Audi has just shown the future of their electric sedans with the A6 e-tron concept, which debuts at the Shanghai Motor Show today.
The sedan is based on a new platform that Audi briefly calls ‘Premium Platform Electric’ or ‘PPE’, developed in collaboration with Porsche. This platform enables Audi to offer several new vehicles, with the first to be launched in late 2022.
The A6 e-tron concept boasts the impressive specifications one would expect from a premium electric vehicle. The A6 has a 100 kWh battery and can charge up to 270 kW on an 800 volt charger. Audi claims its 350 kW (469 hp) car will push the car from 0-100 km / h (0-62 mph) in less than four seconds.
The battery is good for a distance of 700 km (435 miles) on the WLTP cycle, which translates to about 390-400 miles in the EPA cycle. Although we do not yet have the final efficiency numbers, and these are all just estimates for a concept car, it will bring the car in line with the most efficient electric motors available today. Audi claims that the A6 e-tron has an aerodynamic drag coefficient of just .22, which also makes it one of the fewest cars available.
High efficiency also helps with charging – the less energy you use to drive a certain distance, the more miles you can add with the same amount of electricity. Audi says that a 270 kW charger can charge the battery of about 5-80% (about 480 km / 300 my range) within about 25 minutes. Or in an optimal situation, a charge of ten minutes can reach a range of 300 km (186 mi). Thus, although it has the same kilowatt load as the Porsche Taycan, the A6 has to reach more kilometers when plugged in for the same time due to its higher efficiency.
Somehow the A6 manages this efficiency with 22-inch non-aerodynamic wheels. We can not help but think that they can improve a few more percentage points by covering the turbines.
In terms of exterior size, the A6 e-tron is about the same as the rest of the A6 / A7 series. However, it should offer more space than these cars, due to the packaging benefits of an electric propulsion system. Compared to the e-tron GT, it is only 3 cm longer and longer.
The A6 e-tron concept incorporates several other high-tech features, including Audi’s Digital Matrix LED headlights. This allows the headlights to project images on the way forward, giving more control over the light coming from the headlights. Audi engineers have even programmed a game for the A6 e-tron concept, which can be played by projecting the game on a wall and driving it with a smartphone:
Audi has also included side projectors that can illuminate the ground with various symbols. One possible use Audi suggests for this is to warn cyclists if a driver opens the door.
Although the A6 e-tron has so far only been described as a ‘concept’, the production version will probably be very similar to the concept introduced today. A similar thing happened to the Q4 e-tron, which was introduced last week in production specifications, which is not far from the draft version we saw two years ago.
The A6 e-tron is expected to hit the road by the end of 2022. Prices are not yet available, of course, but the gas-powered A6 starts in the mid-$ 50,000 range, so we’d expect it to be significantly cheaper than Audi’s other electric sedan, the six-digit e-tron GT.
PPE platform – more EVs coming
The PPE platform is perhaps more interesting for today’s unveiling. This is the culmination of many years of effort between Audi and Porsche. They only announced their collaboration on this platform in 2017.
Despite the now strange-sounding name (maybe the name is a few years old, but we heard ‘PPE’ – ‘personal protective equipment’ all year round, and do you really want to connect your car platform to the coronavirus?), Audi says that this flexible architecture will enable more electric motors in the future.
The A6 concept is just the first Audi we saw on this new platform, and Audi plans to offer cars based on the PPE platform worldwide. Porsche will also use it, with their first PPE model, the new electric Macan. Other Audi electric vehicles used the VW MEB and Porsche J1 platforms.
The PPE platform utilizes the benefits of electric propulsion in a familiar configuration – a large battery, low on the floor of the vehicle, placed between the axles. As we have seen in many other vehicles, it offers a lower center of gravity and better chassis stiffness, which improves handling. It also helps engineers with packaging considerations, removing the need for a large engine at the front and a transmission tunnel to bring power to the rear.
Audi will continue to offer ‘quattro’ drive configurations with cars both front and rear, enabling four-wheel drive. These are likely to be more performance-oriented versions, given the sub-4-second mentioned 0-60 times above. Audi also offers a “basic version” of the vehicle with a single car at the rear (not front, yes!), Optimized for maximum efficiency (and lower price), rather than working.
Audi plans to launch cars based on the PPE platform as early as 2022. The A6 e-tron will be the first as Audi’s C-segment in the family. But Audi is also planning D-segment and B-segment cars on the PPE platform, and maybe even SUVs and CUVs.
Electrekthey take
Although Audi has done quite a bit of the concepts and press releases for vaporware vehicles in the past, times have changed. Now we have a very solid entry, which we suggest will be a significantly lower price than the e-tron GT with six figures, and it will even be available within a year and a half.
It looks beautiful, all the specifications sound as good as you want it to be (except maybe reach too much), and it’s coming soon. There’s not really much to complain about here (at least until we hear the price). Can’t wait to see it perform.
Fortunately, in conversations with Audi drivers – and voltswagen group drivers in general – it is clear that they all (eventually) take electric vehicles quite seriously. They also put their money where their mouths are, and Audi recently announced $ 12 billion in EV investments, with 20 all-electric models planned by 2025.
We saw the beginning of this tidal wave of new models. The A6 e-tron announced today, the e-tron GT is in production recently and we see the Q4 e-tron just launched last week. At this point, we can expect concepts like the A6 to actually be a true version that gets off the road. Phew.
Audi’s EV sales are also increasing, with their electric sales in 2020 being around 80% more than their sales in 2019. We hope the trend will continue, because despite such impressive growth … it’s still just responsible below 3% of all Audi’s worldwide sales.
So, as always, we need to remind our readers that although Audi (and older VW group) deserve the honor of saying the right words about electric cars, the vast majority of the cars they sell still spit death out of their exhaust pipes. With the world currently in an emergency, we are has to sell gas cars that will pollute the world for another decade or longer after leaving the fate of the dealer. Audi has promised to move to a carbon-neutral production process, but gas engines make up the vast majority of their pollution in the use phase, not in production.
As always, we encourage as much as possible. Fortunately, it seems that today’s announcement, not just about the A6 e-tron concept, but with more details about the PPE platform as a whole, is a response to our desire. We can not wait to see more vehicles on this platform, and hopefully we will see them on the road within a short timeline as Audi proposed with today’s draft release.
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