Audi’s e-tron facelift contains technical updates
Audi’s e-tron and e-tron Sportback electric models are to receive a facelift in the second half of 2022, including some technical upgrades. According to a media report, this will include a new generation of batteries that will increase the range in both models to more than 600 kilometres.
As the British portal “Autocar” reports, citing unnamed sources from the company, more efficient e-motors and improved electronics are also planned, which will enable better recuperation, among other things. The upgrades are intended to make the e-tron and e-tron Sportback fit for the period until at least 2025. The report hardly goes into detail about the technical aspects. It merely states that the improved powertrain should increase the range to 373 miles (600 kilometres) – from the current 249 miles (400 kilometres, 95-kWh battery).
From 2026, as reported, a larger successor is planned in the form of the Q8 e-tron, which, like its predecessors, is to be built in Brussels. The official decision to build the new electric SUV in Brussels is likely to be taken in the course of the Group’s next planning round in November. Regarding the model itself, it was recently reported that the Q8 e-tron is likely to be larger than the e-tron and that it will be based on the new PPE platform that Audi and Porsche are developing together. This report already stated that the e-tron “should receive another facelift in 2023 and be phased out in 2026”.
Media reports also mention that Audi is planning an electric SUV for China only before the Q6 e-tron as the first electric vehicle based on the PPE platform (planned for 2023). This SUV based on the MEB platform is said to be the Audi offshoot of the seven-seater VW ID.6, which will also only be sold in the Middle Kingdom. The Audi counterpart will initially be produced at the plant of the Audi-SAIC joint venture in Shanghai and, from 2023 at the earliest, also at the site of the Audi-FAW joint venture in Changchun. This fits in with an earlier report that a total of six new electric Audi models are to start up in Changchun by 2025. The timetable is ambitious in that production there is not scheduled to start until 2024. Audi would therefore have to master six production start-ups within a few months.
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