Audi confirms second electric car

The days when Tesla had the premium electric-car business all to itself are very rapidly drawing to a close, with Audi confirming it will build a second zero-emission car.

The company had previously confirmed it will start production of its battery-electric e-tron SUV in Brussels next year; now it has confirmed a second e-tron model will also be built there from 2019.

The e-tron Sportback five-door will become Audi’s second full electric car, powered by a state-of-the-art lithium-ion battery and based on the Audi-engineered C-BEV battery-electric modular chassis architecture.

That will leave its Brussels factory to build only one of the four Volkswagen Group electric-car architectures, and one of only two premium architectures. The Group has Audi’s C-BEV modular platform for all the Group’s premium SUV and crossover models, including those from Porsche and Bentley.

The second Audi BEV will be based on the e-tron Sportback concept car (pictured), which made its debut at the Shanghai motor show this year. The four-door gran tourer had 320kW of electric power in an all-wheel drive layout, with one electric motor on the front axle and two on the rear.

A competitor to both the Tesla Model X and Jaguar’s forthcoming I-PACE crossover, the four-seat, four-door e-tron Sportback will have a claimed range of more than 500km from a single charge of either direct (DC) or alternating (AC) current.

While the concept had 320kW of power as the standard claimed output, Audi claimed it could jump to 370kW via an over-boosting mode, pushing the sleek crossover SUV to 100km/h in 4.5sec.

The liquid-cooled lithium-ion battery stores 95kWh of energy and is housed beneath the passenger compartment, lending the crossover a 52:48 front-to-rear weight distribution.

The road-going version of the e-tron Sportback is said to be surprisingly close in its dimensions to the 4.9m long concept car, which also sat on a 1.98m wide stance and a 2.93m wheelbase. Just 1.53m high, its closest philosophical cousin in Audi’s internal-combustion range is clearly the A7, which is due to be replaced by an all-new model this year.

The second of the Volkswagen Group premium BEV architectures is the Porsche-developed J1 architecture, which has been designed for low-riding sedan, liftback, coupe and even convertible work and will be the basis of BEVs from Porsche, Audi, Bentley, Volkswagen and possibly even Lamborghini.

The Volkswagen Group boasts another two BEV architectures that have either been fully developed to production readiness or are almost there, including the MEB architecture for small-to-medium cars and SUVs and a larger chassis concept.

“With the decision on the Audi e-tron Sportback, we are showing that Audi takes the issue of electric mobility seriously,” Audi’s board member for production and logistics, Professor Doctor Hubert Waltl, said.

“A second battery-electric model will lead to optimal capacity utilization at our plant in Brussels,” he insisted.

While there’s no need for a traditional grille, with enough airflow to cool an internal-combustion engine, Audi has given it hints of its traditional single-frame grille, though it’s broken up with a few new interesting visual tricks.

It boasts trick new LED headlights that are not only full-beam headlights, but also uses a set of mirrors to project their daytime running lights onto sections of the bodywork to act as reflected scrolling indicators.

The concept car also used next-generation Matrix Laser lights at both ends which not only stretch the high-beam illumination out to 600m but project information on to the road itself.

“Our Audi e-tron will be starting out in 2018 – the first electric car in its competitive field that is fit for everyday use,” Audi chairman Rupert Stadler explained at the Shanghai show.

“With a range of over 500km and the special electric driving experience, we will make this sporty SUV the must-have product of the next decade.

“Following close on its heels, in 2019, comes the production version of the Audi e-tron Sportback – an emotional coupé version that is thrillingly identifiable as an electric car at the very first glance.”