Audi RS e-tron GT Performance

FIRST DRIVE Tweaks boost efficiency but new chassis control tech promises to be the star of the show

- By Jordan Katsianis

BACK in 2021 Audi launched what should have been its halo product for the next generation: the e-tron GT.

It was an elegant saloon, with world-beating electrified performance and the most extreme take on a new design language that was to define new models for a decade.

But fast forward five years and things haven't quite worked out so well. Sales of the luxury four-door have been sluggish, and Audi's design and technological direction have taken a dramatic turn towards a simpler, less cluttered approach. This might have made the e-tron GT something of a black sheep in the current range, one built and designed with an ideology that was killed off almost before it began. But after a quietly announced set of updates, the new e-tron is now proving itself, and in some pretty spectacular ways.

These changes are not exclusive to the range-topping Performance trim, but they're most evident in it; Audi has fitted a new, lighter battery, with its capacity upped from 93kWh to 105kWh, plus new motors and inverters.

The e-tron GT's charging rate has also been upped from 270kW to 320kW, and because the car has always run on a top-spec 800V electrical architecture, a top-up from 10-80 per cent is claimed to take just 18 minutes.