2023 Audi RS E-Tron GT review

2023 Audi RS E-Tron GT

The sound of silence doesn’t get much angrier than the Audi RS E-Tron GT. 

This zero-emissions monster is the pinnacle of Audi’s nascent electric revolution and one of the fastest silent assassins on the road today.

The E-Tron GT range has the seductive lines of a supermodel with the unrelenting power of a towering tsunami. In RS guise it will explode from zero to 100km/h in 3.3 seconds and hit 200km/h in another seven even though it weighs as much as a Toyota LandCruiser. 

The RS E-Tron GT’s tricks go beyond just explosive acceleration. It can cross cityscapes and cruise countrysides with equal aplomb, cosseting you in luxury and bursting with technology. 

All this for a quarter of a million dollars. It’s a fearsome flagship with a remarkable breadth of ability… if you’re wealthy enough to afford it.

But can the ultimate Audi EV handle the simple Sunday drive? That’s what we’re about to find out. 

Why are we doing this? 

A clarification before we begin: it wasn’t Sunday, it was Wednesday. But while the day didn’t have the right name, the concept remains the same: we wanted to test the Audi RS E-Tron GT’s Sunday drive credentials. 

To me, Sunday drives are more than just Driving Miss Daisy. I’m talking the Sunday drive of the automotive-enthused. The kind of people who go for a drive mainly to drive, and choose a car that contributes to the emotional reward.

The idea was spur of the moment, as Sunday drives often are. Like a ray of sunshine bursting through the omnipresent workday clouds, a day emerged in my diary miraculously clear of meetings and deadlines. 

So I called a mate and sowed the seeds. There’s a country cafe we need to revisit on a road we love to drive, and I have a car that demands attention. 

That’s all it took for me, Stu and the Audi RS E-Tron GT to be heading north out of Melbourne for the destination of Whitfield in the foothills of the Victorian High Country just north of Mansfield. If you know the Mansfield-Whitfield road – the C521 – then you know why we love it. If not, then find an excuse and go there immediately. 

Stu is not a motoring journalist, but he is an astute arbiter of automotive metal. Stu has been providing me with incisive second opinions for decades now. Sometimes we even agree. 

A 1970 Alfa Romeo 1750 GTV has been his daily driver for longer than my two marriages, so he understands the ingredients that make a good drive. His brother owns a 1974 Porsche 911, which Stu borrows every time they cross paths. Neither car has more than 100kW left in their well-used engines, but Stu knows that an enjoyable drive is about poise and not performance, although the latter certainly doesn’t hurt.

Cars with well-sorted dynamics don’t need high-output powertrains, as the decades-long list of hot hatches proves. Other brilliant examples of balance over brawn include all generations of the Mazda MX-5, early Porsche Boxsters, modern Alfa Romeo Giulia Veloces, the Toyota GR86 and Subaru BRZ duo, and pretty much every Lotus ever.

There are more, but I think you get my point.

How much does the Audi RS E-Tron GT cost in Australia?

The Audi E-Tron GT four-door sportback joined the E-Tron SUV in Australia in early 2023. This one is the RS-ified $248,200 bigger brother of the $180,200 Audi E-Tron GT, and is Audi’s peak performer now that the R8 mid-engined supercar has been consigned to history. 

Those prices include GST and LCT but not dealer delivery fees, registration and stamp duty. On-road, the RS E-Tron GT is close to $275,000.

The Audi E-Tron GT shares much of what’s under the skin with the Porsche Taycan, its Volkswagen Group sibling. The RS E-Tron GT we’re driving here aligns most closely with the $294K Taycan Turbo, so straight away you can see it’s something of a bargain. (Drive-away price on the Taycan Turbo is $318,564.)

Like the Taycan Turbo, the RS E-Tron GT has an electric motor at each end producing a combined 440kW and is capable of 475kW and 830Nm via a short-term boost mode.

Compare that with the 350kW of the standard E-Tron GT (390kW/640Nm boost mode) and you start to see what the extra $69K gets you. 

