List of problems encountered with the new Audi e-tron GT RS performance: stiff neck, sore lower back, two speeding tickets pending. All self-inflicted, granted - but also representative of the ‘most intense car [Audi has] ever built’. Officially, the staff at the Böllinger Höfe factory are in mourning for the R8 they stopped building in March - but the battery-electric model they are now producing almost exclusively fits the manufacturer’s carefully curated image arguably better than a mid-engined sports car ever did. It is manically fast and wonderfully handsome and put together with the solidity and precision of a decompression chamber. Established fans will love it.
Everyone else might still be inclined to buy a Porsche Taycan. The existence of a nearly identical (mechanically speaking) sister model at a firm which eclipses even Audi’s knack for the aspirational has always been the limiting factor for e-tron GT sales, a trait not helped previously by the fact that the Porsche was a genuinely better steer and made available to customers in cheaper, rear-drive only variant. Even allowing for those hurdles (Audi admits the difference here is chiefly in the tuning of shared components, and, again, it has no equivalent to an entry-level Taycan) it does not diminish the effort it has expended on its new flagship - or the pay-off.
This being an electric performance car, some of these differences are best represented by the dizzying scale of the accompanying numbers. The previous RS version, which no sane person would call slow, conjured up 636hp in overboost. Its replacement, thanks in part to a newer, lighter, even more powerful rear motor, gets 856hp. The ‘performance’ variant, the first Audi-badged EV treated to the description, launches (literally) with 925hp and 758lb ft of torque. This delivers 0-62mph in 2.5 seconds, assuming you’ve located the right climatic conditions and taken the time to select its party trick mode and braced yourself like an Olympic bobsledder. Audi reckons this is roughly as quick as a modern F1 car. It feels it.
Suffice it to say that the introduction of a larger 105kWh battery (with 97kWh usable capacity) is going to have a more noticeable impact on your day-to-day. Its improved energy density means you’ll get up to 364 miles of range in the RS performance, although its maker was even more enthusiastic about the faster charging speeds it has accessed. New cell chemistry and increasingly efficient thermal management has helped to unlock a 320kW peak, with higher rates sustained for longer and over a much broader range of temperatures. The long and short of that is the prospect of getting from 10 per cent to 80 per cent in as little as 18 minutes. A sufficiently chunky charger would deliver 174 miles of range in just 10 minutes.
Echoing Porsche’s appraisal of the current Taycan, Stefan Reil, Audi’s gregarious head of development, told PH the e-tron GT was effectively a new car underneath, thanks not only to the substantial powertrain modifications, but also the new two-chamber, dual-valve air suspension that can be supplemented (as it was here) with the electro-hydraulic active system it co-engineered with its development partner. The wheel-selective hardware is identical to the Taycan’s, and uses high-pressure pumps and oil lines to replace electrified anti-roll bars with the continuous and bewilderingly rapid flow of hydraulic fluid between opposing damper chambers, including the ability to ‘lean’ the body into corners.
It’s little wonder that with so much going on under the skin, Audi mostly glossed over the significance of the modest design facelift - yet to do so is to undersell the e-tron GT’s primary trump card: from almost any angle, it is better looking than the Taycan. In fact, it might be the best looking EV you can buy that comes with rear doors. It is slung even lower now and gives the likeable impression of being hewn from a solid block. It is not anodyne and child-friendly like the Porsche; there are edges and arches and no little amount of menace, aided not just by the RS-specific revised air intakes, but also the ‘carbon camouflage’ elements you can spec on the performance model. On the optional 21-inch wheels and in Bedford Green - both exclusive to the flagship’s option list - the car looks about ready to inflict bodily harm.
This, it turns out, is appropriate. Although the first thing to note when sitting down is that apart from some fancy new trim choices offered through Audi exclusive (and yet more exposed carbon), the e-tron GT has barely changed inside. Which is a good thing. It has retained its old-timey physical HVAC controls and a modestly-proportioned infotainment screen, which make it seem a lot less cutting-edge than the Taycan, though more pleasant to use. Apart from, that is, Audi’s eye-rolling preference for loping off the top and bottom of the steering wheel. Or its persistence when it comes to locating touch-sensitive controls on the spokes. But the clickable RS shortcut button beneath is a welcome addition, even if it would have worked better as a dial (y’know, like in the Taycan).
