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Audi E-Tron GT review: a luxury EV for those who’d spurn an SUV
With its long, low stance, the E-Tron GT shows there is an alternative to the ubiquitous SUV for company directors seeking to go electric
![Audi e-tron 2023](/cars/images/2023/08/15/TELEMMGLPICT000345365044_16921021340660_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqUirfvdYqWD8ASzlsWKHf8mg_slpoucCv7ASXt_fi84c.jpeg?imwidth=680)
So you’ve decided to go electric with your next company car. You’re a pretty big cheese within your company – you might even own it – so you’re entitled to something quite nice. Something that’d set the rest of us back £90,000 or so. And that gives you access to some choice bits of EV hardware.
Of course, you’ve looked at the Tesla Model S, but you don’t really fancy left-hand drive. And with the exception of the Mercedes-Benz EQE, all the other options are all big, bulky SUVs. Sure, they might be all the rage, but you prefer your cars to be long and low.
![Audi E-Tron](/cars/images/2023/08/11/TELEMMGLPICT000345365025_16917445666990_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq3uWouoIUMvSIgB39bF3Ez7pfA1tJapiWTWEz0I7CPwk.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Audi might just have the answer in this, the e-tron GT. Think of it as a big, four-door electric coupe, cut from the same cloth as the Porsche Taycan – a car, in fact, with which it shares more than just an ethos, as we’ll discuss presently.
But when we last drove this car, in top-spec RS form, a couple of years ago, we weren’t entirely impressed. So if you’re trying to decide which box to tick on the company car list, does this more humble entry-level version in fact make more sense?
Pros
- Extremely quick
- Smart, easy to use cockpit
- Accessible handling
Cons
- Ride can be a bit on the firm side
- Not as much space as rivals
- Range a bit feeble for such a huge battery
Price parity
On the one hand, at £86,000, this is quite a lot of money to pay for any car, let alone one with an Audi badge on it. To put it another way, this isn’t the sort of car that drivers of an A4 are going to trade up to – and whether the Audi badge holds enough sway for drivers looking to choose a car of this sort of value is debatable.
On the other hand, however, you could view the e-tron GT as a bit of a bargain, sitting roughly half-way between the entry-level Taycan and the 4S on price, but boasting the latter’s four-wheel drive, 523bhp powertrain.
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It doesn’t end there, though. You also get the 83.7kWh (usable) battery that’d cost you more than £4,000 extra in the Porsche. That grants the Audi an official range of 296 miles to the Porsche’s 230, which makes it an awful lot more useful, even if the e-tron GT won’t go quite as far on a charge as some much more inexpensive alternatives; expect anywhere between 205 and 235 miles of range in the real world.
Plug into an 800V, 350kW ultra rapid chargers, meanwhile, and you’ll be able to charge at up to 270kW - just as you can with the Porsche - which should be enough to get you from 10 to 80 per cent capacity in a pretty zippy 17 minutes. It’ll also charge at 150kW at the more common 400V chargers (which is a £300 option on the Porsche) for a 10-80% top-up in around 30mins.
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You get more for your money with the Audi, then, and the same goes for the equipment list. A panoramic roof, adaptive LED headlights, heated front seats, three-zone climate control and a heat pump all come as standard. The only notable omission from the equipment list is adaptive cruise control, which is a costly £1,355 extra.
All of this will matter, not only to retail buyers, but also to the company car drivers among whom the e-tron GT will ultimately find the most favour, its lower P11D value taking less of a toll in tax terms.
Coupe de grace
That this is a four-door coupe, rather than a full-sized saloon, becomes obvious the moment you try to climb aboard. The e-tron GT sits low, as does its roofline, which means the door opening is quite small and you have to fold yourself through it. You have to stoop to buckle your nearest and dearest into their child seats in the back, too, which might give you a bit of backache.
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Once you’re inside, however, it feels cosy yet not claustrophobic; because it’s so wide, space isn’t at a premium. And while this is not a natural family car, it still works as one, and the rear seats offer a decent amount of space for two people, even if the hard, raised middle seat feels distinctly occasional.
From the driver’s seat, though, the e-tron GT feels great. Granted, it isn’t quite as special-feeling as the Porsche, but the differences are minimal – Audi makes a great interior, after all, and the e-tron’s flows around you neatly like a rather lovely cocoon, wreathing you in suede-effect fabrics and slivers of brushed aluminium.
You also get a proper climate control panel with actual buttons (praise be!), rather than having to find your way through the touchscreen to adjust the fan speed. The touchscreen itself is quick and easy to get to grips with, and Audi’s virtual gauges still look as good as they did when Audi first introduced the idea almost 10 years ago now.
The big question, however, is how the e-tron GT fares out on the open road. After all, the joy of the Taycan is that it’s the car that brought genuine driver involvement to electric motoring. Has some of that magic rubbed off on its Audi-badged cousin?
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It certainly feels like a car with a sporting bent when you pull away. The ride is firm enough to have your head bobbing around and your insides jiggling, though while it is stiff for sure, the suspension feels controlled and well-resolved, and the wheels don’t judder and clang through potholes as they do in some stiffly sprung EVs.
