Audi RS e-Tron GT
Ingolstadt’s Porsche Taycan driven
To dismiss the Audi RS e-Tron GT as a Porsche Taycan in fancy dress isn’t inaccurate, but it does underplay its significance – this is the first all-electric model from Audi’s high-performance RS division, and it beats BMW’s M division and Mercedes-AMG to the honour of being the first from a German performance division.
It’s a huge deal, and to find out if the RS e-Tron GT drives like a real RS, we’re testing a pre-production example in Rhodes. Trademark RS fast looks are present and correct (if toned down since the fist-bitingly gorgeous concept of 2018) and bragging rights are covered: the most powerful RS ever, says Audi, with an RS6-matching 592bhp always on tap and bursts of 631bhp on overboost.
Harnessed in an e-all-wheel-drive catapult, that performance translates as 0-62mph in under 3.5 seconds and 156mph flat-out (limited, of course). The night before our road drive those stats were given some context when I covered the quarter-mile in a whisker under 12 seconds on an airfield, with an instant kick in the guts from standstill and acceleration to match a supercar. No skill, just a reaction-time required, and I sped down that airfield with the alien and mostly quiet surge of electricity, suitably smacked back in my seat, if knowing that the ferocity of the Taycan Turbo S was another league beyond.
In fact, the performance slots the e-Tron (RS GT? Sorry, but I’m not saying the full name every time) a little below the Taycan Turbo, and it’s a similar story with the driving dynamics, with one engineer explaining the Taycan is more focused on every last tenth of lap time, where the Audi has a more rounded GT remit.
You drop down into a gorgeously comfy driver’s seat with generous bolsters and tactile fabric trim perfectly complemented by a thin alcantara steering wheel. The seat is surprisingly close to the floor given the battery beneath you, and while much of this prototype’s dash is under wraps, it’s clear that the centre console is angled quite aggressively towards the driver, and that the digital displays are much like those inside the RS6. It’s a purposefully sporting driving position (and, like the Taycan, pretty cramped for taller passengers in the rear seats – expect more space with a TBC Sportback version).
Pull back a tiny lever, squeeze the throttle and ease away. The ride is plush on our test car’s optional 21-inch wheels, refinement impressive, the steering mid-weighted and precise, if perhaps not quite with the incisive response of a Taycan immediately off-centre – nothing to complain about, but perhaps a nod to high-speed stability.
Having no telltale at all is the real telltale of perfect calibration, and there’s certainly much hidden expertise lavished here. Like Porsche, Audi thinks coasting is a better way to preserve range, so when you back off the throttle there’s a comparable level of retardation to a combustion engine – not the exaggerated pull-up of some EVs (Audi hopes for a range of over 248 miles once homologation is complete, a little more than the Taycan Turbo, much less than any Tesla Model S). Same with the brakes – mostly e-motors do the braking but press harder and the transition to discs and pads is seamless.
The spacey baazuuwww noise of the e-motors is very much real (not unpleasant, if to be damped down for production), but there’s also the warm, bassy smoothness of a petrol straight-six. That’s fake, of course, and yet so naturally engineered into the driving experience as to feel integral – turn off the sounds if you like, but such strong acceleration in a vacuum of silence scrambles my brain; noise grounds it. ⊲
THE QUARTER MILE IS DONE IN UNDER 12SEC, NO SKILL REQUIRED