Audi e-Tron.
No, no. This car. This car here will be in production by 2012,” Johan de Nysschen, president of Audi of America, told me Thursday, pointing to the brilliant orange e-Tron. “And no, it will not be some watered-down version.”
What they didn’t say: Audi has been such a staunch proponent of diesel as the best fuel economy solution, it is hard to believe it is now moving ahead so quickly with a seemingly competitive technology — electricity — that it once dismissed.
What makes it tick? Four electric motors at each wheel, generating a total of 313 horsepower and a roll-your-eyeballs-back explosion of torque: 3,319 pound-feet, about 10 times that of the gasoline-powered R8 V-8. Zero to 60 m.p.h. takes just 4.8 seconds, the company says, and the top speed is 124 m.p.h. The lithium-ion battery pack is said to deliver a 154-mile driving range.
How much, how soon? Available in very limited numbers by the end of 2012. Any price speculation is purely speculative at this point, but it will be north by northwest of the $150,000 sticker on a loaded R8.
How’s it look? Like an R8 with furnace grates. Mr. de Nysschen says you can expect the production version, which will take shape over two or three years, to become “more emotional.”
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