To Hell With Diesel, Audi Takes The Electric Plunge In L.A.
In a bind with its diesel engine issues, the Volkswagen Group has no choice but to start a new “eco-friendly” project. While the Volkswagen brand showed off the Golf GTE, Audi is betting on electric power for its future products with two vehicles on display at the 2015 Los Angeles Auto Show.
e-tron quattro, a rival for the Tesla Model X
Forcibly becoming the benchmark EV automaker, Tesla just officially launched its first SUV, the Model X. And already, sharks are swimming around it.
One of those sharks is a concept called the e-tron quattro. Presented at the Los Angeles Auto Show, this fully electric midsize SUV promises a range of 500 km and a 0-100 km/h time of around 4.2 seconds.
With such numbers, is seems as though the Audi e-tron quattro, or Q6 as certain people are already calling it, will aim to please and seeks to steal sales away from Tesla.
Audi A3 e-tron
More realistic and more modest, the A3 e-tron isn’t really an electric vehicle, but a hybrid. Under its hood lies a turbocharged 1.4-litre engine matched to a liquid-cooled electric motor, good for a combined output of 204 horsepower and 258 lb-ft of torque.
It can be plugged in for a small EV range, and the company expects a fuel economy average of 6.0 L/100km. That gives it one of the best power/efficiency ratios among hybrids on the market, although for an MSRP of $39,200, we shouldn’t expect anything less.
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