Audi eFoil - e-tron conquers water vehicles

Audi engineer Franz Hofmann is developing a hydrofoil surfboard fitted with an electric jet-propulsion system. All at once, everything is blissfully calm. The water’s gurgling and lapping gives way to silence as the board rises and hovers a meter above the surface, like a flying carpet — supported by nothing more than a carbon mast at whose end is a foil which provides the necessary upthrust underwater to create this spectacle. Franz Hofmann balances skillfully on the board; in his hand is a remote control resembling the type used on electrically powered skateboards. The construction under his feet is called a foil (a type of wing), accelerated by an electric motor that Hofmann controls using his right index finger on the remote control. Is this the surfing of the future? Riding silently above the glass-clear water of an inland lake, devoid of any wave movement? For Hofmann, whose youthful face always exudes a certain mischievousness, there is no question that “this will be the revolution on lakes and in the sea.”

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