Audi goes diesel for Q7 e-tron

Audi has chosen a high-tech new diesel engine to partner with battery-electric power to push the driving range of its ground-breaking new plug-in hybrid version of the next Q7 well beyond 1000km.

Due to be unveiled at January’s Detroit motor show, Audi's second-generation large SUV will be the German car-maker's first diesel-electric hybrid, stealing the march on both BMW and Mercedes-Benz when it arrives in early 2016.

Sources at Audi have confirmed the much-talked-about Q7 e-tron powertrain, which has been penciled in for a Detroit show reveal for months now, won’t have petrol power.

It will be only the second diesel-electric hybrid from Europe, with Volvo’s V60 arriving late in 2014 and finding more than 10,000 homes in its first year.

The Q7 will also be sold with more conventional diesel and petrol powerplants, sources confirm, with engines ranging from 3.0-litre V6 power through to the biturbo 4.0-litre V8 and the biggest 6.0-litre V12 powerplant from the A8.

But the plug-in hybrid e-tron will be the star of the Q7 family, with 50km of pure-electric range courtesy of its lithium-ion battery pack.

Sources insist the Q7 e-tron will offer an NEDC combined fuel consumption figure of less than 3.0L/100km, with a later Ultra version slipping below the 3.0-litre barrier.

Audi has worked hard on the Q7’s weight, with sources confirming it has pulled around 300kg out of the body of the seven-seat SUV, reducing the required battery size for the e-tron by around 50kg.

It has made its large SUV out of a mix of high-strength steels for the passenger safety cell in combination with aluminium almost everywhere else.

The Q7 e-tron will combine a single-turbo version of Audi’s 3.0-litre diesel V6 with its latest generation of electric motor technology. Said to be as fast in a straight line as the biturbo diesel V6, the plug-in hybrid Q7 will beat the A8 to market by a matter of months, though both will use the same powertrain.

The Q7 e-tron will be sold globally, even in China and the United States, with Audi development boss Dr Ulrich Hackenberg confirming that its combination of refinement, economy, range and performance would suit even the diesel-shy Americans.

It is not Audi’s first plug-in hybrid, with the petrol-electric A3 e-tron already on the market in Europe (and due here early next year), and Audi CEO Rupert Stadler has favoured betting big on the technology.

“We strongly believe in plug-in hybrids,” he said at the A3 e-tron’s launch.

Expect conventional versions of the new Q7 to go on sale in Australia later next year, followed early the following year by the ground-breaking Q7 e-tron.