Audi is doing a good job on the electrical side. The ink in the brochure of the Q4 e-tron and Q4 e-tron is barely dry when the brand is already looking ahead to a new series of electric models. Today on the digital shelves: the Audi A6 e-tron Concept, a concrete preview of an electric ‘Sportback’ in A6 and A7 format on a completely new platform.
Highlights
- Preview of electric Sportback in A6 and A7 segment
- Step under the sportier E-tron GT
- Entirely new PPE platform developed with Porsche
- Electric Q6 e-tron will arrive earlier, at the end of 2022
- 800v technology, more than 700km range
- Rear and four-wheel drive
Audi’s brand new Q4 e-tron and its Sportback brother are, in short, Audi’s equivalents of the Volkswagen ID4 and Skoda Enyaq. The Q4s therefore share their MEB platform with those cars. That platform is intended for relatively compact EVs, but Audi has greater ambitions in the field of e-tron. It has already proved this with the Audi E-tron SUV and with the E-tron GT, which is filled with sporty DNA, and which, like the Porsche Taycan, is on Porsche’s J1 platform. With this Audi A6 e-tron Concept, Audi is looking ahead to an electric sedan in the A6 segment. The A6 e-tron Concept immediately introduces another new modular EV platform for Audi: the PPE basis.
Audi A6 e-tron
Dimensions and design
More on that platform later. The A6 e-tron is already an interesting car in terms of placement. The A6 e-tron Concept is 4.96 meters long, making it dangerously close to the 4.99 meter long Audi E-tron GT. However, that’s a much sportier-oriented EV. As its name implies, the A6 e-tron looks ahead to an electric Sportback that will be used alongside the A6 and may eventually replace the A7 Sportback. Its length is comparable to that 4.94 meter long sedan.
The slick-lined A6 e-tron has a cW value of 0.22 and can be recognized as an Audi from every angle. The car stands on an enormous 22-inch alloy and has a remarkably smooth design. Tight folds and sharp corners are hardly to be found. Just like the E-tron GT, the A6 e-tron Concept has a black mask on its muzzle. However, the black part of the A6 e-tron Concept also houses the lighting. Although the design of the A6 e-tron Concept is more than ninety percent identical to that of the final production version, according to Audi, there are of course some typical conceptual frosting. For example, the final production version will of course just get handles and the cameras placed on sticks that function as side mirrors – we already know them from the E-tron SUV and its Sportback brother – will probably not be standard.
Audi A6 e-tron
Audi has been doing quite a bit in terms of lighting lately. For example, the facelifted Q5 received various types of light signatures, but Audi goes a step further on the A6 e-tron. The electric study model has LED headlamps in front of Digital Matrix and a light bar with OLED technology running over the entire width of the bottom. They include adjustable light signatures and, as we saw with the Q4 e-tron and Q4 e-tron Sportback, that is more than just a conceptual gimmick. More lighting fun comes in the form of two LED projectors installed in the sides. They are able to welcome you to the A6 e-tron Concept with a pleasant message and are fully programmable. You must also be able to alert cyclists, for example, that a door is being opened. The A6 e-tron also has LED projectors on all four corners. These project, among other things, orange arrows on the ground to make it clear to fellow road users and bystanders that you are going to make a turn. You don’t have to get bored during the charging process. The matrix LED viewers of the A6 e-tron Concept can even project films or video games onto a wall.
PPE: Premium Platform Electric
The Audi A6 e-tron Concept not only serves as a preview of a new electric model in the E-segment, but also introduces a completely new modular platform intended for larger EVs than cars such as the Q4’s e-tron. The PPE platform was developed together with Porsche and is not only suitable for ‘low’ models such as this A6 e-tron harbinger, but also for SUVs. The platform is suitable for models with one and two electric motors, which means that not only cars with rear-wheel drive, but also with all four-wheel drive will be available.
Audi A6 e-tron
The A6 e-tron Concept has two electric motors on board that together produce 476 hp and 800 Nm of torque. The A6 e-tron Concept, equipped with air suspension and adaptive dampers, has a 100 kWh battery pack in its bottom, which should allow the car to travel up to 700 kilometers. The car thus sprints to 100 km / h in less than four seconds. Of course, the production version also gets milder powertrains. Audi already indicates that the basic version is at least fast enough, which has already reached 100 km / h on the clock in less than 7 seconds. An RS version is already being considered, Audi says to Techzle. In addition, there will be rear-wheel drive versions that should be able to reach more than 700 kilometers on a load.
The PPE platform can handle 800-volt charging structures and that allows for high charging capacities. The PPE platform can handle charging capacities of up to 270 kW, which means that in about 10 minutes you can pump enough energy for 300 kilometers of electric driving fun. The 100 kWh battery pack of the A6 e-tron can be charged from 5 to 80 percent of its capacity in less than 25 minutes.
Not the first
Although the A6 e-tron Concept introduces the PPE platform, the final production version of that car is not the first Audi to use the platform. The platform will debut at the end of 2022 under an electric SUV of which Techzle can already report that it will be called Q6 e-tron.
The arrival of the A6 e-tron does not herald the end of the A6, according to Audi. The current generation, presented in 2018, is allowed to last for a few more years anyway, and Audi indicates that it also has plans for the A6 afterwards. The manufacturer from Ingolstadt explains that there are still plenty of markets where EVs have barely gained a foothold due to the lack of a good charging infrastructure. Those markets must also be provided with A6-like models.