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If Rimac, Techrules, Faraday, or any number of unproven automakers that have shown a prototype racing concept are anything to go by, it’s apparently pretty easy to build a 1000-plus-hp electric car out of absolutely nothing. The Volkswagen I.D. R pictured here will be a real, fully running electric hypercar. It has to be, because it’s going to climb Pikes Peak.
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Much is riding on Volkswagen’s factory effort in the annual Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, a motorsports event it has ignored since 1987. First, it wants to finish the entire 12.4-mile course, which a 652-hp Golf failed to do 31 years ago (to its credit, though, that Golf had two engines). Pikes Peak is also a very public demonstration—and hopefully for Wolfsburg executives, dramatic proof—that the company’s sudden switch to electric powertrains is a great idea. The I.D. R will be VW’s halo car for its entire I.D. series of EVs, which will include sedans, hatches, and a very familiar little bus, the first of which will be produced starting in late 2019.
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VW won’t release any details other than these two renderings, which align with every Gran Turismo video-game fantasy car ever done. There may be no better wheelman for the I.D. R than Romain Dumas, a current Porsche factory driver, winner of the 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans in the Audi R15, and a three-time Pikes Peak champion who holds the second-fastest time up the mountain. VW wants Dumas to drive so fast in the Unlimited class that he beats Rhys Millen, who set the 8:57.118 record for electric prototypes in 2016.
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- Volkswagen’s I.D. Vizzion Sedan Concept Attempts to Codify Driverless Future
- Volkswagen I.D. Buzz Electric Bus Confirmed for U.S. in 2022
- Volkswagen I.D. Crozz Concept: The EV Crossover That Can Wink
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Two other private Volkswagen entries will run the course, including a 2010 Jetta GLI in the Time Attack and a 1972 Beetle in the Open class. The Beetle is a diesel with the 2.0-liter TDI engine, and we bet that, very quietly, VW brass will be cheering the hell out of that car, too.
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