The coolest tech in Audi’s new e-tron electric SUV is banned in the US

Enlarge (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

SAN FRANCISCO-Luxury electric SUVs must be like buses: you wait ages for one and then three show up all at once. That's certainly how it feels right now-first it was the Mercedes-Benz EQC, then last week BMW showed us the iNext, and on Monday night it was the Audi e-tron. This one is going to reach showrooms first-production just started at a carbon-neutral plant in Belgium in the past few weeks, and US deliveries are scheduled to begin in mid-2019.

That's sufficiently far off that Audi is still in the process of homologating the US version for sale, so some of its vital statistics are still TBA. We can't tell you how exactly much power you get for $74,800, although the European version is 300kW (402hp), if that helps. It hasn't undergone EPA testing yet, so there's no official word of how many miles of range the 95kWh lithium-ion battery provides. (Again, if it's helpful, the e-tron earned a 400km range on the very different European WLTP test.)

And I'm sad to say the e-tron's coolest feature-those side-view cameras-will require some changes to federal vehicle regulations before we can get them here in the US. That goes for the matrix-beam headlights, too. That's a shame, because this is an electric Audi that was designed with the US in mind. The company expects us to be the biggest market for the e-tron, and it's pitching this one straight into the mainstream. There are no flashy falcon wing doors or a massive panoramic screen like those in the bigger Tesla Model X. Neither are there futuristic design or racetrack credentials as with the Jaguar I-Pace.

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