BEAUTIFUL BEAST
Is this luxurious, performance EV a Porsche Taycan clone in a more sharply creased suit or does it offer something different?
Here’s a test of character. Perhaps the first I can remember being like this. Can two batteryelectric vehicles that share so many of their underpinnings feel like two different cars, from different brands, when both have a premium and performance slant? When both marques scream individuality?
This striking four-door saloon is the new Audi E-tron GT, tested here in two derivatives. One, shown on these pages, is the RS E-tron GT. That’s RS as in RS6 or RS7, the really fast version. Then there’s the E-tron GT quattro, a slightly slower variant that gets “quattro” in its name when the RS doesn’t, somewhat confusingly. On Audi’s numerical power output scale, this is a 60, although it doesn’t appear to be badged as such anywhere but on Audi’s online configurator. But the 60 and RS are different variants of the same car.
That car is a big five-seater, which at 4.99m long is the same length as an Audi A6 but is wider and much lower. Which, to my eyes, makes it look rather spectacular, although when one is pinned 10cm from your boot, you may think differently.
The underpinnings are the telling thing, though, and they’re the Volkswagen Group’s J1 platform, which is also beneath the Porsche Taycan. As in, they’re really, really the same as the Porsche Taycan, down to wheelbase, battery size, motor positions and some outputs. There’s much more shared than most internally combusted cars from different brands on the same platform.
As with the Porsche, then, there’s a 93.4kWh total capacity battery with an 83.7kWh usable section. One motor at the rear, another at the front, fourwheel drive and a two-speed gearbox for the rear only, which is rarely used (launch control and the most dynamic modes only).
Both E-tron GT variants share the same 235bhp max output front motor, while the rear motor makes a max of 429bhp in the 60 and 449bhp in the RS. But their combined totals aren’t as
much as that because they never reach them together. And even then, the max is an overboost during launch control for 2.5sec only.
The short of it, then, is that the 60 makes 469bhp and the RS makes 590bhp most of the time. For a couple of seconds during launch control — so not really long enough or in enough conditions to count — that goes up to 523bhp and 637bhp respectively. That puts the 60 at the same output as a Taycan 4S and the RS a little less powerful than a 671bhp Taycan Turbo, which is presumably deliberate.
Anyway enough numbers for now. (There will be more later, I’m afraid.) Open the GT’s frameless doors and you’ll find an interior rich on material quality and Audi design. No hint that you’re in any other brand than an Audi in here. This is one of the things that the VW Group does well, which is why, I suppose, we perceive that an Audi is a classier car than a Skoda, even though so many of the mechanicals are the same.
It’s stylish and, despite the rakish roofline, pretty spacious in the front, with good enough head room and adequate head room in the rear. Even though the floor is what’s filled with batteries, there’s still a big centre console, aping a transmission tunnel, but that helps generate the individual cockpit sort of feel that’s probably right for this kind of driver’s car. There are a good many physical buttons, too, which helps, although
I did like the old rotary dial of Audi’s multimedia interface. If it were still there to supplement a touchscreen it’d be bang on, but let’s not grumble about having this many buttons.
One changes the drive modes, which adjust comfort and steering weight but the general character remains the same. And in both E-tron GTs, it is, it’s fair to say, a character set reasonably well apart from the Porsche’s.
Not in terms of performance, you understand. There’s not a lot they can do about that, one suspects. A motor makes its motory power, and although there’s noise augmentation, the sci-fi whoosh isn’t enough to separate these cars. They all, despite the RS’s 2,347kg kerb weight, go like the clappers. The RS more than the 60, of course, but there’s not a real-world scenario in which the lesser car’s 4.1sec standing-start acceleration feels like a poor relation to the RS’s 3.3sec. Power in either case is impeccably smooth and quiet. On the rare occasions the car does select first on the rear gear (standing starts and at low speeds in dynamic modes), as in the Taycan, you’ll be pushed to tell.
Neither E-tron GT variant, mind, decelerates off-throttle with quite the conviction I’d like. Even though you can pull a left steering wheel paddle to increase throttle-off retardation a little, it never gets anywhere near one-pedal driving, much though I like the current default, which is to be able to coast, or sail, when you lift off; it feels like an automatic ICE-powered car.
I think Audi has worked to make the rest of the dynamics feel as ICE-Audi-ish and un-weird as possible, too, for those coming to the E-tron GT from another Audi. And here’s where those initial fears about character have been allayed. Although who’d be more fearful: Porsche that its car felt like an Audi, or Audi that its felt like a Porsche? Probably Porsche.
Anyway, the way in which the E-tron GT steers could only be from Audi. It has that lightness off of straight-ahead, a real directness early on, and a remoteness the Taycan avoids that just goes to show they must mean to make all Audis like that on purpose.
It’s quite reassuring, though, in its own way: it’s nice to have the breadth of options between the two brands, and the Audi is a pretty relaxing steer, stable enough around straight-ahead but largely low effort when you turn it.
It rides in Audi-esque fashion, too. Whether in RS or 60 form, there’s an underlying firmness — although that both variants wore 265/30 and 305/30 21in tyres would explain that — with good composure but a little more body looseness than a Taycan.
The RS does a good impression of driving like an RS Audi, with a few key differences. First is the weight, but although it can’t lose that, the fact that it’s low down and central does mean it turns with real conviction — while the powerful rear motor means you can feel it pushing itself straight on corner exit, in a way that no recent Audi bar the R8 does.
The 60 does it less so, but is still engaging and with a little more lightness in the steering, if not outright agility. Its kerb weight of 2,276kg is offset by less aggressive dynamics.
I liked both. As much as a Taycan? Pretty much, you know. Marginally less engaging to drive but I’d want to look at it a lot more and it feels special.
Those other numbers I promised? It can charge at up to 270kW on a DC charger, 11kW as standard (22kW optional) on AC. Neither of which is as quick as plugging it into a pump for three minutes, but you knew that.