Audi plunges into the e-future
Luxury automaker says it first foray into the electric vehicle segment is just the beginning
Before we begin with an overview of last week’s global reveal of the 2019 Audi e-tron Quattro production car, we’d be remiss in not acknowledging that tequila-popping, pot-smoking billionaire insomniac whose factory 50 miles down the Nimitz Freeway from here made this all-electric luxury vehicle possible.
For if not for those Tesla sedans and SUVs rolling off the Fremont factory floor, there is no chance Audi — for that matter any luxury automaker — would have invested the billions of Euros required to bring a production EV to market.
True, the case can be made, and convincingly, that without Elon Musk’s groundbreaking company the EV revolution would have come eventually, but certainly not in 2018. Maybe not even in 2050.
Now, about that big reveal from last Monday on the San Francisco Bay waterfront.
The e-tron is an all-electric, all-wheel drive SUV comparable in size to the Audi Q5, has a full-charge range of 400 kilometres, a maximum towing capacity of 1,800 kilograms (4,000 lbs.) and is loaded with new technology, including a really cool virtual wing mirror that incorporates a camera and screen in place of the traditional side view mirror (unfortunately, only Europespec e-trons get this as North America safety regulations forbid such technology. I am told Audi lawyers are furiously lobbying to change that.)
That impressive range comes by way of a 95 kWh lithium-ion battery pack comprised of 432 cells arranged in 12-cell modules in a double bed-sized, 34-cm high structure located under the floor of the SUV.
By way of comparison, the Tesla Model X’s battery packs range in size from 75 to 100 kWh, while the 2019 Jaguar i-Pace’s is 90 kWh. Like Jaguar, Audi chose to develop and build its own electric motors rather than buy them off the shelf. Part of that decision was based on keeping and taking the automaker’s legendary Quattro traction system into the electric age in house, and part was based on development for future products (more on that later).
Only time will tell if that ‘build-not-buy’ route was the correct decision, but judging from the specs released by Audi, their motors live up to the Audi badging.
The front-mounted motor has an output of 125 kW with a 10 kW maximum boost potential, and the rear motor is rated at 140 kW and a 25 kW boost. That’s a combined power output of 265, or 300 at full boost, or in that oldschool horsepower metric, 355 and 402 respectively.