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Our Cars: Audi S e-tron GT
1 year ago
On the right road, the Up GTI was a blast. But on motorways, less so
I’d already decided the Up needed to be replaced when I landed at Gatwick after a long working day at 11pm with most of southern England between me and my bed. At times like that, you don’t really want a car like this waiting in short stay. Hacking across the country well past midnight sealed its fate. Not long after that it was listed in the classifieds; a week later it had a new owner – a Ti podcast listener, no less, who isn’t going to be driving around the country in it.
And I’m certain he’ll love it, because on shorter journeys, in town or through the countryside, it’s magnificent. I’ve written plenty of times already about how fun it is to whip along a B-road, using every ounce of grip and every drop of power absolutely everywhere without ever going very fast. And for darting around town, nipping into gaps in traffic and squirting past slower cars on that surprising swell of torque, the Up GTI is masterful.
I had it just shy of eight months, during which time it never missed a beat nor cost a penny beyond fuel, tax and insurance. It was a fine car that sadly didn’t suit my lifestyle as well as I’d hoped.
"The S version lists at £108,680 for which you get front and rear electric motors developing 584bhp between them, or as much as 671bhp in launch control mode. That seems ludicrous for a base model"
Will the S e-tron GT slot in much better? Like its Porsche Taycan cousin, the e-tron GT has just been facelifted and the S variant is the new base model. The exterior styling has been subtly revised across the range and small tweaks made within the cabin, but there are meaningful differences beneath the skin. The battery, for instance, is 12 per cent bigger, now 105kWh (97kWh usable) in capacity, but lighter by 9kg at 625kg. It’ll now charge at 320kW, up by 50kW, and cover up to 375 miles on a charge, according to the official claim.
There’s also newly developed two-chamber air suspension while the steering has been reworked with a more direct ratio. The S version lists at £108,680 for which you get front and rear electric motors developing 584bhp between them, or as much as 671bhp in launch control mode. That seems ludicrous for a base model, but the top of the range RS e-tron GT Performance (more on which in a later report) delivers up to 915bhp.
Welcome, then, to the world of high-end EVs, where the slowest, cheapest, least powerful e-tron GT will crack 62mph in 3.4 seconds.
“I’ve already discovered one huge benefit of living with an EV – I can pre-warm the car via the app so the cabin is toasty and the windscreen clear of ice and condensation long before I step inside. I won’t be scraping any windscreens this winter”
This car is finished in Daytona Grey, a £950 option, and sits on upgraded 21in wheels (this design isn’t actually available to buyers in the UK). It also has the £5495 S Technology Pack Pro with four-wheel steering, a panoramic glass roof with switchable transparency and matrix LED headlights.
(A couple of years back I met an engineer from Audi, a PhD who belonged to the marque’s 80-strong team of engineers working on exterior lighting alone. I don’t recall his first name but his surname was Funk. For the entire meal he was known to all as Dr Funk.)
A couple of weeks in, I’m enjoying the S e-tron GT very much. And I’ve already discovered one huge benefit of living with an EV – I can pre-warm the car via the app so the cabin is toasty and the windscreen clear of ice and condensation long before I step inside. I won’t be scraping any windscreens this winter. (I know plenty of ICE cars have done this for years, but not without running their engines. I would become a pariah on my street if I left a diesel or petrol motor chugging away for 15 minutes first thing in the morning.)
A home charger helps make living with an EV easier
I do need to be careful here. The point of this exercise is to explore the car itself and life with an EV generally, not to report on the differences between a ten grand junior hot hatch and a six-figure executive car. Would I be any less pleased to swap the Up for some other £100,000 Audi with a petrol or diesel engine? What am I actually enjoying about the S e-tron GT – its electrification, or the luxury of a top-end Audi? All things to ponder over the coming months.
What I don’t need to investigate in any more detail is life with an EV but no home charging – I did it for a couple of weeks, knew at once it wasn’t going to work and had a charge point installed at home sharpish. It’s Pod Point’s latest device, the Solo 3S, a 7kW charger that I’ll discuss in more depth soon.
Could I get by without home charging? Only if I was prepared to configure my days and journeys around charging at public stations. Maybe the time will come when our gyms, offices, supermarkets, golf clubs and anywhere else we park our cars for meaningful periods of time all offer reliable fast charging, but right now, as far as I’m concerned, the network we have is just too inconvenient.
In built up areas and along main arterial routes public charge points are plentiful, but few seem to deliver power at the advertised rate (a station near me promised 350kW, which is actually more than the Audi can handle, but managed just over 200). Charging that way is expensive, too. I paid £25 for a 34 per cent charge at 79p per kWh, enough for 90 real-world miles. Our BMW 320i Touring (not a like-for-like comparison by any means but the most apposite one in my household) will do 150 miles on £25 of petrol.
It’s clear to me that if I’m going to enjoy life with an electric car, home charging is a non-negotiable.
Finally, this is a good time to be living with an e-tron GT. Along with the Taycan and the Lotus Emeya, this Audi is exactly the sort of machine Jaguar will be targeting with its first new-era model, due in 2026. Next time I will let you know more about this car’s strengths and weaknesses, and where the opportunities and threats for Jaguar might lie.
Photography by Malcolm Griffiths
