Audi presents fully electric Sportback concept car

Audi has unveiled the four-door A6 e-tron concept at Auto Shanghai 2021 which it says is the forerunner of a family of fully-electric production cars.

The concept sits on a completely new technology architecture, the “Premium Platform Electric,” or PPE for short, which will underpin future Audi production electric vehicles.

Beginning in late 2022, the first production cars in the C- and later also B-segment will be relaunched with PPE technology, including both SUVs with a high ground clearance and dynamically styled models with a lower ride height, such as the upcoming Audi A6 e-tron.

Sporting the Audi A6 emblem, the concept car underscores its place in the brand’s luxury-class model series.  

An electrified drive system already has a long tradition in the Audi A6 – after a full hybrid version that was released back in 2011, the current Audi A6 TFSIe made its debut in 2019 with a plug-in hybrid drive and an electric range of up to 91 km (WLTP).

The Audi A6 e-tron concept represents an entirely new design – the only thing it has in common with the current A6 are its dimensions. The 4.96-metre-long, 1.96-metre-wide, and 1.44-metre-high body is designed as a Sportback.

The A6 e-tron concept has two electric motors which are capable of delivering a total output of 350 kW and a torque of 800 Newton meters.

The front wheels of the Audi A6 e-tron concept are connected via a five-link axle specially optimized for electric vehicles, with a multi-link axle in the rear. The concept car features Audi air suspension with adaptive dampers.

The heart of the Audi A6 e-tron concept’s drive technology – and that of all future PPE models – is the 800-volt charging technology. Like the Audi e-tron GT before it, this ensures that the Audi A6 e-tron concept’s battery can be charged with up to 270 kW in a very short time at fast-charging stations. 

Just 10 minutes are enough to charge the battery to a level sufficient to power the car more than 300 kilometers. And in less than 25 minutes, the Audi A6 e-tron concept’s 100 kWh battery can be charged up from 5 to 80 percent.

Together with a range of more than 700 km – depending on the selected drive system and power output Audi says the A6 e-tron concept is suitable for use as a primary vehicle. 

Thanks to its high torque entry-level models designed for efficiency will accelerate to 100 km/h in less than seven seconds. In the top-of-the-line, high-performance models, this sprint can even be reduced to well under four seconds.