Audi SQ8 Sportback e-tron: Tri before you die
With three motors, Audi’s SQ8 Sportback e-tron is impossibly fast and light on its feet
Webservice User &
Leow Ju-Len
DRIVING the Audi SQ8 Sportback e-tron feels a bit like walking around with a loaded submachine gun. Just as you want to be mighty careful about how your index finger caresses the trigger, you need to be properly tender with the Audi’s accelerator; tickle it the wrong way, and you might unleash chaos and destruction.
That’s what it means to be at the controls of an electric sport utility vehicle (SUV) that not only weighs 2.7 tonnes, but also packs 503 horsepower from three electric motors. Tromp down on the right pedal and it flies up the road like a cannonball, and heaven help anything in your path. Needless to say, I fell in love with this car in three minutes flat.
That’s saying something, because if anything leaves me cold more than an electric car, it’s an SUV. I like my cars light, low to the ground and noisy, and the SQ8 e-tron is the opposite of all three.
But there’s something irresistible about the way the Audi does its thing, artfully blending impeccable style and suaveness, with a killer streak lurking below its sleek surface. It’s James Bond reborn as a car (and apologies if this is how you found out that the super spy was blown to kingdom come at the end of the last movie), complete with licence to thrill.
Had he lived, the SQ8 Sportback e-tron is just the sort of sophisticated machine Bond would have gladly driven. As Audi’s flagship SUV, it’s a large and hefty car, but its tapering tail and curvy form do a lot to hide its bulk. I’m not sure it would pass for sporty, but it’s certainly athletic-looking.
You’re only aware of its imposing size when you actually climb aboard, and only after you’re done admiring its spiffy interior. Come to think of it, with its plethora of shiny screens and cool metallic surfaces, the dashboard might be more to Jean-Luc Picard’s taste than to a British spy’s.
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I don’t know what the acceleration on the Starship Enterprise feels like, but in the SQ8 e-tron it takes your breath away. The Audi is also monstrously capable when you take aim at a corner and fly through it, but punching the accelerator on the way back out is when you really feel like space and time have warped around you. It’s just insanely planted for a hulking SUV, and made me wonder what it would be like on a hot lap of Sepang.
There’s a bit of method to this madness. Like the most macho electric cars, the Audi has motors at both ends, but unlike them, it has one motor for each rear wheel. That way, the individual rear wheels can exert themselves independently to help turn the car (think of how you would steer a wheelchair), and that’s what makes the SQ8 so fearsomely effective through bends.
I’ve only ever driven two other cars that use individual motors in a similar way, and one (the balletic Honda NSX) was super forgiving on the track, and the other (the ballistic Ferrari SF90 Assetto Fiorano) could give a Space X rocket a run for its money.
Neither car is as comfy as the Audi, of course, nor as useful on a trip to the factory outlet shops. In fact, despite its fetching shape, the SQ8 does pack a useful amount of space in the rear, both for people and things. And yes, like any self-respective electric car, it does have a frunk.
That makes it the electric car that can do everything, only with plenty of style and refinement. It’s firmly sprung but not uncomfortably so, and the silence of its drivetrain perfectly complements how plush and inviting the interior is.
In short, you’ll look forward to driving it as much at the end of a gruelling day in the corner office as at the start of an empty, twisty road. Or even at Sepang, where it pays to bring out the big guns.
Audi SQ8 Sportback e-tron Motor power/torque 503 hp/973 Nm Battery type /net capacity Lithium-ion/106 kWh Charging Type/Time 3 hours and 45 minutes 0 to 100 per cent (22 kW AC), 29 minutes 10 to 80 per cent (130 kW DC) Range 471 km 0-100kmh 4.5 seconds Top speed 210 kmh Efficiency 31.2 kWh/100 km Agent Premium Automobiles Price S$644,810 with Certificate Of Entitlement Available Now
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