Every Angle of the New Electric 2019 Audi e-tron
Audi's first fully electric car is finally here.
It seems odd at first, to be driving the all-electric 2019 Audi e-tron in the oil-rich Middle East. But even the United Arab Emirates, a country smaller than Maine sitting on 6 percent of the world's oil reserves, can't avoid the clean-energy future. Within a few decades, the UAE's near-bottomless oil wells could be as valuable as a basement full of AOL free-hours floppy disks. As a sign of the changing times, the country that currently gets 98 percent of its energy from fossil fuels is in the midst of constructing the two largest solar power plants in the world.
Virtually all of the 10.5 million vehicles Audi's parent company — Volkswagen — sold in 2017 are powered by fossil fuels. and a costly, low-volume EV program such as this won't improve the company's bottom line anytime soon.
But just as the Stone Age didn't end because humans ran out of stones, the oil-powered economy will run dry before the wells do. The Audi e-tron is a bet, a prediction of what comes next.
If it foreshadows the future, the e-tron is also very much of the moment. Electric motors drive the front and rear axles, a 1543-pound array of lithium-ion battery cells rides beneath the floor, and a mid-size SUV wrapper casts it into the thickest part of the luxury auto market.
In a couple of years' time, the e-tron will be just one offering in this fully formed electro-ute segment, with entrants from Tesla, Jaguar, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and possibly even startup Rivian.
Audi is not talking about EPA range just yet (more on that later), but we suspect the $75,795 e-tron will earn an estimate just north of 200 miles.
The decision to hew close to Audi's established design language and familiar vehicle attributes should ease the transition from gas to electrons for the brand's current customers. It also makes the e-tron the anti-Tesla of sorts.
Whereas driving a Tesla is the strongest anti-establishment statement six figures can buy, the e-tron suggests a more natural evolution for our current automotive institutions.
In the e-tron, there are no Spaceballs Easter eggs or accompanying Ludicrous acceleration. The Audi's front motor puts out 168 horsepower and 182 lb-ft of torque while the rear contributes another 188 ponies and 232 lb-ft. It won't leave you breathless, but the e-tron takes off with the authority and immediacy we've come to expect from electric cars.
In the tradition of Audi's internal-combustion models, the e-tron's cabin is wonderfully serene at speed.
As wide, flat, and empty as the desert that they cut through, the highways surrounding Abu Dhabi offer speed limits that occasionally stretch beyond 87 mph to 99 mph. Even at those velocities and by the standards established by earlier EVs, the e-tron is a tomb.
The e-tron rolls out of the Brussels, Belgium, factory that previously built the Audi A1 with all the experience and purchasing power of the world's largest automaker. Accordingly, the e-tron exhibits the typical Audi build quality.
European e-trons also can also be equipped with cameras in place of side-view mirrors, but these will be kept from the stateside market due to U.S. regulations.
While the conventional mirrors do increase the e-tron's drag coefficient, we found the camera's small screens in the doors to be awkwardly positioned.
On AC power, the e-tron can recharge at up to 11 kilowatts, which will allow it to add mileage more quickly than the slow-charging Jaguar I-Pace with its 7-kW charger. How that translates into a miles-per-hour-of-charging figure will have to wait until there's something more official from Audi or the EPA.
There's also standard 150-kW DC fast-charging capability, and while such charging stations are thin on the ground currently, we expect to see them multiply with the growth of Electrify America, the EV-infrastructure company seeded with $2 billion as part of the Volkswagen Group's emissions-cheating settlement.
In the U.S., the e-tron features a charging port on each side of the vehicle, with both located on the front fenders; the driver's side is for AC charging and DC fast charging, while the passenger side is only for AC charging. (Curiously, in Europe, the second charging port is an option.)
When deliveries start in the United States in spring of 2019, the car will be sold and serviced by Audi's national network of 304 dealers.
The battery will be backed by an eight-year warranty—effectively an EV standard at this point—but should something fail, your local dealer's service department will have the ability to replace any of the 36 battery modules rather than the entire pack.
At the time of our test drive, Audi would say only that the e-tron will exceed 248 miles of range on Europe's optimistic WLTP test.
A brake-by-wire system skillfully blends up to 0.30 g of regenerative braking with the electrohydraulically assisted friction brakes while steering-wheel-mounted paddles toggle through three levels of liftoff regenerative braking.
View Photos of the 1987 Sterling 825SL
2025 Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet Interior Photos
2025 Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet Exterior Photos
View Photos of the 2027 Ferrari 849 Testarossa
