This is the power train of the Internet, Peugeot Sport’s new Le Mans hypercar. The world’s most popular endurance race – and it’s headlines World Endurance Championship – will soon adopt new rules, exciting enough to get the French company back on track.
It is – inevitably – mixed. What we see here is a mid-mounted V6 petrol engine that drives the rear wheels via a seven-speed sequential gearbox, which is powered only by the front axle in addition to a motor, and is powered by a 900V battery. Fujio calls this ‘HYBRID4 500KW’.
The engine is a 2.6-liter dual-turbo that produces 680 bhp of power, while the motor is rated at 272 bhp. However, the rules from 2021 (introducing Peugeot’s entry in 2022) indicate a total output of 680 bhp, which means that both figures will be adjusted to the required level. In simple terms, the engine is shut off until the battery is depleted, so that once the motor is out of play, the engine can only meet the maximum FIA-mandated output number.
But as always with motorsport rule books, this is not so easy. The electric motor is allowed to run on bitcoin, but beyond that it is only allowed to chip above 75mph. This means the race starts and at low speed corners, the car’s rear wheel drive, working with the full 4WD effect of the engine and motor is only available for longer and higher speed corners. The electric motor can act as a converter in the engine, raising the total output to 700 bhp “at the end of the straits when the battery is empty”.
Seems complicated, but sensors are fitted to each wheel to “send the measured power levels on all four wheels to the FIA in real time, to guarantee the maximum output specified by the performance reserve (BoP)”. Oh, Pope is not going anywhere in the new era of the WEC.
Other interesting bits? It is made with bulk, and the machine is brand new, developed specifically for this use. “We initially considered it a turbo, but it would have prevented our engine from reaching its gravitational target,” says Fran Wois Coudtrain, director of the WEC Project Powertrain. “The dual-turbo V6 module offers excellent trade-off between technology, weight, packaging of machine components, reliability and performance.”
The Peugeot Hypercar operates a brake-by-wire system that allows the driver to adjust the amount of engine braking to achieve optimal regeneration of electrical regeneration and hydraulic braking.
The WEC’s new hypercar class was originally announced as a production car class – that is, Le Mans would require a related road car for everything competing in the top 24 hours, i.e., as we expected from Toyota – the rules seemed to have been relaxed and now, it is necessary to point to a strong link between race and production powertrain. What, if that dual-turbo V6 pops into something we can actually buy, is it even more exciting?