The car industry is performing a 180-degree turn, full speed into the future. So how does a traditional brand like Audi manage the change? By keeping its progressive course and pulling ahead faster than ever. Introducing its latest coup in the premium market, the RS e-tron GT.
The e-tron GT is Audi’s new flagship model. Not just its flagship EV—its flagship model. This is a significant shift for one of the world’s largest and most prominent auto manufacturers, but the fact that this supercar is electric is not its biggest draw—its one-of-a-kind design is.
The sister car of the Porsche Taycan, they share much of the same drive tech but they look very different from the outside. Electro-mobility opens up a new dimension in automotive design, giving this four-door Grand Tourer an unmistakable sporty yet elegant coupé-style. With EVs, a lot depends on cruising speed—the more aerodyamic the design, the further you’ll go—and the e-tron GT is one of the most efficiently dynamic vehicles in Audi’s ever expanding EV range.
Considering the muscular wheel arches, aggressively styled headlights, gently sloping roofline, one-piece strip taillights, and large hexagonal radiator grille—at first glance the new RS e-tron GT is a strikingly emotive, forward focused Tourer, which just happens to be electric.
According to Audi’s head designer Marc Lichte, the RS e-tron GT is “the most beautiful car [he’s] ever drawn”. When you consider that his career spans more than two decades – with seven years at the storied German marque – that declaration makes some impact.
The truth is, Audi has always made beautiful cars, but it the release of the e-tron GT is a significant statement of intent. In fact, scratch that, rather than a statement it is a proclamation shouted over the noise of rush hour traffic on the autobahn.
This is a fully-electric sports car that delignates itself from the rapidly evolving EV battlefield – simply by the fact that it isn’t a cushy, middle of the road cross-over. Powered by a 800-volt, 93kWh lithium-ion battery with a range of 472km and a whiplash-inducing acceleration of 0 to 100kph in 3.3 seconds(!) this is a rapid sports car, but it is very much a Grand Tourer.
“The RS e-tron GT is about intelligent performance,” says Elmir Arnautovic, Audi’s Marketing Director in the Middle East. “It wasn’t built to shoehorn a new EV battery into an existing model, the whole thing has been reverse engineered to ensure that before anything else, it is an Audi.”
Design-wise, what separates this vehicle from the competition because of the methodology behind it. Unlike other manufacturers, this is not an electric system that has been created to fit into an existing design, this is an Audi that has been reverse engineered into evolve the marque (and the industry) into the next generation of design.
With the release of its RS e-tron GT, Audi has shown that it believes there is a desire for something that offers what it calls ‘aesthetic intelligence’ – marketing speak for merging innovative technology with progressive, timeless design.
Overall, it promises to add real presence and pep to an electric scene which has so far been dominated by practicality more than desirability.