2025 Audi Q6 e-tron Review: Audi platforms up with its best real-world EV yet
It might not be reflected in sales, or not so far anyway, but Audi probably does deserve some credit for jumping on the EV (power)train so early and with such energy, and the new Audi Q6 is a clear example of all that investment of money and engineering paying off.
You’ll note I’m not using the Lower Case e-tron because it seems to me that we’ve reached the point that the Q6 is merely the EV option if you want a mid-size SUV with an Audi badge, while you can also still have one with an engine, for now, called the Q5 (the Q6 is slightly bigger, but not enough that you’d notice if you jumped between the two).
But that’s because I’m wrong, or confused. Apparently it is a Q6 e-tron, although Audi doesn’t mention the second part as much as they used to, but eventually it will probably be a Q5-e tron, and there’ll also be a Q5 TFSI e PHEV version, as well as Q5 TDIs and TFSIs. At least for a while. I hope that’s cleared it up.
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The Q6 is the first Audi built on the new PPE – or Premium Platform Electric – which it shares with the reportedly excellent Porsche Macan. The Audi A6 will be the next car to share it.
By interesting coincidence I had just driven the new Audi Q5, which sits on the Combustion version of that platform, or PPC, a week earlier, so it was interesting to compare the two while driving the new EV on the excellent roads of Tasmania.
And here are some interesting numbers that show how far Audi has come – in the FIVE years since it launched the first Audi e-tron, the energy content of the cells it uses is up by 150 per cent, the energy density of its batteries is up by 15 per cent, while the weight of the battery is down by 15 per cent. Charging time for an Audi EV is also down by a significant 30 per cent.
On a fast charger, Audi says its Q6 can go from 10 per cent to 80 per cent charge in 21 minutes, and that you can add 255km of range in just 10 minutes of fast charging.
As one Audi engineer type said to me: “We keep thinking there’s going to be this huge leap that will fix everything, that a solid state battery will come along that will have 1000km in range, but it’s more likely that we’ll get there with all of this gradual improvement we’ve been seeing.”
2025 Audi Q6 e-tron price and equipment
The big problem with European EVs like the Audi Q6 is price, and it’s problem that only looks more stark as the Chinese brands keep dragging the entry price of cheaper electric vehicles lower.
The cheapest Q6 you can buy starts at $115,500 before you almost inevitably start adding option packs, and that gets you a non-quattro, rear-wheel-drive only variant with 558km of range, it’s called the Q6 Performance.
From there you step up to $122,500 for the Q6 Quattro, which cuts your range to 542km, because more grunt means less range, right?
Wrong, because the range-topping SQ6, at $151,400, has 568km, and that’s because its clever air suspension – which makes the car better to drive in general – can drop it to a more aerodynamically beneficial ride height in Efficiency or Dynamic modes (it can also raise the car by as much as 75mm should you be testing out its Off Road mode).
In terms of features, you get more than 30 different forms of active safety technology, which I won’t torment you by listing, and a JB Hifi-worthy swathe of lovely lush OLED screens.
Truly, the Q6 dash is just all screens, from door to door, with no less than three whoppers, including one for the passenger, on which they can watch YouTubes (which the driver can’t see while the car is moving) because you’re boring them to tears by going on about your 30-plus safety systems.
Horribly, while you’re sitting waiting for your car to charge presumably, you can also play video games, or engage in karaoke, with your passenger through the central touch screen while stationary. There’s even an Audi App Store where you’ll soon be able to download even more stuff that has no place in a car.
Even more amazingly, if that’s not enough for your ADHD-addled brain, you can also play two games via the head-up display – again only while stationary – Space Shuttle and 3D Squash.
I’ll grant you, the Shuttle one looks pretty damn amazing, but the fact that you have to use the steering wheel paddles, plus the throttle and brake pedals, to operate it damn near made my head cave in.
Again, I blame Elon and Tesla for starting all this nonsense, but does every car company have to follow suit? The obvious answer is that all this is just getting ready for full autonomy in cars when they will just become video arcades on wheels.
Your big bucks also get you an eight-year battery warranty, a one-year Chargefox subscription (that number has dropped, a lot) and a five-year unlimited-kilometre warranty overall.
It’s worth mentioning that the all-new interior feels very plush, expensive and high-tech modern in general. It would want to at those prices.
2025 Audi Q6 e-tron: What we think
The simplest way to describe, and praise, the Audi Q6 is that it’s the first time the brand has made an EV, and it has produced a few, that just feels like an Audi, and not something intentionally weird and different.
As an early adopter, Audi made its e-tron range look and feel different, seemingly in as many ways as possible. But it now seems to have reached the point where it sees an electric option as simply part of the range.
This was made more obvious to me because I’d just driven the new Q5 the week before, and is so many ways they are very much twins – hard to tell apart until you take them for a ride.
The advantage of the electric powertrain becomes immediately obvious when you do. The Q6 is smooth, serene, properly European in its level of comfort and refinement and it delivers its acceleration in the kind of uninterrupted, space-jump, face-warp way that only EVs can. It’s not stupidly fast or terrifying, as some electric cars can be, but it’s impressive and effortless and it makes overtaking, even in tight situations, a breeze.
As usual, the Audi’s steering does the job, it’s tight and precise and connects you to the road nicely, but it’s just not as beautifully weighted as some of its competitors, or the RS cars that Audi itself makes, which all have proper steering.
Where the Q6 falls down against the Q5 is the issue of weight. Driving the two back-to-back, the EV feels fully a tonne heavier at times, and while that doesn’t negatively affect acceleration or performance, at all, it does affect ride and handling.
In short, the Q5 feels much lighter on its feet, much happier to change direction or hold its line through a really tight bend without pushing on, and it reacts much better to bumps. In the Q6, the suspension soaks up the initial impact but there’s a kind of rolling, settling movement that’s impossible to engineer out as all that mass has to be dealt with.
The two are close in terms of driving enjoyment and the differences might not even be that noticeable or important to most buyers. But it’s also fair to say the Audi Q6 gets close to its petrol equivalent, in terms of being fun to drive and just normal to live with, than any Audi EV before it.
2025 Audi Q6 e-tron: Verdict
This is the first EV from Audi to just feel like a proper part of a premium European car range. It feels complete, sorted, and built on a platform that was made for this kind of vehicle, rather than a new technology being squeezed on to an old one. A properly impressive EV SUV, then, but also an expensive one.
Score: 4/5
2025 Audi Q6 e-tron Quattro price and specifications
Price: $122,500 (plus on-road costs)
Basics: EV, 5 seats, 5 doors, medium SUV, AWD
Range: 524km (WLTP)
Battery capacity: 100kWh
Battery warranty: Eight years
Energy consumption: 19.9kWh per 100km
Motors: One asynchronous motor on the front axle, one permanent magnet synchronous motor at the rear, 280kW/580Nm
AC charging: 11kW Type 2 plug
DC charging: 260kW CCS combo plug
|0-100km/h: 5.9 seconds
