First an Audi, then an e-tron.
Author: Wu Jingtao
Frankly, when the editorial board got back this Audi e-tron Sportback last week, I was a little confused. Because at that time, I only had "Audi, electric, SUV", these three big and empty cognition.
As an electric model of a traditional European luxury brand, this car will be relatively dull and boring, which is my psychological presupposition about it before. But after a week of contact, I found that it is indeed not as "distinctive" as the new power brand model, but it is also not the "named" model that Audi handed over in order to achieve electrification as some people expected.
01
It's Audi, not refueling Audi
Before filming, we drove the car to wash it, and when the e-tron Sportback passed the gas station in front of the car washer, an unexpected and extremely witty scene appeared. Two co-workers waved to us at the same time, indicating that there were vacant seats to drive over to refuel. In the face of this situation, the car instantly emitted a hearty laugh. A pure electric model was used as a fuel truck by a refueler, which we never expected.
But as a car editor, after laughing, I think two things can be distilled from this matter. First, Audi's pure electric model is still in urgent need of improvement in public awareness; second, Audi has not made the appearance design of this e-tron Sportback very "electrified", in order to form a significant difference with its own fuel vehicles. The combination of two factors will make the employees of the gas station think that this is an Audi that needs to be refueled.
02
Heritage and self-confidence
Looking closely at the appearance of this Audi e-tron Sportback, it is not difficult to find audi's positioning and understanding of electric vehicles at this stage.
The first is the front of the car, e-tron Sportback did not take a more "radical" route, like a number of new brand models directly cancel the grille, nor like other traditional car companies' electric vehicles, the use of closed grille as an adaptive transition. Instead, it was very rare to have a conventional open grille on a pure electric model.
And this grille has an active opening and closing function, which can be opened at low speed to cool the feed water tank and closed at high speed to reduce the wind resistance of driving. In the inheritance of brand design style and the practicality of the configuration, it has achieved a good balance.
And from the "lamp factory" famous door, e-tron Sportback inevitably has to show off on the headlights.
As Audi's first model equipped with digital matrix LED lights, e-tron Sportback lights can form a light focusing magic carpet based on road conditions and speed, allowing drivers to focus more on the road.
Of course, the "light show" with the mood of the car will not be absent.
I think the side of the body is the most exciting part of the e-tron sportback, and the most eye-catching of these is this beautiful, smooth and large slipback design.
At the same time, Audi did not install a set of low-wind resistance wheels with a commonly difficult style because of the consideration of endurance, but continued to use the five-frame 21-inch sports wheel of the S-Line kit, with the huge 6-piston brake caliper and smooth slip-back modeling lines, making it more dynamic in visual effects than the ordinary version of the e-tron.
However, unlike the overseas version, which uses a streaming car exterior mirror in order to further reduce the wind resistance.
Due to the limitations of the domestic version of the model due to regulatory and other reasons, this configuration had to be simplified and the traditional lens-type rearview mirror was reused.
The interior also continues the design idea of the exterior, and Audi has not greatly simplified the interior because it is a pure electric model.
In the overall layout of the interior, audi still follows the universal design style of this generation of fuel model product lines. The functional layout of the T-shaped area of the center console is similar to the height of fuel models such as the Audi Q8.
Audi Q8 interior
The difference is that Audi has redesigned the shape of the center console, the line of the door panels, and the gear shift mechanism.
In the end, this interior is still a familiar Audi, and there is no additional cost of getting started. However, in the look and feel of the details, it can feel the differentiated design of it and the traditional fuel model.
In general, Audi's exterior interior design of the e-tron sportback does not deliberately make a big difference from the fuel model because of its identity as a pure electric model. The inheritance of design elements and product styles is what Audi cares more about. This is the same as another German luxury brand, BMW's recent pure electric model, in terms of design orientation.
It can be seen that for these "century-old brands", no matter how the market environment changes, the inheritance of the model in the design style cannot be lost. What is revealed in this persistence is their deep brand confidence.
03
The electric Audi is also an Audi
Dynamic part, we can first look at the book data, this tail label 55quattro Audi e-tron Sportback equipped with front and rear dual motors, the total power of the motor 300kW, the total torque of 664N·m, with the electric drive quattro system, the official 100 km acceleration can do 5.7 seconds.
