The old Audi E-tron S becomes the new 503hp SQ8 E-tron. The acorn hasn't fallen far from the tree... ⚡️
What’s in a name? Quite a lot if you’re Audi. Look at quattro, for example. First of all, the quattro was a car, and a very good one. An iconic one. So iconic it came to define Audi and lots of people wanted one. But to monetise it properly, it had to become a brand applied to lots of Audis, not just one. A marketing tool in other words - and, as a marketing tool, it was a very good one.
Audi has listened and acted. The battery has been given more capacity by packing even more cells into the same given space. This makes the battery 24kg heavier, but that’s been offset slightly by swapping from the old car’s aluminium battery under shield to a glass fibre one that’s 7kg lighter. The software that runs the cells has also been improved and the electric motors are more efficient. In the case of the SQ8 E-tron, that’s one 169hp motor at the front and two 133hp motors at the rear.
It's been a long, long time since I'd driven the old E-tron, and I don’t remember ever driving the old E-tron S, so making direct comparisons between the steering set-ups of old and new are beyond me. But after my first stretch of motorway driving, I’d already established that the SQ8 E-tron still has some issues with on-centre steering feel.
Having been told the head toss, like the steering, was one of the key upgrades on this new model, I was looking out for an improvement there, too. But as I was driving through town with the motor whine ringing in my ears, or veering unwittingly in and out of lanes on the motorway, while every now and again bouncing off a car I hadn’t spotted next to me, I was very aware that my head was bobbing about.
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