New Audi A6 e-tron is an electric BMW 5 Series rival
Audi’s mid-size company-car favourite goes all electric, and has been revealed alongside the practical Avant estate
The new Audi A6 e-tron is just around the corner, with Audi confirming a starting price of just under £70,000 for the newcomer. The company-car favourite has been given a new lease of life with a sleek, aero-optimised design and a range of zero-emission electric powertrains. The A6 e-tron Sportback and A6 e-tron Avant have been revealed along with high-performance S6 variants, ahead of their UK launch towards the end of this year.
Headline stats include up to 466 miles (750 kilometres) of range, 270kW ultra-rapid charging, and a set of advanced digital light clusters with eight customisable designs. Rear and quattro four-wheel-drive models will be offered, as well as a 542bhp S6 flagship capable of 0-62mph in 3.9 seconds.
Pricing for the new A6 e-tron range has also been revealed via the Audi customer website, with the A6 Sportback e-tron beginning at £69,900, around £2,200 more than the starting price of a BMW i5 saloon and only a little more expensive than we were expecting. A model with a smaller battery should bring the starting point down further in the future.
Opting for the A6 Avant e-tron brings the price up to £71,700, while we now also know how much the sportier S6 versions of both the Sportback and Avant will cost. The S6 Sportback e-tron begins at £97,500 – a couple of hundred pounds less than a BMW i5 M60 xDrive – whilst the S6 Avant e-tron is £99,300, about £700 less than the Touring version of the BMW.
Like the petrol, diesel and plug-in hybrid A5 revealed earlier this month, the A6 ditches its old saloon-style body in favour of a slipperier sportback shape. Exterior designer Sascha Heyde told us the maker “didn’t want to do something different just because it’s an EV”.
That means the boot is hinged from the roofline rather than at the base of the window, which should boost practicality for those wanting their executive car to occasionally double as a van.
Yet if that sounds like you, you’ll almost certainly be better served by the new A6 Avant. Sharing its PPE (Premium Platform Electric) architecture with the Sportback, it prioritises practicality with a 502-litre boot – expandable to 1,422 litres with the rear seats folded down. Both cars also get a 27-litre front luggage area and a 2,100kg tow limit.
Predictably, the A6 displays strong visual links to its Q6 e-tron SUV sibling. Thin daytime-running lights flank an inverted grille and sit atop a set of hidden headlights nestled within the intricate bumper. The car’s ‘technical unit’ – sensors, radars and the like – features front and centre, which Heyde says was intentional, playing on the car’s position as a high-tech flagship.
The wide front end gives the car a purposeful stance, and this continues to the side; the large wheels (19 to 21 inches in diameter) have been pushed to the corners, emphasising the lengthy wheelbase to the benefit of those in the cabin.
The smooth details draw the eye to the rear, past a set of flush door handles (digital mirrors are available as an extra) and extensive cladding embossed with the ‘e-tron’ logo along the sills. The A6 e-tron gets a charge port on either side – one for DC fast charging and another for slower AC top-ups. A 270kW peak comes courtesy of the car’s 800-volt electric architecture, allowing for a 10-80 per cent charge in 21 minutes – or almost 200 miles in 10 minutes where conditions permit.
As you might expect, the Sportback’s roofline dips away sooner than the Avant’s – helping contribute to a BMW i5-beating 0.21Cd drag coefficient. That said, even the A6 wagon posts a 0.24Cd figure – fractionally better than that of a Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo.
To the rear, there’s a full-width, three-dimensional LED light bar with an illuminated four-ring Audi logo. S line cars inherit the brand’s new badging, with a small red S line square on the bootlid. A darkened diffuser element in the lower bumper completes the look.
Styling-wise, the S6 is quite restrained, with subtle badging and satin silver trim marking out the go-faster EV. The wide body kit, flared arches and biggest wheels will be reserved for the forthcoming RS6 e-tron – “What we always do with RS”, according to Heyde.
Inside, the Q6-inspired theme continues. A curved panel joins the 11.9-inch digital instrument cluster to the 14.5-inch central touchscreen, while a separate display on the passenger side is available as an option. That separate 10.9-inch screen allows those riding shotgun to access features like media and navigation information, as well as a variety of games and video apps. Active Privacy Mode allows the passenger to view content without distracting the driver.
Further to this, cars fitted with the digital door mirrors – initially part of the ‘Sound & Vision Pack Pro’ offered on Edition 1 spec cars for an extra £5,495 – get a pair of additional screens, set within a sweeping panel that blends from the top of the dashboard into the doors. The tech already features in the Q6 and Q8 e-tron models. The A6 e-tron will also be offered with an augmented-reality head-up display (bundled into the normal Sound & Vision pack for £3,195), which can project mapping info onto the view ahead, as well as an electrochromic glass roof that can switch from opaque to translucent at the touch of a button.
Elsewhere, Audi has installed what it calls ‘soft wrap’ – a fabric panel that runs uninterrupted from door to door across the entire width of the dash. Audi says it creates “a homogeneous and enveloping feeling of space” – emphasising the “comfort-oriented” areas of the interior. In contrast, the “precisely designed control areas” – like those around the screens and centre console – are finished in high-gloss black to give what Audi claims is “clarity of interaction”. We’ll leave you to decide whether that is anything more than marketing hyperbole.
Four variants will be offered initially, alongside the usual Sport, S line and Edition 1 specs. The standard A6 e-tron will use a 281bhp rear-mounted motor (0-62mph in six seconds flat) mated to an 83kWh battery capable of 379 miles of range. Above this will sit the A6 e-tron Performance, which bumps power to 362bhp for a slightly faster 0-62mph sprint of 5.4 seconds. This car will also usher in a larger 100kWh battery, meaning it boasts the longest range (466 miles) of any A6 e-tron. The slightly blockier Avant can do up to 447 miles before needing to be plugged in.
Audi will also offer an A6 e-tron quattro, which uses the larger battery alongside an additional motor for a total power output of 422bhp. This version will do 0-62mph in 4.5 seconds, and yet the maker still claims it’s capable of 435 miles on a charge. The flagship S6 ups the ante with the dual motors turned up to 542bhp, seeing range drop to a maximum of 405 miles in turn, with a 3.9-second 0-62mph time. The Avant version matches the Sportback’s acceleration, but range drops a little further to 388 miles.
The A6 e-tron boasts two-stage recuperation, adjustable on the fly using paddles behind the steering wheel. In addition, a B-mode is available, which Audi claims “comes close to what is colloquially called the ‘one-pedal feeling’” – itself capable of sending up to 220kW of energy to the battery as the car slows. A spokesperson said: “With an anticipatory driving style, almost all deceleration can be managed without pressing the brake pedal.”
While we’ll wait until we’ve driven it to pass judgement, Audi also claims the new A6 is “particularly agile”. Adaptive air suspension is optional, and can change to “specific road conditions”, regulating the car’s ride height at four different levels. In the car’s most economical mode, the body can lower by 20mm to improve aero – optimising efficiency and extending the A6 e-tron’s range.
In addition to the more powerful motors and biggest 100kWh battery, you can expect the all-singing, all-dancing S variant to be loaded to the gunwales with kit – possibly including bigger wheels, uprated interior fabrics and that supplementary screen for the front-seat passenger.
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