A new name and improved efficiency—we drive the 2023 Audi Q8 e-tron
Enlarge / After selling more than 160,000 e-tron SUVs, Audi has given the model a midlife refresh and a new name-the Q8 e-tron. (The one seen here is the SQ8 e-tron Sportback version.) (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)
Audi provided flights from DC to Lanzarote and back, plus two nights in a hotel so we could drive the Q8 e-tron and SQ8 e-tron. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.
LANZAROTE, SPAIN-The electric vehicle market is still nascent enough that most models are in their first flush of youth. But prevailing wisdom in the industry is that a model should live for about eight years, with a midlife spruce-up or refresh scheduled around year four. Not coincidentally, it's been about four years since Audi started the production of its first electric SUV, the e-tron, and since then, it has gone on to sell more than 160,000. Now the German automaker has a growing range of EVs, and "e-tron" has been converted from a proper noun to an adjective in its corporate lexicon in the same way "quattro" did several decades before. So this midlife refresh includes a name change-e-tron becomes Q8 e-tron, making plain the rather obvious similarities between this EV SUV and the gas-burning Q8.
When I drove the original e-tron in 2018, I found it solid, if a bit unspectacular. It hit most of the right notes in terms of appearance-Audi knows how to design a handsome shape, and its interiors are at the head of the class, if sometimes a little somber. Developed in rather a short amount of time, the e-tron could only manage a relatively mediocre 2.2 miles/kWh (28.2 kWh/100 km) at launch. That was sufficient for a range of more than 200 miles (321 km), but not much more, although a software update in 2021 increased the useable capacity of the 95 kWh battery pack from 83 kWh to 86 kWh.
Audi is good at designing handsome SUVs, and the Q8 e-tron is no exception.
Although Audi is still waiting to finalize its EPA numbers ahead of the Q8 e-tron arriving in the US next year, it says it expects the longest-legged version to come in with a range of at least 300 miles (483 km). This will presumably be the lower-drag Sportback, which returns as a body variant.