@VW Group: Audi is number one in terms of patents for electric drives

In 2019, there were more than 1,200 patent applications filed, in other words, more than three on each day of the year. The subject matter and focus of patents change in line with shifts in social awareness. In earlier years, the main emphasis was put on ideas and inventions from the areas of chassis, conventional engine technology and transmission. At the moment, digitalization and electric mobility are at the top of the list. In total, the company currently holds some 13,000 patent families worldwide, which equates to about 23,000 individual patents and patent applications. For the complex procedures involved, Audi employs specialized patent attorneys. “We protect the ideas and inventions of our engineers and thus our ‘Vorsprung durch Technik,’” says Jama Askaryar, the patent attorney responsible for electric and hybrid drives.

Two Audi engineers have invented a new method of operating the electric machines of the Audi e-tron. Their function for predictive energization of the e-machines via smart and innovative power electronics enhances driving dynamics. At the same time, it minimizes electric power consumption by “anticipating” the desired driving commands and predictively initiating them.

Audi patents are also found in the field of fluid mechanics, in other words, the utilization of the physical flow behavior of fluids. For instance, to efficiently cool the rotor in an electric motor. Traditionally, the heat is dissipated from the outside. Audi does this additionally via a coolant fluid and smart cooling ducts directly in the rotor core – in other words, from the inside. The complex technological feat of assembling the individual rotor sheets results in particularly effective rotor cooling.

Another example of e-mobility ingenuity at Audi is a patent on a solution enabling the absorption of hectic accelerator pedal actuations, which makes it possible to avoid load alternations from acceleration to deceleration mode. This is achieved by complex filtering of driving behavior, which considers and optimizes all parameters from the driver’s wish to the current torque distribution on the two axles and on all four wheels.