But you can also sense some careful product positioning too, because the Taycan Turbo has 460kW boosting to 500kW and 850Nm. Clearly, it wouldn’t do for an Audi to outperform a Porsche, especially one that is $45K cheaper.

Key details2023 Audi RS E-Tron GTPrice$248,900 plus on-road costsColour of test carFlorett SilverOptionsSensory Pack – $8400
– Front seats with massage function
– Heated outer rear seats
– Air quality pack with ioniser
– Door sill trims with carbon inlay, illuminated RS logo
– Dinamica headlining in blackPrice as tested$257,300 plus on-road costsDrive-away price$274,656 (Vic)RivalsMercedes-Benz EQS | Porsche Taycan

Like the Taycan, the E-Tron’s rear motor has a two-speed transmission whose job is to make accelerative performance punch hard above 70km/h just like it does below. This two-speed transmission also raises the Taycan Turbo and the RS E-Tron GT’s top speed to around 260km/h. 

The RS’s air suspension and active dampers are also borrowed from the Porsche Taycan, although Audi has tuned for greater everyday useability. Without giving this article’s conclusion away, the Audi’s suspension tune is one of its main strengths. It has the rolling refinement of a Rolls-Royce and yet can be dialled up dynamically at the push of a button. 

Audi has also packaged some electronic wizardry to enhance the vehicle’s all-wheel-drive system. The electronic torque-vectoring system basically mimics a mechanical locking diff to improve drive through corners and reduce understeer.

The RS E-Tron GT doesn’t want for much in the cabin, and it gets the basics absolutely right. The driving position is Goldilocks, and not just for stumpy humans like yours truly. The range of electrical adjustment on the seat and steering wheel will accommodate all but the most extreme of human body shapes.

The RS E-Tron GT’s slim but supportive seat base lets you sit surprisingly close to the floor, giving the driving position a real sports car vibe. It also lessens the sense of body roll in corners, although the suspension’s roll-mitigation smarts are the main contributor here. 

I don’t want to bang on about the RS E-Tron’s suspension tune, but it really is bloody good. This is a car with three-second performance that you can drive everyday – or long distances – and not tire of.

Visibility forward over the long bonnet and also out the side windows is excellent but rearward vision is of the letterbox variety, although it is supplemented at low speed by high-quality cameras. 

The cabin is very Audi, which makes it a more accommodating and user-friendly place than the equivalent Taycan. Whichever you prefer, both have distinct flavours.

The layout of controls and screens is excellent and of a high quality befitting a $250K-plus car. The 12.3-inch digital instrument display has three layouts called Classic, Sport and E-Tron that house all the information you need.

In addition, there’s a head-up display that puts important information – speed, navigation instructions, etc – in the driver’s eye line. It’s very handy when commuting, but I found it partially obscures my driving line when driving enthusiastically. It can be turned off easily via a shortcut on the 10.1-inch infotainment screen. 

The Audi E-Tron’s MMI Navigation Plus infotainment system has all the features you’d expect, including FM/DAB+ digital radio, smartphone mirroring (wired-only for Android, wireless or wired for Apple), and satellite navigation with an E-Tron mode that can plot a course via public charging stations.

Interestingly, the E-Tron doesn’t have a second lower touchscreen like many upmarket Audis do these days, and for me that’s a swing and a miss in a performance and technology flagship. Instead it provides climate-control buttons (good) and two air vents (bad), which visually detract from the cabin’s otherwise exemplary high-end ambience.

Our test car came with the $8400 Sensory Package, which brings a black interior headlining on areas of the roof not taken up by the massive panoramic glass roof panel. It also adds massaging to the front seats’ skillset and heating in the outer rear seats, trims the door sills in carbon with an illuminated RS logo and adds an air quality ioniser.

The front seats already have both a heating and cooling function, although we soon learned that using these is surprisingly damaging to the vehicle’s touring range. 

As for the back seats, well, they’re there and they take backpacks in the footwells very well. I slid in briefly to assess their space provisioning and there’s just enough room for my 5ft 9in frame under the sportback’s sloping roof line. 

