Audi E-tron GT review

What exactly is the Audi E-tron GT? If you’re thinking of Googling ‘E-tron’ to find out, we did that. Apparently it means “enjoyment while driving and unlimited suitability”. 

Unlimited suitability? That implies that the E-tron GT can do anything, like the Messiah. We’ve driven it and, without giving the game away, it’s good. Very good. But Jesus? Nah, it’s not quite the second coming.

We can tell you it's an electric car, but then there’s a veritable onslaught of new electric cars right now. They're being fired into the market faster than electrons out of a Tesla Supercharger.

It’s harder than ever to keep up to speed, so if you’re feeling like a GCSE physics student who’s wandered haplessly into a lecture on Stephen Hawking’s space-time theory, you’ve come to the right place. We'll help you make sense of this brave new world.

The E-tron GT also qualifies as a performance car, and Audi builds two versions. The extremely fast one is called the E-tron GT, while the warp-speed version is called the RS e-tron GT.

Both are mean-looking and, more objectively, they’re low and wide, because they’ve been designed to handle brilliantly. They also have a boot (two boots, actually) and rear seats that are suitable for adults. In other words, they’re usable transport, not just toys.

Oh, and in case you need a bit more convincing that the Audi E-tron GT is a serious bit of kit, underneath it’s basically a Porsche Taycan, which is our current favourite performance car and one of its chief rivals. The Tesla Model S is another.

Read on through this review to find out how we rate the E-tron GT in terms of performance, interior quality, passenger space, running costs and more. We'll let you know how it compares with those rivals and others, and which version we reckon is the pick of the range.

We might even be able to save you a few thousands pounds next time you buy a new car of any make and model. Simply search our free What Car? New Car Buying service to find some of the best prices currently available. It's a great place to discover the most tempting new electric car deals.

We weren’t joking in the Introduction section. The entry-level Audi E-tron GT really is extremely fast. It has two electric motors, one driving the front wheels and one for the rears, making it four-wheel drive. That means it gets off the line with no drama in terms of wheelspin, but an all-encompassing drama in terms of the force with which it mashes you back in the seat.

Normally, the total power is 469bhp, but for a 2.5sec burst it can beef that up to 523bhp, which equates to 0-62mph in 4.1sec (we clocked it doing 0-60mph in 3.9sec at our private test track). That’s quite a bit faster than the entry-level Porsche Taycan and fast enough to make it our pick of the range.

The RS model ups the ante with a consistent 590bhp or, when that’s not quite enough, a 2.5sec burst of 637bhp. That fires you off like a mortar from rest to 62mph in 3.3sec. It's right up there, give or take, with the fastest-accelerating Taycan Turbo S (2.8sec) and the Tesla Model S Long Range. If you must have more haste, Tesla claims the Model S Plaid will do 0-60mph in 1.9sec.

If that seems unnecessary (which, let’s face it, it is for a five-seat road car that isn’t eligible for a Formula One race), the Model S’s battery range adds a dose of sense to the one-upmanship. The Long Range will officially manage up to 412 miles on a charge, while the E-tron GT will do 298 miles (and the RS 283 miles). 

We tested the E-tron GT's real world range and determined it to be around 230 miles during a mix of town, A-road and motorway driving. That all but matched what you can expect from the Taycan 4S when it's fitted with the same 93kWh battery. That battery is an option on the 4S, though, while it's standard with the E-tron GT.

Right, let’s move on from the bold statistics to the nuances of handling. Here, the E-tron GT and Taycan feel like two peas from the same pod, while the Model S is a bit of a potato. The Taycan is tuned for ultimate agility, while the E-tron GT is purposely slightly softer (Audi says it’s closer to the ethos of a grand tourer), but it’s still a great-handling electric car. The second best on sale, in fact.

Take its steering. Yes, it’s lighter than the Taycan’s, but it is direct and accurate so you can place the car on the road perfectly and feel some sense of the surface tingling your fingers as you do. Four-wheel steering (an option on the GT and standard on the RS) adds extra agility at slow speeds and greater stability on motorways.

We’ve only sampled the adaptive air suspension that’s standard on the RS e-tron GT (the E-tron GT gets adaptive suspension as standard with the air springs as an option) and there’s very little body lean for such a heavy car.

The Audi E-tron GT’s balance of grip is biased slightly towards the rear. That means that if you back off the accelerator, you can use the pivoting rear end to tuck the nose into the corner then put the power down and feel the rear squatting and driving you out of the other side.

