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Presented at the Tokyo Motor Show 2022, the Subaru STI E-RA prototype has four electric motors housed in the wheels for a combined power of 1088 hp. Objective for the manufacturer: break the lap record on the Nürburgring circuit.
Subaru unveiled the fully electric, 1088hp STI E-RA concept car at the Tokyo Motor Show this weekend. And, although the STI E-RA doesn’t have much in common with road-going Subarus, this prototype is a crucial milestone for the automaker.
Indeed, Subaru claims to have built the STI E-RA concept to acquire “experience and training on new technologies in the world of motorsport in this era of carbon neutrality”. The quantified objective is to complete a lap of the northern loop of the Nürburgring circuit in a maximum of 6 min 40 s. For your information, a record time of 6 min 38 s is held by a Porsche GT2 RS and recently a Tesla S Plaid stood out with a time of 7 min 30 s. If Subaru achieves its goal, it will have beaten just about every production internal combustion car that has ever raced the circuit, as well as the record set by the Tesla Model S Plaid by almost a minute.
To achieve this objective, the concept of the Subaru STI E-RA is equipped with a body made of composite materials with a very low drag coefficient. Cutouts in the body allow the air to be extracted from the wheel arches and accelerated (Venturi effect) towards the imposing rear wing, which will work in concert with a carbon fiber blade at the front, diffusers F1 styling on the sides and a rear diffuser, all offering better downforce. The roof-mounted air intake of the Subaru STI E-RA evokes the iconic 1980s Impreza WRC rally car and presumably supplies air to the 60kWh battery cooling system.
The latter will be responsible for supplying electricity to the four electric motors that propel the TSI E-RA. Designed by Yamaha, the motors are each housed in a wheel, the assembly developing a combined power of 1088 hp. If all-wheel drive is required, Subaru is also betting on a torque vectoring system to increase power and cornering handling. Thus adorned, the STI E-RA has every chance of achieving its performance objectives. The idea for the manufacturer being to validate and then make the technical solutions more reliable which will eventually be found in the more standard production models.