ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — It might look a bit odd to journey all of the way to Abu Dhabi, the many petrochemically gifted of the seven United Arab Emirates, to check out the 2019 Audi e-tron, an all-new SUV which eschews sweet crude in favour of ethereal electrons. Widen the perspective beyond the hydrocarbon filter, nevertheless, and you’ll discover a surprising variety of links between the booming Persian Gulf country and Germany’s newest battery competition.
Despite sitting along with a nine percent of the planet ’s petroleum reserves, the UAE has its own economy to the point at which well over half of its GDP is derived from somewhere besides a pipeline. There has to be life after petrol, the direction motives, and this is a decision with which the broader VW Group agrees. It’s fitting, then, which our e-tron drive starts in Masdar City, that stands since Abu Dhabi’s carbon-neutral development powered entirely by renewable energy.
Audi’s e-tron is pursuing the exact same eco-minded, luxury-SUV buyers since the Tesla Model X and the Jaguar I-Pace, also front and center in this endeavor is the newest ’s MLB-evo modular platform. With a wheelbase of only over 115 inches, the e-tron slots in only under the full size Q8 whilst offering a cozy update over the slightly smaller Q5. It divides the difference between the two offering 57 cubic feet of max stowage.
the not-for-the-U.S. video camera facet “mirrors” drag the total experience. Their perspectives are too readily washed out from bright sunlight by day and obscured by headlights at night, and they feel like a technological response to a question which was being asked by aero engineers seeking to scrub yet another decimal place from the SUV’s drag coefficient.
Besides this party suggestion that is not implemented the e-tron in ways heralds the end of the start for mainstream automobiles in America. This is no compliance rash, science experiment, or venture-capital-funded vaporware. Much like Sheikh Zayed, the man who set the Emirates onto a sustainable financial route parallel to its petroleum wealth, Audi knows that the clock will be ticking on internal combustion, along with the VW Group actually only declared that its next-generation gasoline engines will be its last. Together with its Jaguar and Tesla peers, the e-tron and its soon-to-follow siblings prove precisely how serious big brands have become about providing legitimate alternatives to the international oil addiction.
The post 2019 Audi E-Tron First Drive: The End of the Beginning for Mainstream EVs appeared on Automobile Magazine.
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