Not all of the modifications from the E-tron to the Q8 E-tron occurred on the meeting line. A serious one concerned the battery cells.
The E-tron’s preliminary cells got here from provider LG. Now, they arrive from Samsung SDI, with a special chemistry and improved anodes and cathodes.
The result’s a way more aggressive vary for the Q8 E-tron — as much as 600 kilometers below the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure cycle utilized in Europe.
When the Q8 E-tron arrives within the U.S. later this 12 months, Audi of America anticipates at the least a 30 % vary improve over the current-generation E-tron — 222 miles for the extra aerodynamic sportback model and 218 miles for its historically formed counterpart below the extra stringent EPA take a look at cycle. The enhance would put the Q8 E-tron a lot nearer to a 300-mile vary.
Audi Brussels, which has been web carbon impartial since 2018, will get its battery cells from a plant nearly 900 miles away in Göd, Hungary, close to Budapest, delivery them by electrical practice. “We used to ship them by truck, but switching to the train saves us about 2,600 tons of CO2 per year,” mentioned Jan Marls, head of manufacturing at Audi Brussels.
VW could finally make use of the same technique if it units up a battery plant in Canada, as deliberate, however continues to assemble its electrical automobiles in Tennessee and Mexico.
The battery meeting plant in Brussels operates two shifts of 100 staff every accompanied of their duties by scores of towering yellow Fanuc robots. Plant officers together with Germann and Marls would not disclose its full run charge however mentioned that final 12 months, Audi Brussels produced about 43,000 E-trons throughout industrywide provide constraints.
That determine will probably improve this 12 months with manufacturing of the Q8 E-tron, in addition to the addition of the smaller This autumn E-tron, which is able to be a part of the Q8 on the road within the second half of the 12 months whereas it continues to be in-built Zwickau, Germany, as properly.
