Being Ken Block is not easy, as people expect you to drift every single car that gets in your way. We haven’t seen many electric vehicles drifting, and that’s why ken Block meeting an EV was such an interesting proposition. We wanted to see this immediately after Audi hand him over the key to the Audi RS e-tron GT. And he didn’t disappoint, although he admits it wasn’t easy.
Ken Block started a partnership with Audi last year to make the first electric Gymkhana video and this came with the keys of an Audi RS e-tron GT for Block to start practicing. Of course, Ken needed to start somewhere, and so he took the “RS” lettering quite literally. It’s what people expect him to do and what he is, after all. After some time spent with the new electric Audi, Block decided it’s time to put the RS e-Tron GT to its paces as a drift car. We’ve all been waiting for this moment, but it did not go quite well, according to Block.
Being an electric car comes with its own peculiarities, but with so much torque and power, there should not be a problem spinning the wheels, right? Well, Ken soon discovered it’s not that easy, as the car appeared to fight against him. “First of all, I don’t think it likes me,” he says at one moment into the video.
There are many things about the RS e-tron GT that are different from what Ken expected. For starters, the electric car does not have a hydraulic hand brake to initiate the drift. In a normal drift car, this allows for a precise and predictable trajectory. Without it, Ken had to rely on the rear wheels spinning to start the slide. It wasn’t hard to do that, but it lacks precision and many drifts ended unsuccessfully, as you can see in the video below.
Then there’s the sheer weight of the car that plays against the driver, making the slide longer than intended. Having a lot of batteries helps with range, but doesn’t make for a very good drift car, obviously. And then the electronics also seem to interfere to cut the drift short, so it was a constant battle with the controls to keep the car sliding.
Nevertheless, Ken Block managed to drift the Audi RS e-tron GT, for the most part, even though the precision was hit and miss sometimes. It might be that the electric Gymkhana would be harder to achieve than previously thought. But not impossible, that’s for sure, just more interesting.
After his childhood dream of becoming a "tractor operator" didn't pan out, Cristian turned to journalism, first in print and later moving to online media. His top interests are electric vehicles and new energy solutions. Full profile
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