Meet the 1200bhp Audi RS3-based electric donut machine

With 92,000 employees working across the globe, Schaeffler generated €14 billion in sales last year. It supplies powertrain, transmission and chassis technology to OEMs, and like any automotive supplier - or near enough any OEM, for that matter - Schaeffler has turned its attention to electric and hybrid drivetrains in recent years. Its €60 million E-Mobility centre in Buhl, Germany, may be brand new, but it will very soon house 500 engineers and researchers.

As well as looking at ‘last-mile’ urban mobility devices, such as electrified scooters and autonomous pods, Schaeffler’s E-Mobility division is also developing innovative hybrid powertrains (see panel). RS3s with 1200bhp that can rotate on the spot make up just a small part of the division’s activities.

From the passenger seat of the 4ePerformance, all-wheel torque vectoring feels like a game-changer for vehicle dynamics. Croatian start-up Rimac Automobili has been at the forefront of the technology for a few years, and having driven both its Concept One road car and its Pikes Peak hillclimb machine, I know first-hand how effective one electric motor driving each wheel can be.

Although such cars are generally much heavier than a comparable internal combustion engine car due to their huge stacks of batteries, they are without question far more agile and responsive. What’s more, the 4ePerformance accelerates so violently and in such an unrelenting way that you have to resist pleading with the driver to make it stop. As Schaeffler’s head of E-Mobility, Dr Jochen Schröder, puts it, "electric drivetrains don’t only have to be about reducing carbon emissions".

Schaeffler bets on a hybrid futureSchaeffler labels its vision for the future of automotive powertrains ’30:40:30’. By 2030, it predicts that 30% of new cars will be driven by internal combustion engines only, 40% will be hybrid and 30% will be battery electric. Schaeffler is therefore backing hybrid powertrains to count for a very significant proportion of the new car market for the foreseeable future, and it has developed a handful of new technologies accordingly.

Schröder explains that hybrids will grow in popularity because European legislation has been designed to incentivise that very outcome. By 2025, fleet average CO2 emissions targets for large-scale OEMs could be set as low as 81g/km. The fines for failing to meet such targets have been structured to be greater than the cost of implementing hybrid and EV technologies, giving car manufacturers good reason to distance themselves from internal combustion. New car buyers, however, will on the whole not feel ready for electric cars by 2030, so hybrids will plug the gap.

Schaeffler has recently launched a range of electric drive systems, for use on EVs and hybrids, that are characterised by high power density, compact dimensions and light weight. The new Audi E-tron features Schaeffler’s parallel axis hybrid system on the front axle and its coaxial system on the rear. The latter weighs only 16kg yet can deliver 295lb ft of torque to the wheels.