This stiffness is less pronounced on the motorway, and it’s here that you notice several benefits of the e-tron GT’s low stance. For one thing, it feels beautifully planted and secure – less readily affected by crosswinds than the electric SUVs with which it competes for buyers’ attention. It’s quiet, too, with barely any wind noise to speak of and only a distant rush of white noise belying the rolling resistance of the big, wide tyres.
A sporting chance
But does it make good on those aspirations of sportiness elsewhere? Well, yes and no. It’s obvious fairly early on that the e-tron GT is not quite as athletic as its counterpart from Stuttgart; where the Porsche is playful, the e-tron GT is more straight-laced.
But that’s not to say it can’t be enjoyable; indeed, what the e-tron GT offers is the sort of point-and-shoot unflappability you’ll be familiar with if you’ve ever been behind the wheel of any other fast Audi.
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Bowl it into a corner at pretty much any speed and the nose will follow obediently, drawing on its huge reserves of grip to do so; plant the throttle as hard as you like, and the e-tron GT somehow finds traction and hurls you through the apex and out of the other side. And it’ll do this again and again and again, like it’s on repeat, without really breaking a sweat. It doesn’t talk to you or reward you like the Porsche does – instead, it simply delivers you easy access to enormous power.
And enormous really is the word. This might be the entry-level e-tron GT but it’ll be more than fast enough to make people’s brains knock around in their skulls somewhat.
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At low speeds, there’s a moment’s pause when you floor the throttle, while the two-speed gearbox changes down, and then off you fly; even at high speeds, where electric cars usually feel as though they’re tailing off, that gearbox means the e-tron GT is still going strong. Indeed, you get a sense it’s only just getting into its stride as you approach the national speed limit.
The Telegraph verdict
So does the entry-level e-tron GT justify its price tag? Well, yes, up to a point. Certainly, if you’re going to have an e-tron GT, you should have this one, given it’s more comfortable than the RS, vastly more affordable whether you’re buying it or taxing it as a company car, and still ballistically quick.
And while it’s true that it won’t involve you quite as much as the Porsche, you’ll probably only notice on the one day a month you try to drive it with a bit of vim, and even then only if you’re close to the limit (which, on a public road, you probably won’t be). It’s better value, too.
It isn’t perfect, mind you; compared with the Tesla Model S, for example, the interior is nowhere near as roomy, and while the range is decent enough, it isn’t as good as it could be. The same goes for the ride quality.
For all that, though, the e-tron GT is a convincing all-rounder – and an ideal option if you want to go electric without plumping for an SUV.
The facts
- On test: Audi e-tron GT
- Body style: Four-door saloon
- On sale: now
- How much? £86,850 on the road (range from £86,850)
- How fast? 152mph, 0-62mph in 4.1sec
- How economical? 3.1mpkWh (WLTP Combined)
- Engine & gearbox: N/A
- Electric powertrain: 2x AC synchronous motors with 83.7kWh battery, 270kW DC charger, Type 2/CCS charging socket
- Electric range: 296 miles
- Maximum power/torque: 523bhp/472lb ft
- CO2 emissions: 0g/km (tailpipe), 35g/km (well-to-wheel)
- VED: £0
- Warranty: 3 years / 60,000 miles
- Spare wheel as standard: No (not available)
The rivals
Porsche Taycan 4S
523bhp, 230 miles, £90,700 on the road
![Porsche Taycan 4S](/cars/images/2023/08/11/TELEMMGLPICT000345448458_16917475037090_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqDuuGeKnqRzvT6VIhAitH0rohXWQ2Bra60i_BEBMoYjY.jpeg?imwidth=350)
It’s the same car with a Porsche badge on it, with two important differences: firstly, a smaller battery (you have to pay extra to upgrade to the Audi’s bigger one), and secondly, slightly more involving handling. You pays your money, and you takes your choice. Don’t forget, though, that there’s also a cheaper, less powerful, two-wheel-drive Taycan, which is probably what we’d go for.
Tesla Model S Dual-Motor AWD
661bhp, 405 miles, £95,630 on the road
![Tesla Model S Dual-Motor AWD](/cars/images/2023/08/11/TELEMMGLPICT000345368399_16917459075590_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq91VDfvy0YSoFuv2mS0l6ZVQYArzCZkfUqg3bUYglOXQ.jpeg?imwidth=350)
The car that launched Tesla in the UK went left-hand-drive only at the start of the year, which is a curious decision but suggests Tesla aren’t selling very many of them here any more. Which is somewhat understandable; after all, the S is an expensive bit of kit these days. Mind you, you do get a whopping range and tonnes of power, which rather justifies the higher price – if you can live with the steering wheel being on the wrong side.
Mercedes-Benz EQE 350 AMG Line Premium Plus
288bhp, 337 miles, £89,345 on the road
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The EQE’s firm ride and so-so handling mean it’s a bit something and nothing, and at this price it doesn’t feel anywhere quite as special as the e-tron GT, with much less power and only two-wheel drive. For all that, though, you do get more space, though not quite as much as you might be expecting given the EQE’s more upright stance.