Audi provides sustainable mobility and charging solutions at WEF in Davos

Audi is once again presenting itself as a provider of sustainable premium mobility at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, thus supporting the Annual Meeting’s sustainability goals.

The brand with the four rings is serving as the exclusive mobility partner for the 33rd time already and providing a fleet that is 90% electrified. The Audi models are charged with green electricity exclusively, using mobile charging containers made with used Audi e-tron batteries that were developed specially for this purpose. Audi is continuously developing these green charging solutions.

In doing so, the company is creating its own model sustainable mobility ecosystem in wintry Davos. Using roughly 100 electrified Audi models in combination with the shipping containers for charging allows the company to operate a virtually CO2-neutral shuttle fleet for the major event. In addition to the fully electric Audi e-tron, the flagship Audi A8 as a plug-in hybrid model will also be on the road.

The three charging containers are each equipped with four used Audi e-tron battery systems that deliver their overall charging capacity of roughly 700 kW at three charging terminals, each with an output of 150 kW, and have a storage capacity of around 1.0 MWh. To this end, Audi is cooperating with Swiss energy company ABB. This solution reduces the strain on the local grid to a minimum during peak times of demand in particular. The power for the three mobile containers in Davos, in turn, is generated from 100 percent local hydroelectric power.

The World Economic Forum in Davos is one of numerous events for which Audi is continuously developing its sustainable electric charging solutions. At the Hahnenkamm Alpine Ski World Cup in Kitzbühel, Austria, for example, the company will be testing a new charging container that is fitted with individual battery modules instead of entire e-tron batteries for the first time as from January 24. The space-saving design allows the charging terminals to be integrated in the container directly. Each charging container consists of 400 reused e-tron battery modules; this corresponds to roughly eleven complete batteries. With an overall charging capacity of 1.2 MW and a storage capacity of 1.0 MWh, up to eight Audi e-tron can be charged simultaneously at high-power chargers without requiring any form of connection to the grid.

The 30-foot container provides a total of 20 charging points: eight high-power chargers with a charging capacity of 150 kW each and twelve 11 kW charging connections. When necessary, the eight high-power chargers can bundle their power in four 300 kW charging points in order to fully charge the Audi e-tron GT in 20 minutes based on 800-volt charging technology in the future. The latest generation of these charging containers was developed and built in cooperation with Austrian company Moon.

More than 20 further uses of the mobile charging containers are planned in the course of 2020 alone, for example during the Formula E in Rome. Trade and fleet customers are also to benefit from the customised charging solutions in the future. These will allow them to optimise their energy costs and operate electric vehicle fleets in a sustainable manner. Mobile charging containers can also complement the existing charging points at traffic hubs, for example during vacation periods, by relieving the load on local grids. The charging network IONITY is therefore currently testing the use of mobile containers in the context of setting up high-power charging parks in Europe.