It’s thrilling if you thrive on the intricacies of a car’s handling dynamics, and way more fun than the Tesla Model S, or even the Model 3 for that matter. If you’re thinking, “All that sounds a bit too much – I just want to make it round a corner in one piece”, it’ll do that too. When you’re not pushing its ultimate limits, the E-tron GT and RS are grippy, surefooted and a doddle to drive.

They’re also very comfortable. The air suspension does very nearly as good a job of controlling the heavy body’s vertical movements as the Taycan's, but it's not quite as adept at absorbing the thwack of a speed bump. The Model S is softer, but that doesn’t actually make it more comfortable – it's a bit jittery on motorways where the E-tron GT is sublime. 

The regenerative brakes of many electric cars are a bit of a pain. They replenish the battery with energy as you slow down, but that means integrating a normal braking system – for full-on stops – with the motors’ retardation during gentler braking. Getting this symbiosis wrong makes the brakes hard to judge and disjointed, but the E-tron GT’s are pretty good.

They’re not quite as linear as the best brakes on regular (that is, non-electric) performance cars, but you can learn to meter them progressively enough.

One thing to note: you can't drive the E-tron GT with one pedal as you can the Model S because the regenerative effect isn’t powerful enough to stop the car by lifting off the accelerator alone. Also, the optional carbon-ceramic brakes that are available with the RS have a disappointing dead patch at the top of the pedal's travel. The standard brakes aren’t blighted by that.

As with the Taycan, there’s a little bit of motor whine in the E-tron GT, mainly below 30mph, and the gearbox (there’s a two-speed automatic ’box driving the rear wheels) can be felt changing from first gear to second under hard acceleration.

Road and wind noise are more noticeable than in some versions of the Taycan we've experienced but far from antagonising. The E-tron GT gets an acoustically glazed windscreen and the Vorsprung trim adds acoustic glazing to the side windows as well.

Of course, this is an electric car, so there’s no engine noise. To compensate, you can add a sound generator to the GT (it's standard on the RS) that vaguely mimics a petrol engine. The Taycan has something similar but it sounds like the USS Enterprise accelerating to warp speed.

The basic architecture of the Audi E-tron GT is the same as the Porsche Taycan. That’s great, because it means the relationship between the pedals, steering wheel and seat are spot-on. There’s loads of adjustment to modify it as required too.

The E-tron GT comes with a well-bolstered eight-way electric driver’s seat that offers good side support. It doesn't include lumbar adjustment, though. To have that you need to option the 14-way seat (or you get an 18-way seat with a massaging facility as standard on the RS model). That gives you a far more comfortable workstation than the driving seat of the Tesla Model S.

Joy of joys: this automotive marvel is confident enough in its technical brilliance to not force the issue by littering the dashboard with futuristic but fiddly touch-sensitive buttons. You get real buttons for most things – you know, the sort that are easy to use when you’re doing 70mph along a motorway. You won’t find many of those in the Taycan or Model S.

The 12.3in digital screen that houses the E-tron GT’s instruments is extremely clear and high resolution. It's also easy to configure from the steering wheel buttons – as opposed to the Taycan's instrument screen that also has touch functions.

The Taycan is better made inside, and then some, actually, being screwed together impeccably. The E-tron GT is good but there are flimsier elements, including the shroud around the infotainment screen that flexes, along with some sharper edges here and there. If you opt for the wood trim and lighter-coloured leather, the interior can be made to feel warm and luxurious, and it's still screwed together better than the Model S. 

If you don’t want leather, you can choose synthetic and sustainably sourced alternatives made from plastic bottles. The carpets are made of nylon from recycled fishing nets. Don’t worry, though, they’ve been cleaned thoroughly, so there's no whiff of rotting fish.

The Model S strikes back with its infotainment system. The E-tron GT’s uses the 10.1in touchscreen you get in most other Audis. It’s fine but much smaller than its Tesla rival’s screen, and, if you’re looking for a tally of tech to match the Model S’s, you might be disappointed.

You get the usual – sat-nav, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay (the Model S includes neither), and wireless phone-charging. You can’t stream Netflix or play games in the E-tron GT as you can in the Model S, though.

If you enjoy music, the RS version has a 16-speaker, 710-watt B&O stereo, which you can option on the E-tron GT as part of the Comfort and Sound Pack. It sounds good but not exceptional. 

