A technology and success story from Audi is celebrating a major birthday: The quattro drive system has turned 40 years old. Since the original quattro first made its debut in 1980, the principle of four-wheel drive has become one of the cornerstones of the brand. To date Audi has sold almost 11 million cars with quattro drive. The most recent chapter of the success story is electric: The Audi e-tron uses electric all-wheel drive, and the e-tron S models already feature its first expansion stage: electric torque vectoring, i.e. the need-based shifting of torque between the rear wheels.

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Tobias Söllner Tobias Söllner
Spokesperson model series A1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 e-tron, Drive Technology, PHEV
Audi RS models - Audi RS 4 Avant, Colour: Turbo blue
Audi RS Q8, Colour: Florett Silver
Audi RS Q3 Sportback, Colour: Nardo gray
Audi RS Q3, Colour: Kyalami green
Audi RS 7 Sportback, Colour: Glacier white
Audi RS 6 Avant, Colour: tango red
Four rings, four-wheel drive: Four times ten years of quattro
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40 years, 40 figures, 40 images: fascinating facts and tales about Audi’s quattro technology - Up to 973 Nm (717.6 lb-ft) of torque is produced by the three electric motors in the Audi e-tron S (((Audi e-tron S: combined electric power consumption in...
Facts and Figures: 40 Years of Audi quattro
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40 years, 40 figures, 40 images: fascinating facts and tales about Audi’s quattro technology - 200 PS (147 kW) is what the original quattro had at its disposal – 40 years ago, that was a value truly worthy of a sports car. At this point, the Porsche 911...
The track record
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TechTalk quattro – the winning technology - Dieter Weidemann, Head of Development all-wheel drive Systems AUDI AG; William Wijts, Research Engineer, AUDI AG.
From the Arctic Circle to the Nürburgring: a conversation with quattro developers
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