jochi Kleint behind the wheel, the twin-engined, four-wheel-drive Golf finished third in 1985. It took fourth in 1986. Kleint held on to the lead for most of the 1987 race but retired a quarter mile away from the finish line after a suspension ball joint failed, robbing Volkswagen of its victory.