Yahoo Autos 2024 Audi Q8 E-Tron and SQ8 E-Tron First Drive: New name, better range and more fun
LANZAROTE, Canary Islands — The 2024 Audi Q8 E-Tron is entering into a vastly different electric world today than when it went on sale as the E-Tron in 2019. Buyers have more luxury EVs to choose from than ever, with the BMW iX, Mercedes-Benz EQE SUV and Rivian R1S among others here to join Audi in stealing slices of Tesla’s pie.
Back in 2019, we heralded the E-Tron as simply a luxury Audi, but electric. It’s everything Q7 or Q8 buyers were accustomed to, but in an electric package. If you liked it for this, great! None of that has changed for the Q8 E-Tron. It’s as plug-and-play as an EV gets with no gimmicks or weird turn-offs about the way it drives. Even the design gives off “I swear I’m normal” vibes.
Of course, the realities of owning an EV are different from simply driving one to the grocery store and back. Since the E-Tron’s original launch, Audi tells us its customers’ No. 1 concern has been range — the E-Tron came into the world with only a 204-mile range on a full charge. Minor updates brought this figure up to 226 miles for the 2023 model year, but the 2024 Q8 E-Tron attempts to put all range concerns to bed. While EPA figures are not yet available, Audi says its target is for the final number to “begin with a 3,” meaning the SUV will be good for further than 300 miles of range. Expect the returning Sportback version to be slightly better than the SUV by way of its naturally more aero-friendly silhouette.
How is Audi achieving this? In short, a more power-dense battery pack and numerous efficiency improvements. Previously, the E-Tron featured a 95-kilowatt-hour battery pack with a usable capacity of 89 kWh. The Q8 E-Tron is rocking a new 114-kWh battery pack with a usable capacity of 106 kWh. Audi increased the battery capacity without increasing the physical footprint of the pack, allowing it to retain the same platform packaging as before. This greater energy density is accomplished via battery stacking technology, which is new for the E-Tron, and for the real battery nerds, we’ll note that Audi is using prismatic battery cells now instead of the pouch cells used when the E-Tron began production.
You should expect an approximately 19% range boost just by way of the larger battery pack, and that’s before taking into consideration the efficiency improvements made for the Q8 E-Tron that will help get it across the line to 300 miles. The big improvement is the new rear electric motor for the Q8 E-Tron 55 — note that the following doesn’t apply to the SQ8 E-Tron. The number of stator windings in this motor is increased to 14 instead of the 12 windings seen in the previous motor. In layman’s terms, this ultimately allows Audi to retain the same power output as before, but use less energy. Audi also changed how power is distributed to each axle for its all-wheel-drive system. Previously, the E-Tron used the front motor for same-speed cruising. Now, it uses the newer, more efficient rear motor for cruising, leading to greater efficiency in this sort of driving. Of course, the front motor will kick in as soon as its added traction is necessary, and it always provides power when the car is in “Dynamic” or “S” modes.
Beyond the powertrain, Audi turned its attention to making the Q8 E-Tron more slippery through the air than the E-Tron. First, a new lower intake grille is implemented and features electrically operated shutters. This opens when cooling of the drive components and brakes is necessary, but otherwise remains sealed while driving. A new air curtain design, in conjunction with new wheel spoilers, also work to reduce air resistance. The new spoilers are much larger than before to better direct airflow around the tires, and Audi attributes half of the Q8 Sportback E-Tron’s aero efficiency gains — totaling a drag co-efficient of 0.27 from the old model’s 0.29 — solely to these.
