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Hoped-for standard bearer:
Audi's E-tron GT should stir up the luxury class of electric sedans
Photo: Audi
This shows the long planning for a car premiere: One day before the presentation of his new electric
sedan
, Audi boss
Markus Duesmann
(51) made the direction of the march public.
The US electric car maker Tesla should not only catch up with the four-ring brand, "we want to overtake", he told the "Handelsblatt".
Manager magazin had already reported at the end of January that Audi is planning its own charging network for electric cars together with VW sister company Porsche - with particularly fast charging stations, probably embedded in small brand centers.
Luxury shop for discerning customers, to whom Audi can now present the right vehicle: the Audi E-tron GT, which the Ingolstadt-based company is presenting purely online due to Corona.
The vehicle is intended to pave the way for Audi towards the upper-class electric car, in which the Ingolstadt-based company has recently been able to score - but with one important restriction.
Audi's first purely battery-powered e-models, the SUV E-tron and its Coupé derivative Sportback, sold very well in Norway and the Netherlands last year.
And in Germany, Duesmann recently emphasized, the e-SUV is well ahead of Tesla's Model S and Model X in terms of sales.
However: In terms of range, Audi's electric off-roader is a long way off from Tesla's Model X, and the electric SUV, which has been built since 2018, is on a platform that has only been adapted for this model and offers limited options for building other variants.
It's different with the GT: It is based on a basis developed by Porsche that the sports car manufacturer is already using for its Taycan electric sports car.
Unlike the E-Porsche, Audi's sedan should be a "sovereign glider", the Ingolstadt-based company promise - a sporty touring car.
The GT competes with at least 476 hp and a range of up to 488 kilometers per battery charge according to the WLTP test cycle.
The GT basic version manages the sprint from 0 to 100 km / h in 4.1 seconds.
As with the sports car brother, the Taycan, there is also a fast charging system on board that enables direct current charging with up to 270 kW of power.
Translated, this means: the GT can charge from 0 to 80 percent battery capacity at appropriately upgraded Ionity charging stations in around 20 minutes.
The GT will go on sale in spring 2021 - at a basic price of 99,800 euros for the basic version of the Audi E-tron GT quattro.
The model with its 598 PS, which is much more generous with the somewhat cumbersome name RS E-tron GT quattro, is said to be available in Germany from 138,200 euros.
Audi's electric car offensive is now really taking off
The GT is the continuation of Audi's electric car offensive, which is already showing initial successes: According to its own information, Audi has exceeded its CO2 fleet targets for Europe in 2020 - based on preliminary values, as the Ingolstadt-based company announced in mid-January.
The significantly increased deliveries of the SUV E-tron and its Sportback variant, it was said at the time, as well as the total of nine plug-in hybrid models from the compact A3 series to the Q7 luxury SUV had a positive influence on this.
Audi plans to offer more than 30 electrified models by 2025, around 25 of which are electric.
In the next four years, Audi plans to invest 15 billion euros in the development of e-cars.
At the same time, internal combustion engines are being developed, which should still account for half of sales by the end of the decade.
That was "an enormous feat," said Duesmann recently.
This year Audi doesn't just want to go on the Tesla hunt with the GT.
The VW subsidiary will also present a compact electric SUV in 2021, the Q4 E-tron.
This model is built on the basis of VW's electric car platform MEB, on which Herbert Diess' E-Car Hopes ID.3 and ID.4 roll off the assembly line.
The GT presented now also offers Audi users room for improvement: Audi's A8 combustion luxury sedan does not yet have a fully electric counterpart.
This is exactly what the luxury electric car platform used in the Taycan and Audi GT is intended for.
The Ingolstadt-based and Zuffenhausen-based car makers designed these together - under the abbreviation PPE, which stands for "Premium Platform Electric".
Hoped-for overtaking maneuver with "Artemis"
Photo: Audi
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These electric cars will hit the market in 2021
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However, there is a small problem with the platform: Tesla is currently installing more powerful batteries in its vehicles than those used in the PPE.
This means that the US competition is still ahead of the curve in this key figure that is important for long-distance drivers.
That is why Audi is already working on the "Artemis" project.
Under this code name, Audi is to accelerate the development of additional electric car models.
The new "Artemis" vehicle architecture should also include the further development of the software operating system VW.OS 2.0.
The first Artemis-based cars are expected to hit the market in 2024 - in three years.
Tesla is also working on new platforms, but a new potential opponent is also emerging on the horizon: the electric car manufacturer Lucid Motors, whose first model "Air" is due to hit the streets in spring.
Lucid boss Peter Rawlinson was once the chief engineer of Tesla's Model S, now he wants to compete with his former employer: With a vehicle that, thanks to a 120 kWh battery, can charge over 600 kilometers on one battery charge, it can charge faster than the Tesla models and manages the sprint from 0 to 100 km / h in around 2 seconds.
Audis GT is still a long way from such values.
But the direction in which the Ingolstadt-based project is aiming for 2024 is already clear from the name: In Greek mythology, Artemis was the goddess of the hunt.
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