There’s a possibility that Audi will race a hydrogen-powered model in the Le Mans 24 Hours if it believes the technology has a future in its production cars.
Audi’s head of technical development Stefan Knirsch recently confirmed that such an entrant into the world’s most famous endurance race is possible giving hope to a hydrogen battle with BMW who is also said to be investigating a hydrogen Le Mans entrant.
“If we wanted to demonstrate our capabilities that way we could do it,” Knirsch said. “But the first thing is that we must be certain that it has a production future. We don’t like to show things that are not leading to a production reality, and at the moment the lack of infrastructure leaves that uncertain.”
Rather amazingly, Audi has been developing hydrogen fuel cell technologies since 2003 and just last year, unveiled the Audi H-tron Quattro concept. While the German marque is at the forefront of the innovative power solution, it has yet to be determined if hydrogen vehicles have a place in the market or if all-electric models are instead the solution to today’s gas-guzzling monsters.
If Audi were to create a hydrogen race car for Le Mans, it would help promote the technology to consumers and provide a boost for such cars. But if customers aren’t receptive of hydrogen power, there’s no point, hence Audi’s currently dilemma.
Via Autocar
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