The Dakar Rally has changed in recent years, moving out of Africa into South America and then Saudi Arabia and the cars taking part have changed too. Audi wants to bring electrification to the competition, making it even more difficult than it already is - in 2020, out of 351 entrants, only 226 finished the rally, or 64.4 percent.
The automaker from Ingolstadt isn’t quite ready to show up to The Dakar with fully-electric vehicles, so this year it lined up a trio of RS Q E-Trons, range-extender EVs specially designed for the event. All three finished, taking four stage wins and another fourteen podiums, completing day-long stages as long as 900 km / 560 miles.
It’s these very long stages, which take place in areas far from civilization and any kind of charging infrastructure, that currently make it very impractical to enter a pure-EV in The Dakar. However, this may change as battery technology improves along with solar charging technology that should provide a noticeable boost in the scorching desert.