Given it features on a 925hp EV, the presence of a ‘Boost’ trigger on the opposite side of the steering wheel might initially beggar belief, though Audi is clearly chasing a wider industry trend with its new push-to-pass system. It's worth pointing out, too, that when not in launch control (i.e. for practically the entire time you own the car) it’ll be outputting ‘just’ 748hp. Despite that amount being wildly sufficient - it’ll get to 62mph without launch control in 2.9 seconds - thumbing Boost while driving supplies an additional 94hp for 10 seconds. If you’re thinking that sounds like a gimmick, you are correct. Without going anywhere near it the RS performance overtakes even fast-moving autobahn traffic with rocket-like aplomb. Although that doesn’t mean you won’t be pushing it.
The result is like handing the Pope a slightly bigger, sillier hat than the one he already possesses. He does not need it. He’s already ably fulfilling the preposterous hat part of his job. It’s flagrant overkill; it’s the seventh pint at a wedding breakfast. And yet the supreme superfluity of the performance above, say, 80mph, describes a good part of the warped super-EV charm up to that point. You rarely require one-fifth of the car’s coiled-spring potential at any speed, but the sum total is unleashed so easily and obligingly, and sends you up the road so ferociously, that you spend half your time anxiously checking how fast you’re going - and the other half inadvertently popping flash bulbs on German speed cameras like a saloon version of Heidi Klum.
If that sounds like a multitude of other tediously powerful, one-trick-pony EVs, to some extent it is. But it’s worth paying heavy tribute to the car that Audi has assembled (or reassembled) around the powertrain. Despite its oversized output and 2.4-tonne-with-driver kerbweight, seldom does the e-tron GT RS performance not seem in complete control of its faculties, and rarely has Audi’s penchant for dead-eyed accuracy and zero-effort drivability seemed more appropriate. Obviously the firm has a long-standing reputation for locking down big power in way that makes it seem endlessly deployable - this car’s predecessor was no exception - but the new flagship exceeds all previous efforts in this regard, and manages to incorporate no small degree of ride comfort into the bargain.
The new suspension, especially its active components, must inevitably take a sizeable portion of the credit. The team responsible conceded that Porsche has take a different view on how the combined system negotiates low frequency bumps, Audi preferring less permissive body movements, but the self-levelling results are still impressive across the board. Picture yourself bracing for intrusions ahead that never fully materialise in the cabin; you simply glide over the kind of yawning cavities that abound on British roads. Not everything gets smoothed away quite so diligently, but when the chassis response is good, it is eerily good. Of course, what its maker is also aiming for, especially in the RS variants, is the sort of consistency that makes pushing the boost button for 842hp seem like a fine idea on a motorway. This target it has duly smashed.
Others remain a little more distant. Audi stressed that a slightly more direct steering ratio is unchanged from the Taycan, yet the RS never conjures up the sense of realism that Porsche gets from an electrically powered rack. The brake pedal still doesn’t inspire total confidence either. And if there is a criticism of the hugely sophisticated chassis and bespoke tyres, it is located in the moments where its efforts conspire to make progress seem either unreal - or else so otherworldly in its management of traction, lateral acceleration and weight transfer, that you occasionally feel like you’re carrying massive speeds because it’s doable, rather than enjoyable. The solution, much as it is for avoiding a sore neck or a German court appearance, is to slow down a bit and appreciate the many other things the new e-tron GT RS performance is good at. Like being a better-looking, nicer-to-sit-in, and significantly cheaper alternative to the Taycan Turbo S, for one. And two, a seriously good electric grand tourer in its own right.
SPECIFICATION | 2024 Audi RS e-tron GT performance
Engine: Permanently excited electric motor, one per axle, 97kWh battery
Transmission: Single-speed (front) twin-speed (rear), all-wheel drive
Power (hp): 925 (launch control overboost, otherwise 748)
Torque (lb ft): 758 (launch control maximum)
0-62mph: 2.5sec (launch control, otherwise 2.9)
Top speed: 155mph (limited)
Weight: 2,320kg (EU unladen)
MPG: N/A (364-mile WLTP range)
CO2: 0g/km
Price: £142,830
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