Audi electric turbo nears

Audi will ignore petrol engines when it puts its so-called electric turbocharger into production before the end of 2016, sources admitted yesterday.

The German premium car-maker has plans to introduce the electric boosting system to the upcoming Q7 replacement, but not in the earliest production runs.

While the new Q7 will be shown in Europe officially before the end of this year, sources say Audi will wait until around a year after the big SUV’s European introduction before fitting it with an e-boost electric charger.

It might make its debut, sources insisted, in an SQ7 fitted with a single-turbo variant of the 3.0-litre V6 turbo-diesel, which develops 240kW and 650Nm when fitted to the running A6 TDI Concept.

The single-turbo diesel V6 uses a 7kW electric booster, fitted between the turbo compressor and the induction system, to fill in torque holes at low revs and to make throttle response more accurate, before fading away at 3000rpm. It runs on 48 volts instead of the standard 12-volt automotive system

While Audi has a biturbo variant of the same system in its RS 5 TDI Concept with 283kW of power and 750Nm of torque, this engine is not on the front lines for production development.

Instead, sources insist Audi will concentrate on spreading the e-boosted single-turbo diesel across its range, right down into the higher end of the A4 family.

“In theory, we can do it for the TFSI petrol engines as well,” an Audi source insisted. “But that’s not a high priority for us. We will focus more heavily on the diesels first.”

One major reason for that is that Audi is heading towards diesel engines for its future large plug-in hybrids.

Audi expects that 40 per cent of all cars on the road by 2030 will have some electrification of the powertrain, but believes at least two-thirds of them will still use an internal combustion engine in some form.

“The hybrid platform offers numerous solutions, from the electric biturbo to the TDI with plug-in technology,” Audi sources admitted.

“The combination with the electric motor opens up new possibilities. It enables targeted shifting of the load points to the benefit of both fuel consumption and emissions behavior.”