In order to verify the authenticity of this data, we specially selected a closed road that has not yet been opened for testing. With about 40 percent of the remaining battery and two people and part of the shooting equipment on board, the e-tron Sportback achieved a 0-100km/h acceleration of 5.88 seconds by releasing the brakes to start normally. It can be seen that the official results still maintain Audi's consistent style, which is very suitable for the actual performance of the vehicle.
Although this achievement does not have any advantage over the new power brand model of the same power level, as an electric vehicle, I once thought that Audi would set the power characteristics of these electric vehicles with a light start and a quick response to the e-tron Sportback.
But when I actually sat in the driver's seat and found that it still had a start button, I began to question my own inference. And after I started the car, my expectations were overturned in an instant.
Unlike most electric vehicles that feel the rapid power when starting, the e-tron Sportback in any mode, the power output at the start is set very softly, and even gives people the illusion that the car can't move when starting.
At first, this setting made me very puzzled, until my colleague inadvertently said "an electric car, starting like a high-performance fuel car" sigh, I reacted, perhaps this is audi wants to give this car driving tone.
Putting this e-tron Sportback on the road felt like everything was so familiar. In economy and comfort mode, the response of the electric door pedal is quite soft and linear. Even if it is the power request of the opening of the big foot electric door, the power output of this car is relatively flat, and there will not be many new power models that bring a strong "sense of vertigo" to people when the power output is strong.
But in the same level of electric models easily 3, 4 seconds to break the hundred today, e-tron Sportback power data and acceleration of the subjective body feeling are relatively flat.
In the logic of kinetic energy recovery, the setting of the e-tron Sportback is also relatively "traditional". The recycling system is divided into automatic and manual working modes.
When using manual mode, the three-speed adjustment can be carried out by means of a paddle behind the steering wheel, and the switch and power of kinetic energy recovery are all controlled by the driver.
In actual driving, even if the recovery force is adjusted to the highest third gear, when the electric door is released, the vehicle will not have a strong drag feeling, so that this pure electric SUV can still have driving characteristics close to that of fuel vehicles.
Admittedly, in terms of the performance of the power part, the e-tron Sportback did not have a particularly impressive performance compared to the models of the new power brand. But in terms of the performance of the chassis, Audi's solid "basic skills" have won back a city for it.
At the chassis hardware level, the e-tron Sportback is equipped with an air suspension that adjusts the softness and height of the suspension in different driving modes.
In dynamic mode, the suspension height is lowered to give the vehicle a lower center of gravity for handling. At the same time, the suspension damping hardens, allowing the vehicle to get better lateral support in the corners. In comfort mode, thanks to the relatively soft suspension damping, the chassis will weaken the transmission of road information to a certain extent.
A few days of contact, high-specification hardware configuration, coupled with Audi's powerful chassis tuning power, the chassis quality of this car is very satisfactory to us, there is good comfort in the daily commute, slightly intense driving, it will not be easy to show timidity because it is an SUV model.
This comprehensive quality of the salty and sweet chassis is exactly the advantage that Audi has as a traditional car company compared to the new power brand.
From the power setting and chassis tuning, it can be found that Audi's strategy on the e-tron Sportback is very clear, that is, not with a number of new power brands, hard to hit the absolute performance data and acceleration experience. However, in the mechanical quality such as the chassis, it uses its own deep precipitation and the differentiated competition of new power brand models.
At the same time, in terms of driving characteristics, it retains similar adjustments to fuel vehicles to win the favor of traditional luxury brand users. Therefore, the e-tron Sportback left us with the impression of driving at the driving level, first an Audi that pays attention to mechanical quality, and then an electric SUV under the Audi brand.
04
For whom
At the end of the article, it is not an easy task to summarize this e-tron Sportback in three words. Because in the new energy model market, it is a very niche and unique existence.
From the perspective of cost performance, this model, which is officially priced at 729,800, is even less than many "new power" models in terms of acceleration performance and auxiliary driving configuration. But in terms of brand image, interior texture and mechanical quality, it shows the luxury brand model at this price point, the dignity and aura that should be given, which the new power brand cannot give at present.
So, I don't think the launch of e-tron Sportback has ever been about winning over potential consumers of new power brands. Its target consumer group is those traditional luxury brand consumers who have enough recognition for Audi's brand culture and product image. Because there is a demand for brand tonality, they will choose luxury brands. Because I want to buy an Audi, and then I will choose this e-tron Sportback.
Others think that they do not understand the "cost performance", they laugh and see that others do not understand the precipitation and charm of luxury brands.
Today's topic
With 700,000 in hand, choose a new force or a traditional luxury brand?
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