Electric Storm

With the e-tron 55 quattro, Audi is bringing high-tech, high-end electric mobility to India. The future is here

- Sameer Kumar

As someone who writes about cars for a living, I sometimes think about how things may have fallen into a rut; so many auto journalists seem to write and rewrite the same old cliches, re-working the same tired old lines to fit new cars. With a fair bit of chest puffery and bravado threw in for good measure. For those keen on portraying ‘the hard man of motoring journalism’ image, it’s fashionable to bemoan the passing of the manual transmission, which ostensibly provides more control than any automatic. Hotshoe, rocket-boy road testers are wont to dismiss things like anti-lock brakes and traction control as mere impediments to going faster and getting sideways. And then there’s the rhetoric about engines. We hack love writing about engines; we exult in the glory of screaming, high-revving V6s and howling, turbocharged V8s. We dismiss inline-fours as being a bit working class and, of course, we worship V12s at the altar of performance. And that brings us to the new Audi e-tron 55 Quattro. Because it simply doesn’t have an engine. None, whatsoever.

The 5-seater e-tron all-electric SUV doesn’t have an internal combustion engine under the hood, but what it does have is notone but two electric motors — one each for the front and rear axles — for a combined peak output of 300kW (402 horsepower) and 664Nm of torque. For anyone who’s ever thought electric cars are probably a bit dull and a bit slow, you need to get inside an e-tron 55, put it in ‘Dynamic’ mode, and floor the throttle; acceleration is instant and neck-snapping, and a bit shocking the first time you experience it.