Audi showed its Q4 E-Tron electric SUV at the Geneva Motor Show last week, and at the time, we were told the car was technically a concept. As it turns out, the show car was closer to production-spec than we thought.
During an event at Audi headquarters in Ingolstadt, Germany, on Wednesday, company executives showed members of the media the Q4 E-Tron that will go into production in 2020, likely arriving in the US in 2021. The only major difference between the final design and the concept car? The road-going version will have a real set of door handles.
Marc Lichte, Audi’s head of design, said the company wants to move away from showing overstyled, far-out concepts that don’t correctly preview upcoming production models.
Lichte also confirmed that the Q4 E-Tron show car’s Digital Signature Lights — the reconfigurable LED running lights — will carry over to production. But unlike the blocky checker pattern of the concept car, the production version will use two rows of thin, vertical strips, with a solid LED light running horizontally between them. It’s hard to tell, but the Q4’s low- and high-beam headlights are actually housed below the LED light cluster.
What’s more, Lichte confirmed the production Q4 will have Audi’s new augmented reality head-up display, which can project things like turn-by-turn direction arrows far out into the driver’s field of view. Mercedes-Benz, for example, currently incorporates this sort of AR tech in its MBUX infotainment display, but Audi will actually be able to project it onto the windshield.
The Q4 E-Tron will ride on the Volkswagen Group’s flexible MEB electric vehicle architecture. It’ll be slightly longer than a Q3 crossover, but should have Q5 levels of interior space, according to an Audi representative.
Watch this:
Audi Q4 E-Tron concept: A small EV that’s big on range
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Audi said the Q4 E-Tron concept had an 82-kilowatt-hour battery pack onboard, good for an estimated range of around 280 miles on the European WLTP test cycle. At Wednesday’s event, however, Lichte quoted a range of roughly 500 kilometers, or 310 miles. Of course, that number will drop slightly under the US EPA testing regimen.
The Q4 E-Tron should arrive around the same time as Audi’s new E-Tron GT, the latter based on the MLB Evo architecture shared with the Porsche Taycan. The Q4 E-Tron is one of 30 new electrified models that Audi plans to launch by 2025.