I didn’t test how comfortable the back row is on the move, because this was a Sunday drive and there should never be more than two people per car. Third and fourth wheels must supply their own car. 

The boot’s definitely on the less impressive side for a car of this physical size. That low roof line compromises luggage height, and both the width and depth are nothing to write home about.

2023 Audi RS E-Tron GTSeatsFiveBoot volume366L rear
85L under bonnetLength4989mmWidth2158mmHeight1414mmWheelbase2900mm

Now, back to the Sunday drive

It is tradition for Sunday drives to be impulsive or at most loosely planned – but never too planned out that you can’t revise the route on a whim.

One thing all Sunday drives share is the fundamental goal of enjoyment. A Sunday drive would never stand up to scrutiny by a time-and-motion expert because there’s no purpose beyond killing time with a car and returning with memories. It’s frivolous and trivial but fun.

The Audi RS E-Tron GT is almost perfect for Sunday driving. It is home on the highways and invigorating on the byways. But the E-Tron is not without its limitations when it comes to rambling country drives, because it is an EV that has the misfortune to be born in the early days of the EV-lution.

It doesn’t take Nostradamus to predict the RS E-Tron GT’s biggest challenge when tackling the seemingly simply Sunday drive. Australia’s charging network is barely adequate on the major highways, and abysmal beyond that.

2023 Audi RS E-Tron GTANCAP ratingUntested

The RS E-Tron GT’s manners on the Hume Highway were faultless as we left Melbourne behind. It cruises incredibly comfortably in the softest of its three active damper settings, delivering a ride befitting of a luxury limo and yet always exudes the tautness of a ready and willing sports car.

The RS’s deeply potent electric powertrain is barely flexing its ample muscle to maintain a cruise controlled 110km/h, although the trip computer is reporting 23.5kWh/100km, which is nowhere near Audi’s claimed 20.2kWh/100km. 

The only noise intruding on our cabin conversation is the subdued rumble of the Audi’s 21-inch tyres. Wind noise is gentle zephyr, the powertrain a distant hum barely audible over our inane conversation that weaves and wanders like the winding mountain road we’re aiming for. 

At times we unleash the RS E-Tron’s 16-speaker 710W Bang and Olufsen sound system, playing with its 3D and Surround soundscapes that add so much depth it’s like listening to a concert down a long tunnel. There’s a happy medium where the sound is audiophile epic, but maxing those settings out is not it. 

We make our first Chargefall at Euroa, rolling straight into a 350kW charging bay with no waiting. The Audi has covered 240km since its last recharge in Geelong the day before and claims another 145km in the 93.4kWh battery, suggesting a ‘true’ driving range of less than 400km. 

Audi’s NEDC claim is 504km, which doesn’t compute given Audi’s NEDC consumption claim is 20.2kWh/100km. The WLTP claim of 447km feels closer to reality, but still ambitious.

The Audi recharges at a maximum speed of 104kW/h even though its 800V system is rated to 270kW just like the Taycan. There were no other vehicles in the charging bays, so I can only assume the conditions weren’t optimal? 

At a glance2023 Audi RS E-Tron GTWarrantyFive years, unlimited kmService intervals24 months or 30,000kmServicing costs6 years complimentary

That speed slows to below 40kW/h as the battery fills beyond 90 per cent, giving us plenty of time to finish our coffee and a muffin… and check emails… and check in with the office… and take photos… and anything else we can to kill half an hour. 

We wait until it is 100 per cent done, because we’re simply not sure how much charge we’ll use up climbing enthusiastically uphill out of Mansfield, across the top at Tolmie and then down the twisties into Whitfield. There’s no charger at Whitfield, so this charge needs to get us from Euroa to Whitfield and back again, a round trip of roughly 260km. 

Back on the road again and I discover the C366 to Merton, which throws some unexpected and engaging corners our way. The Audi hunkers down nicely in Dynamic mode, its suspension firming noticeably but not uncomfortably. The steering adds heft and the throttle enters a more sensitive mode, which all combines to make the Audi a wonderfully willing dance partner. 

