Battery power only for Audi Q4

No petrol or diesel versions of the upcoming Audi Q4, which was previewed at the recent Geneva show as the Q4 e-tron concept will be developed.

This makes Q4 the first Audi with a lettered model designation to abandon the internal combustion engine when it arrives as an electric-only production model in 2021.
Speaking at Audi’s annual press conference overnight, Audi’s technical head and board member Hans-Joachim Rothenpieler said the Q3 and Q5 will provide customers ample internal combustion choices in the segment.

“I think the range of the Q vehicles on the internal combustion side, the Q3, the Q5, it’s fixed. The Q4 is in between, and because of the electric concept we have more interior space...,” he said.

“But the Q4, no it will not come with an internal combustion engine.”

The EV-only Q4 decision comes on the back of a disruptive and expensive 2018 due to dieselgate and the new WLTP emissions testing program. The two issues combined have helped cost the company a 3.5 per cent drop in sales over 2017 and a 1.2 billion Euro slice off total profits.

The production Audi Q4 is not only likely to have the Geneva concept’s 82kWh lithium-ion battery pack to provide a 450km range but also features such as Audi’s new augmented reality head-up display, which can project things like turn-by-turn direction arrows far out into the driver's field of view.

The Q4 e-tron will be the first Audi to sit on the Volkswagen Group's MEB electric vehicle platform. The concept is slightly longer than the Q3 but has Q5 levels of interior space.

In fact, Audi claims the MEB platform has enabled its engineers to stretch the Q4 e-tron’s wheelbase to around 2.77 metres to offer cabin space from a class higher.

Having a new model with no variants that produce tailpipe emissions is part of a growing theme at Audi with its chairman Bram Schot announcing at the press conference that not only will the brand have 30 electrified models on its books by 2025, but will “... develop additional highly attractive and emotive electric cars”.

By our reckoning, the Q4 e-tron will be the fifth Audi BEV to come to market, following the large SUV the e-tron, the e-tron Sportback that arrives later next year, the China-only Q2L e-tron and the e-tron GT that goes on sale in the second half of 2020.

The rush to electrification is contrasted by another sports/luxury Volkswagen Group brand Porsche, with its Macan SUV.

To allow for markets that have been relatively slow to adapt to EV infrastructure (such as Australia) the next-gen Macan will be produced on two platforms from about 2022; as a pure EV on the shared Audi/Porsche PPE platform and as a conventional IC model on the MLB Evo platform.

Meanwhile Audi Australia is eagerly awaiting its first-ever EV, the large e-tron SUV, which has been delayed until early 2020 due to the WLTP issues.

Spokesman Shaun Cleary said: “While WLTP doesn’t affect Australia directly, there has been some knock-on in terms of launches... so for that reason we’ll see the e-tron launch in early 2020.”