Singapore’s first triple-motor EV, the Audi E-Tron S Sportback, is an electric powerhouse whose strength comes with a cost 

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SINGAPORE
The headline grabbing thing about the Audi E-Tron S Sportback is that it’s the first production electric car with three motors, and it has 496hp with almost 1,000Nm of torque. 

That makes it sound like you need to do F1-driver-style neck exercises before you receive the key, but even Audi’s fire-snorting RS cars almost always have a lovely, placid side to them that’s perfect for daily life, as everything from the RS 4 Avant to the monstrous, Vader-like RS 6 Avant has shown.

The E-Tron S – it’s also the first electric Audi S car – mixes jolting electric thrills with quite a bit of practicality, though as expected it’s also not the most efficient nor longest-ranging EV around. 

We’ll need a little unpacking here if you’re totally new to Audis: ‘E-Tron’ is the brand’s name for its EVs – we have the ‘regular’ E-Tron, which was the first Audi EV. It’s an SUV, but Audi later on added the E-Tron Sportback, which has a coupe-SUV body shape. There’s also the E-Tron GT, a fast electric sedan, which comes in regular and RS flavours. 

Audi S cars should be more familiar to most people – they’re a step above normal Audi cars, but a notch below the full-bore high-performance RS cars. Example: There’s the normal A3, the S3, and then the RS 3. 

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If you put it side-by-side to our E-Tron Sportback 50 test car from before, it doesn’t look hugely different on the screen and that’s because the orange car already packed the S-Line kit which makes the front end resemble the true S model, and it also had optional 21-inch wheels. A ‘regular’ E-Tron looks less sporty, in comparison. 

But the S has more stance, as modders term it. The E-Tron S gains wider fenders (a considerable 23mm on each fender) and paired with the optional 22-inch 285/35 Audi Sport wheels (S$6,337), it gives the S an immediately more aggro attitude. In fact the car ends up, at 1,976mm, 50mm wider than the standard model, and even wider than a Lamborghini Huracan (1,946mm). 

The interior’s also similar to the Sportback we drove : Dark headliner, S-badged door sills, S Sport seats, perforated leather elements most notable on the steering wheel, which is itself a flat-bottomed one with the S logo.  

In the day-to-day, the E-Tron S remains perfectly luxurious and practical. The car’s digital cockpit layout with three screens is the same as on its brothers, and easy enough to use. Though susceptible to finger prints, the fit and finish is of a very high level.

The space for rear passengers is good, with spacious, deep footwells and no ‘high-knees’ effect (see Mercedes-EQ EQA, BMW i4). Boot space, like the normal Sportback, shrinks to 615-litres compared to the SUV, but is still good for a midsized lux SUV. There’s an auto tailgate but no boot-side seat folders. 

Page 2: More importantly: How does the E-Tron S drive?

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