Audi e-tron GT (US) review

It’s the e-tron GT, Audi’s flagship sports car for its all-electric future, or “the Taycan we have at home” if you want to be a snot about it. As the tip of Audi’s electrification spear, the e-tron GT is a stylish all-electric four-door meant to get folks frothing over EV performance.

Now that it’s got some miles under its belt, Audi has taken the GT back to the drawing board for its mid-cycle refresh, changing damn near everything, and has sent it back into the world for more electrified excitement. The result? You’re looking at the most powerful and fastest accelerating Audi ever produced.

Sounds epic. Wait, what was that about the Taycan?

You savvy auto enthusiasts know quite well that brands under the same corporate umbrella often cross-pollinate, something Audi is not immune to. Its illustrious R8 shared DNA with Lamborghini, after all. In this case, the Audi e-tron GT crosses over with Porsche’s Taycan, though it should be said that in all these examples, each brand brings enough of its own development to the table to make each car feel distinct. No simple badge-engineering here, though one can’t help but feel as if this is to the Taycan as the Abarth 124 Spider was to the Mazda MX-5.

So is this a more affordable alternative, then?

Depends on how you crunch the numbers. As it was before the refresh, Audi offers two versions of the e-tron GT which are now called the S e-tron GT and the RS e-tron GT performance. The S e-tron starts at $125,500 while the RS e-tron (Setron and Resetron?) comes in at $167,000.

Compared to the Taycan’s more robust line-up, this puts the S e-tron between the Taycan GTS in terms of price and available horsepower. This also plants the RS e-tron between the Taycan Turbo and Turbo S, though it should be noted that the other Porsche trait shared by the e-tron is how equipment packages send the asking price towards the sky.

Got it. So what’s new on this thing?

A not insignificant amount of changes come to the e-tron GT over its debut version. For one, while the silhouette remains about the same, the exterior has been given a much-needed glow-up that gives it more contemporary style which has the added side effect of making it look more aggressive.

On the topic of increases, every significant aspect of the e-tron GT has been improved. Power for the base model has been turned up from 543hp to 670 while the RS e-tron performance’s power gets a massive jump from 637 to a whopping 912hp.

That’s quite an increase!

Indeed, and while it’s rightfully impressive, there’s a little asterisk next to that number. The Audi only harnesses all 912 horses when it engages its launch control. “Boo-urns” you say, but it's roughly a 95hp boost meaning drivers have around 800hp at their disposal by default, which is nothing to sneeze at. The GT also taps into its reserves in ten-second bursts thanks to its new push-to-pass button, as if you’d have a hard time overtaking anyone with that much juice underfoot.

We’re guessing it’s fast.

Oh goodness, yes. Audi states the RS e-tron gets up from 0 to 60mph in 2.4 seconds, which is brain-scrambling in execution. Once your senses finally catch up, they can be put to use taking the e-tron around corners swiftly thanks to the new hydraulically controlled active suspension that not only helps it to hug corners, it keeps passengers level by leaning into turns and pitching to compensate for heavy braking or acceleration.

On top of that, 2.8 degrees of rear-wheel steering helps round things out. Steering as a whole has been tightened up for more direct, precise inputs.

In a vacuum, the Audi e-tron GT is a stellar car, EV or otherwise. With all of its innovations, it’s the kind of electric car tech heads fantasize about. The e-tron GT’s style, comfort and brain-melting power on demand is nothing short of amazing and all the while, it’s got the chops to act as a suitable daily driver, if one to be a bit precious about. We can easily see owners clinging onto this one til the wheels (or battery) falls off.

The thing is, we don’t live in a vacuum and the e-tron GT exists in a world where fellow VW Group member Porsche has cut the Taycan from the same cloth. Perhaps it's not fair, but stamping the Porsche shield on said cloth does make a difference, especially to the layperson with $130k to burn. In short, personal preference notwithstanding, you’d have to be a particularly staunch Audi-phile to pick this over its sibling from Stuttgart. All that being said, even if someone scoops one up just to be a contrarian, we can’t see them being too upset when the FOMO quickly subsides.