Audi uses a stretched wheelbase A6 platform for the e-tron concept.
Audi’s late-to-the-party commitment to battery power is getting charged up fast. The maker has already announced several upcoming products using its advanced electric drive technology – collectively dubbed e-tron – including a plug-in hybrid version of the 2-seat Audi R8.
Now, the German luxury brand is shifting focus to a more mainstream model, a plug-in version of the A6 sedan on display this week at the Beijing Motor Show – and, Audi hints, possibly in line for the jump from concept to customer.
The prototype A6 e-tron features a turbocharged 211-horsepower, 2.0-liter 4-cylinder engine that’s paired with a 95-horsepower electric motor that gets its juice from a liquid-cooled lithium-ion battery pack. While Audi isn’t saying how big that is, we’re estimating it’s somewhere between 16 and 20 kilowatt-hours, enough to get a maximum 50 miles in electric mode. And for longer drives, that gas engine then kicks in to keep the A6 e-tron concept going indefinitely.
The A6 e-tron interior includes a revised MMI that can handle 29,000 Chinese characters.
Range is enhanced by several factors, including the sedan’s lightweight aluminum body and frame – largely identical to the current production A6 – and improved aerodynamics.
In keeping with the demands of the Chinese market, the show car is actually based on the longer wheelbase A6L, apparently buyers in the booming market likely to let their chauffeurs stretch out the e-tron’s battery range.
Audi provides dimensions showing the car is 16.47 feet, nose-to-tail, with a 9.88-foot wheelbase, and it stands just 4.79 feet tall.
The modest exterior changes include nearly covered-over air intakes and special wheels specifically designed to reduce wind drag. There are also signature details to flag this as an e-tron model, including a capsule over the engine components featuring a ribbed contour at its center.
Audi executives hint there may very well be an A6 e-tron under active development, but they also suggest it would more likely than not be targeted at China. That’s no surprise, actually. While both U.S. and European regulators are trying to encourage the development and sale of more battery-based vehicles, China’s masters are being even more aggressive and have laid out plans that could see 5 million plug-ins and battery-electric vehicles on the road by 2020.
That may explain why Audi engineers have also equipped the A6 e-tron concept with a new instrument panel and vehicle information display, with the familiar Audi MMI infotainment system here programmed to recognize a whopping 29,000 Chinese characters.