Also, anyone buying this Audi is buying first generation battery technology. Hoping there is no: 1) Phoenix heat related degradation, 2) VW Leaf rapid gate lower rate charging on long trips, or 3) long term battery degradation not covered by 1 or 2, that we know Tesla does not have.
Don't even get me started on the non-Tesla fast charging network here in the U.S....
Points 1 and 3 seem legit but the LEAF rapidgate-like concern is silly. The LEAF pack is completely passive and just heats up like an uninsulated oven that builds up heat from driving and charging but is slow to cool down.
The e-tron is said to charge to 80% which is about ~70 kWh in 30 minutes and the pack appears to have a substantial liquid cooling system.
The e-tron won’t begin to arrive in the US until late spring of next year which is when Electrify America plans to have much of their DC charging network up and running.
It's significantly lower than Hyundai Ioniq, that does 70kW into 28kWh battery, which is a 2.5C charge.
The Audi appears to have proper battery cooling also to allow great charging.
Battery cell design can be tuned across a spectrum of power vs energy density. Plugin hybrids and sub-30 kWh EV packs use cells designed for better power density at the expense of lower energy density. Why? Because they need to have adequate power out of an overall smaller pack. If your designing for a larger pack and driving range then energy density is usually considered more important in order to cram the pack into the car and keep per-kWh costs down.
The Porsche Taycan appears to break that pattern by apparently having a large ~90 kWh pack that is also very power dense. Nobody really knows how they are getting away with it yet.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Model 3 charges faster on a 120KW supercharger than the e-tron quttro on a 150 KW charger over the full 0-80% charging period.
I’d be surprised. Audi claims 0-80% in 30 minutes and we know the Model 3 takes a bit over 40 minutes to do that. Maybe the Model 3 can match or exceed the e-tron when plugged into a future Supercharger 3.0 station next year. In any case, the e-tron is more of a Model X competitor or really a Model Y competitor in the future.
The point is not to make a sub-standard poor imitation of a Tesla but to make something better... more range, better technology, better charging; not the pathetic meh imitators we have seen so far.
The e-tron doesn’t directly compete with anything that Tesla is selling today although I suppose the X is somewhat comparable. I haven’t driven it but have seen it up close and sat inside. Seems like a pretty nice crossover/SUV. It has a different and more conventional interior and exterior design which some people may prefer. In that way, for some people, it may be better.
The e-tron’s charging ability seems comparable or slightly better than a Tesla today (based on Audi’s claims) although that could change when Tesla upgrades their Supercharging station hardware to 3.0. We don’t know for sure how much existing Tesla cars might be running into peak power limitations of the Supercharger hardware today vs limitations inherent cars themselves.