This is Audi RS E-Tron GT country – a name that doesn’t roll off the tongue anywhere near as easily as the Audi devours the miles. The car’s big tyres and low centre of gravity give it a tenacity in corners beyond my expectation given the vehicle’s 2.5-tonne rolling mass.

What’s arguably more astonishing is the lightning-quick throttle response out of corners. It’s instant and exhilarating in a way no ICE engine can ever be. It’s an incredibly hilarious party trick that never gets old. Stomp the throttle and the car leaps forward, instantly teleporting you further up the road while also whacking you in the head. Ease off, slow down, then stomp again. The grin grows.

I really shouldn’t be surprised at how whippet-quick powerful EV cars are. I’ve driven enough now to know what to expect. But memory and expectation never equals the actual experience, because it’s so ferocious, so violent, and so incredibly instantaneous. The only thing that matches the physical assault is an actual electric shock – which makes sense if you think about it. 

Another shock – and not of the good kind – is that the Audi’s initial 504km of indicated driving range is eroding. We arrive at the Merton intersection after 33km with 430km of advertised range remaining, a loss of 74km. Sure, we prodded the throttle a few times in the name of science, but surely we weren’t driving hard enough to use twice the expected electricity?

Merton into Mansfield is another 40km of highway – more trafficked and far less exciting so we go with the flow – and now the advertised range is 360km. That 40km has cost us 70km of range, even though we were behaving and driving at a cruise-controlled 100km/h.

We scope out the recharging options in Mansfield – just in case – and find a 40kWh UpCharge outlet under the Mansfield apartments. UpCharge by name… the tariff is 85c/kW, which is almost half again what Chargefox sells its 350kW chargers at. But beggars can’t be choosers when you’re off the main routes. 

We take the cautious approach and plug the Audi in while grabbing a pitstop and another coffee, but after 15 minutes we lose patience and depart, eager to begin the fun roads ahead and confident that the 10kWh we’ve added will be enough to get us over the mountain and back again. 

Now the fun starts

The climb to Tolmie is the kind of road the Audi was born for. Not too tight, not too open, just right for a surefooted GT car with lightning-quick reflexes and all-wheel drive.

Halfway up the rain arrives – enough to wet the road but not force the wipers out of intermittent mode.

The car’s grip is prodigious despite the damp conditions. It just refuses to let go. We’re obviously more circumspect with our full-throttle explorations, and it’s not lost on me that the Audi would leave a 2.5-tonne hole in the scenery if we overstep the car’s grip limits. But we still manage to push along and enjoy the climb. 

Up the top of the mountain, the temperature outside drops to single digits despite the fact that it’s early afternoon. Fog closes in, prompting us to drive more cautiously. But far from dampening our spirits, these little atmospheric challenges only heighten our enthusiasm and make this a more memorable drive. 

The Audi simply does not put a wheel wrong. There’s more power than we can hope to deploy and the brakes are equally without limit, but then you’d expect that of Brembos that are also Porsche’s brakes of choice on the Taycan. 

While we’re on the brakes, the Audi doesn’t do one-pedal driving like some EVs do. Instead it follows a more traditional route of slowing only when the brake pedal is depressed. But just because you press the brake pedal doesn’t mean the brakes are slowing the car.

Instead, the Audi (like the Porsche Taycan) uses the electric motors to do the actual braking (retarding speed at up to 0.3g, which covers the majority of everyday braking needs) and recuperating energy as it does. When the driver demands stronger braking, the Brembos lend a hand.

This duality is all but invisible to the driver. You simply don’t notice the difference, and there’s no noticeable step when the Brembos join the braking party.

By the time we roll into Whitfield, I’m totally convinced that the Audi RS E-Tron GT is an exceptional automobile. I’m also thinking it’s a wiser purchase than the more expensive Porsche Taycan. It’s a wonderfully enjoyable car to drive, be that in town or on the highways or on your favourite back road, rain or shine. It is a consummate performer, and what it loses in 10/10ths driving to the Porsche, it makes up for in all the other tenths. 

