Being an e-tron, it’s electric, which means owners won’t have to bother with petrol stations for anything other than a quick wee. Audi says its two electric motors (one up front, one at the rear) will kick out a smidge over 300bhp, and get their juice from an 82 kilowatt hour battery back hidden in the car’s floor. All of that combined will give it a range of around 300 miles on the stringent WLTP cycle.
Audi’s bringing two versions to the party – the 50 and 55. In Audi-speak, that means one is a touch more powerful than the other. Audi says both versions of the Q4 Sportback e-tron concept will do 0-62mph in 6.3 seconds, and head up to a limited 112mph.
The Q4 Sportback e-tron’s motors aren’t linked physically, but electronically. Most of the time it’ll use its rear motor, and therefore wheels, only. If extra traction is needed to keep it on the straight and narrow in adverse conditions the car’s electronic brain will detect it and get the fronts involved. All very clever stuff.
The Sportback version of the Q4, as with all of Audi’s Sportback cars, is styled less for practicality and more for style. As such it has a swooping roofline, boxy S1 Sport quattro inspired wheelarches. As it’s an e-tron, there are some neat family traits built in as well – a single rear light bar, illuminated e-tron logos, and a solid grille. The interior, as you’d expect from an electric Audi concept, is a vision of the future.
The Q4 e-tron, and Q4 Sportback e-tron, will be Audi’s third and fourth electric models when the production versions launch later in 2020, with more on the way.
All of the concept’s shiny bits, and promises of hundreds of miles of silent wafting are super impressive. And, sure, the production car won’t be quite as super shiny (it’ll have sensibly-sized wheels for one), but it’s another electric SUV to add to the ever growing list of electric SUVs of various sizes flying out of factory gates all over the world. While the lack of variety in the types of EVs heading to market isn’t particularly inspiring (Tesla’s upcoming Roadster doesn’t count because it doesn’t exist yet, and has been largely unmentioned since Musk unveiled it. Same goes for the house-of-mirrors Cybertruck.), the fact that so many are coming our way is a good thing. The only reason they’re being built is because there’s a business case for them – people want EVs these days.
See, it’s easy to find reasons why EVs won’t work in the short term – charging takes a while, they’re expensive, the charge network isn’t as good as it could be – but those arguments tend to be from people who don’t need one. ‘It won’t work in a city,’ is a good one because it shows how narrow-minded city dwellers can be. While the world may appear revolve around the many who live in flats, not everything does. If you live in an apartment owning a car in the first place can be a faff unless you have spaces designated for the building. Similarly, if street parking’s all you have it’s easier to own your own motor, but an EV? Well, because you can’t refill it quickly you’ll need to leave your pride and joy at a charge point some where far from your house for a decent slug of time to be able to go any meaningful distance. This, along with running a regular plug out of the letterbox, can be something of a turn off. Tumbling charge times will remedy this as time goes on. Yet the vocal city dwellers have decided that because it doesn’t work for them EVs won’t work for anyone.
Outside of town, in the ‘burbs, EVs make more sense. You can have a charge point bolted to your house so you can fill your car with as many electrcities as you want while it sits on the drive and you doze. Yet because the ‘burbs aren’t close to anything other than more suburbs the argument goes that an EV with a 124 mile range simply isn’t enough to get by on. Range anxiety is apparently a big deal when your daily drive is to pick up bread from the shops and go to the office – all of which are a less than 20 mile round trip. For this lot a range of 500 miles is the zenith – anything less is an affront to their lifestyles, and will keep them in petrol cars until the end of time.
Further out of town, where ranges genuinely matter, if an EV doesn’t work it simply won’t be considered. Because buying the right vehicle is paramount. But if you look at the options out there something like an EV will likely do the job for you and yours on the day to day. You might have to step outside of your comfort zone a bit though.
But that’s the thing with the naysayers: The reason they’re so fought against is because they can’t see an electric car working for them in the way a petrol car will, and so they start shouting about how change will end us all. It’s all a bit anti-vaxxer-y at its extreme end.
Bring on Audi’s Q4 and all its electric splendour. The e-tron SUV is a blinding bit of kit, there’s absolutely no reason this won’t be. But remember, just ‘cos it’s not for you it’s not objectively bad…
Keyword: Audi Q4 Sportback e-tron Concept revealed: EVs... EVs everywhere