This Audi A6 Avant e-tron may be an “Allroad” model in the US, if it comes here at all.
I’ve been saying it over the past few years, and I’ll say it again here — we here at TFL love, love, love us some wagons. That’s why we were happy to see the Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo emerge, and it appears Audi could bring in an A6 Avant e-tron to follow that up. If you saw the A6 e-tron concept Audi debuted last year, than some of this styling (especially at the front) will look familiar. This one brings in the long roofline, though, as well as an overall footprint close to the current A6 wagons we get right now.
Normally, I’d ride a journalistic fence here and mention that looks are subjective. But you know what? This Audi A6 Avant e-tron is just better than the sedan. There’s a stateliness to this concept’s design, not to mention the extra practicality you get from a wagon without losing as much in terms of driving dynamics that you would with a crossover. You can argue me on that if you’d like, but I’m definitely digging the look Audi’s designers have brought to light here.
Should we actually see it in production form on our shores, it would also be an alternative (of sorts) to the Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo. This car rides on Volkswagen Group’s scalable PPE platform, unlike the current Taycan, but Audi’s concept also has an 800-volt electrical architecture. Audi says it carries up to 270 kW of DC fast-charging capability, which should replenish 186 miles of range in 10 minutes. Charging up from 5 to 80% state-of-charge should take just under 25 minutes. A 100-kWh battery may offer up to around 435 miles of range, at least according to WLTP standards.
What about performance?
The PPE platform supports both single and dual-motor models, and we may ultimately see both from a production Audi A6 Avant e-tron. the dual-motor version puts out 469 horsepower (350 kW) and 590 lb-ft of torque (800 N-m). Audi says the quickest electric A6 Avant will make the 0-62 mph sprint in just under four seconds. Even base models, though, should manage that run in about seven seconds with the rear-mounted motor. Those figures fall in line with the sort of performance you’d expect from a modern EV, even if we’re not talking about neck-snapping acceleration.
Apart from those figures, this concept brings some more touches like 22-inch wheels and pillar-mounted cameras in place of the door mirrors. We’ll likely lose those should Audi launch the A6 Avant e-tron in our market — they’re still illegal here, after all. That said, we should actually see the company’s matrix OLED tech (finally), and small high-resolution LED projectors can even display warning symbols to other folks around the car. For example, it can tell cyclists that someone is about to open the door.
The Audi A6 Avant e-tron arrives in 2024, so we should have much more information on the production version before too long. Whether we’ll only see it as a lifted “Allroad” model or whether there will be a high-performance RS variant remains to be seen. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that this arrives in America in some form, though.
