Audi Is Working On Battery-Charging Suspension

Every time you hit an imperfection in the road, the energy absorbed goes to waste. But in the future, Audi's new suspension system will be able to harness it
Audi Is Working On Battery-Charging Suspension

At its most basic level, the task of suspension dampers is to absorb energy. Specifically, the kinetic energy created by driving over a road surface, and all the associated imperfections, pot holes and speed bumps. The majority of that energy is wasted, as it’s lost in the form of heat - but what if it could be harnessed? That’s exactly what Audi is hoping to do with a suspension system it’s developing, rather unfortunately called ‘eROT’.

In this system, a lever arm absorbs the movement of the wheel carrier, and through a series of gears transmits the movement to an electric motor, which then generates electricity. This free juice is sent to a 48-volt ‘substation’ - a system Audi already uses in the SQ7 (below).

Audi Is Working On Battery-Charging Suspension

How much electricity depends on how crappy the road surface is. Audi’s testing revealed an average of about 100 to 150 watts on German roads, ranging from 3 watts on a newly surfaced autobahn to 613 watts on a “rough secondary road”. Since the energy created means the engine has less battery charging to do, you’ll burn less fuel and emit less in the way of C02 - a drop of around 3g/km is what we can expect.

This suspension is more about the whole kinetic energy harnessing thing, too. Using trick software, it’s able to give a soft compression followed by a stiff rebound. Should this all work how Audi wants it to, it’d be the suspension equivalent of having your cake and eating it: dampers that don’t trade composure for comfort, or the other way around.

It’s early days, by the company does state that “its use [eROT] in future Audi production models is certainly plausible.” There is a caveat - the models in question will need to run the 48 volt system, but as that’s something expected to be rolled out to many more models in the near future, these clever dampers might be a common fit in the Audi stable before long.

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Comments

Fouck hahaha

Cars are become more and more like RC cars… Our generation maybe the last of proper Sports Cars and petrol!

08/10/2016 - 13:06 |
10 | 2

There will be proper sport cars after petrol too :)

08/11/2016 - 16:55 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

Seriously? They’ve been developing this stuff for years! Why have you only just found out?

08/10/2016 - 13:16 |
2 | 2
Anonymous

Finally a car built for Mihcigan.

08/10/2016 - 13:20 |
2 | 0
Anonymous

Wow, South Australia will finally have fully electric Audis…yes, our roads are terrible

08/10/2016 - 13:38 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

Customer: I need my suspension serviced

Audi: Okay, that’ll be $10,000

08/10/2016 - 14:09 |
36 | 4
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

That’s a narrow minded idea that slows evolution, how do you think we have cheap technologies nowadays? it because somebody had the balls to put them into production and after the years they became cheaper because they were adapted by everybody and produced more efficiently, I’m an engineer and I consider people with ideas like this, the enemies of the future .

08/10/2016 - 20:05 |
22 | 6
Anonymous

If only this had been done years ago, cause driving it in South Africa could have generated enough power to avoid load shedding (South Africans will know what I’m on about!)

08/10/2016 - 15:06 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

I bet Belgians are pissed since this whole system couldn’t work there

08/10/2016 - 16:01 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

We need this tech in India

08/10/2016 - 16:25 |
0 | 0
SpotterJacob

You will overheat the batteries in Poland and Russia

08/10/2016 - 17:54 |
16 | 0

Holy crap
I thought straya was bad in some spots

08/12/2016 - 02:39 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

If this system will be used in Italy, the batteries will literally explode from overcharge😂😂😂

08/10/2016 - 19:26 |
4 | 0