Visibility isn’t bad at the front, but the windscreen pillars are quite chunky and the window line is high. The rear screen is very shallow and the tapering roofline stops you seeing very much out of the rear corners.

LED headlights, a rear-view camera, and front and rear parking sensors are standard. Adaptive matrix LED headlights with laser main beams, which double the length of the illumination, are standard on the Vorsprung trim and RS e-tron GT. A night vision camera and 360-degree camera are also standard on the Vorsprung versions.

There's lots of front head and leg room, and the interior, like the rest of the Audi E-tron GT, is wide. Very wide, actually. So whether you ate all your greens as a kid or all the pies, you should fit in just fine. You’ll find lots of storage space too.

Getting in and out of the front isn't particularly easy due to the narrow door apertures. It's the same at the back: the rear door apertures are relatively small and you have to contort your feet past the small gap between the front and rear seats.

Once you’re in, there’s enough room for your feet under the front seats and it matches the Porsche Taycan for leg room. Two six-footers will be fine even if the front seats are slid back. The E-tron GT has a panoramic sunroof as standard, but unlike in many car models it doesn't steal headroom – in fact, you get slightly more than in the Taycan. 

Carrying a third passenger is theoretically possible as there’s a seatbelt for them. If you do find an adult willing to spend any time in the tiny middle seat, buy them a beer for effort (and to dull the pain). The Tesla Model S is much roomier if you have a big family to cart around.

The rear boot is big enough for a buggy or a set of golf clubs. It matched the tally of six carry-on suitcases that the Taycan's will swallow with some room left over. There's underfloor storage for the charging cables but that's deleted if you add the upgraded sound system (that space is turned over to the subwoofer). Not to worry, though, because there's room for the cables in the front trunk, which can also fit one more carry-on case if required. Once again, the Model S is more accommodating, taking a whopping 11 carry-on cases.

If you need to carry extra luggage, you can fold down the E-tron GT's rear seats. They come with a 40/20/40 split as standard. 

The Audi e-tron GT is expensive, that’s for sure. You can have about three Fiat 500s for the price of the entry-level model.

We suspect that’s not gobsmacking news to you, though, and the e-tron GT is better value than the Porsche Taycan 4S (the entry-level, rear-wheel drive Taycan is cheaper but not as powerful or good to drive). Indeed, the e-tron GT is suspiciously close to the price of the Tesla Model S Long Range, while the RS e-tron GT is nigh on the same money as the Model S Plaid. What a coincidence…

Are you a company car driver? Then get in quick and bag yourself a bargain before the Government changes the benefit-in-kind (BIK) tax bands. All electric cars – including the e-tron GT – are in the lowest tax brackets, so you’ll currently pay a tiny amount of tax to run one.

As for charging, you get a port on each front wing (so there’s more chance you can get the charging cable to reach) and there’s no need to pay extra to increase the charging rate, something you have to do on the Porsche Taycan 4S. As standard, it’ll charge at rates of up to 270kW. This, in ideal conditions, allows a 10-80% charge in around 20 minutes (or quicker than a Model S hooked up to a Tesla Supercharger).

The only problem is that there are hundreds of Tesla Superchargers and not many Ionity chargers capable of topping up the e-tron GT at that rate. A 100kW service station charger will boost you from 10-80% in 40 minutes, or at home you can charge from empty to full from a wall box in 13.5hrs.

Equipment levels are high, so we don’t see any need to go beyond the entry-level e-tron GT, with its LED headlights, panoramic sunroof, eight-way electric front seats and all its infotainment gubbins. You’ll also enjoy other luxuries, including 20in alloy wheels, power-folding door mirrors, keyless entry, a powered boot lid with gesture control, privacy glass, heated front seats and three-zone climate control.

The RS e-tron GT includes 21in alloy wheels, the upgraded air suspension, 18-way sports seats with massaging and ventilation, four-wheel steering, the engine sound generator, an electronic rear differential and beefed-up brakes.

All we have to go on to gauge reliability is Audi’s record compared with the other 32 manufacturers in the 2022 What Car? Reliability Survey. It came in 21st place out of 32 manufacturers, which is one place below Porsche and Tesla (equal 19th) and just ahead of Mercedes in 23rd.

In terms of safety, the e-tron GT hasn't been crash-tested by Euro NCAP but the five-star rating awarded to the Taycan bodes well, and it comes with automatic emergency braking (AEB) and lane-keeping assistance as standard, with blind-spot monitoring available as an option.

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