But for Sunday drives it’s not as involving as an old-school petrol-engined car. The Audi’s performance is astonishing, and while its weight is considerable, it defies opposing forces better than Newton could ever have imagined. 

But the driving experience is muted, a bit distant. Driving an EV enthusiastically doesn’t match the visceral intensity of a petrol sports car.

Key details2023 Audi RS E-Tron GTEngineDual synchronous electric motorsPower175kW front
335kW rear
440kW combined
475kW in boost modeTorque830Nm Drive typeAll-wheel driveTransmissionTwo-speed transmissionPower-to-weight ratio189-203kW/tWeight (kerb)2345kgSpare tyre typeTyre repair kitTurning circle11m

For better and worse, electric powertrains are more refined than internal combustion engines. They’re smoother, more consistent in their power delivery, quieter and less involving – all attributes that suit effortless long-distance driving and short-haul commuting.

What that doesn’t suit is driving for fun, because that’s all about the intimacy of car and driver. EVs are about as intimate as a light switch. They’re like touching a lover’s skin wearing ski gloves.

The Audi’s performance is phenomenal. When you sit back at the end of a drive and replay its accomplishments, the Audi cannot fail to impress. It is effortless and effective, brutally so. But it is not a particularly immersive or engaging car to drive. 

Equally, the Audi’s electronically generated soundtrack is no match for the spine-tingling revs of a petrol engine. It’s like watching a Terminator movie on mute. What you’re hearing doesn’t match what you’re seeing. 

It’s a disconnect that anybody who grew up in the ICE era will lament, but our kids who may only ever drive EVs will wonder what the old folks are whingeing about. But hey, nobody guaranteed that the future would outperform today in all ways.

These are all characteristics that Father Time will erase, like the emotive crackles and pops of dust under the needle of a record player. Just hearing those unexpected – and let’s face it, unnecessary – sounds as your album begins transports you to a heightened plane of enjoyment. Progress is killing that for the masses, though audiophiles everywhere are doing their best to keep it alive. 

Progress is relentless and remorseless, especially when driven by efficiency, convenience or environment. The future of motoring will be better in many ways, but not everything we love today will survive. It’s as simple as that.

For the record, we made it back to Euroa with just 25km of charge remaining, and then sat there as the cars that arrived before us finished charging. While we waited, we worked out that we would not have made Euroa if we didn’t ‘splash-n-dash’ in Mansfield. We also worked out that the Audi’s range claim is complete bollocks. Always. 

For all the engineering prowess at Audi, Porsche and Volkswagen Group, and with all the sensors on cars these days, why can’t engineers develop an accurate in-car range calculator? It would certainly help if EVs stopped lying to us about how far they can drive because that adds significant stress.

Twenty minutes and another coffee later, we plug into a 350kW charger. Again the Audi refuses to charge faster than 105kW, so we wait another 40 minutes for it to fill.  

All up, our Sunday drive from South Melbourne to Whitfield and back covered just under 600km, and the Audi needed 170kWh of energy to do it. That’s an average of 28.3kWh/100km. 

EVs are not ready for impulsive and immersive Sunday drives of the kind loved by enthusiasts, not yet. What we also wanted to find out was what are the limitations, where are the compromises, and can you still have fun?

The main limitations are the charging network and EVs’ inaccurate range predictions. This is not unique to the Audi E-Tron. Pretty much all the EVs I’ve tested lie about their abilities in this regard.

The compromises are you need to allow charging time and lots of it. We left at 8am and got home at 7pm. Eleven hours for a drive that should have taken nine at most.

As for the fun, the answer is unequivocally yes, but it’s a different kind of fun. Not as intimate, not as emotive, and not as memorable, but still enjoyable – albeit in a different way. 

There’s one other rule that applies to Sunday drives, at least in my house. You should always get home for dinner with the family. I lost two hours to recharging, so I didn’t make it. My wife was not impressed.

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