Audi e-tron S series high-performance electric SUV is updated again, "special fans" are silent, and "electric haters" are in tears

Although Tesla is the only company that stands out in the electric vehicle market, this is mainly based on the fact that Tesla entered the market early and most of the companies in the industry are start-ups.

Putting this condition aside, if we look at the entire automobile market, we will find that as the trend of new energy becomes more and more obvious, traditional car companies with hundreds of years of history have entered the electric vehicle market, and Tesla, which has only been established for more than a decade, seems to have become a "primary school student" again.

Although zooming in on the details, as an emerging field, we cannot simply use the company's history as a key factor in weighing the technical level of electric vehicles, but we cannot ignore that traditional car companies will definitely plan emerging technologies in advance after a hundred years of experience, and their mature industrial chain will also help the decentralization of new energy vehicles.

Audi is an outstanding representative among them. Although Audi officially entered the electric vehicle market in 2018, just two years later, it brought us the fully upgraded S series high-performance models of the e-tron family - Audi e-tron S and Audi e-tron S Sportback. From this perspective, as a representative of traditional car companies entering the electric vehicle field, the update of the Audi e-tron S series is of great significance to both the electric vehicle industry and the entire automotive industry.

e-tron S crushes Model X

Although Audi has not announced the specific price of the e-tron S series, from the performance point of view, the e-tron S series is undoubtedly benchmarked against Tesla's Model X.

Before the launch of the e-tron S series, Model X could be considered the representative model of high-end electric SUVs. However, after the launch of the e-tron S series, even the "special fans" would not dare to say so - because whether in terms of performance or interior, the e-tron S series has a crushing breakthrough compared to the Model X.

In terms of performance, the e-tron S series is equipped with a three-motor power combination of a single motor on the front axle and dual motors on the rear axle, while the Tesla Model X only has dual motors on the rear wheels. This makes the e-tron S series more powerful, with a combined maximum power of 370 kW and a peak torque of an astonishing 973 N·m.

Although the range of the e-tron S series has not yet been announced, we can use the e-tron as a benchmark and estimate that its range is at least 525km. In contrast, the range of the Tesla Model X is only 505 kilometers.

In terms of charging speed, under the most ideal charging standards, the e-tron S series only takes about half an hour to charge from 5% to 80%, while the Tesla Model X takes about 1.5 hours to charge from 10% to 90%.

Audi has never let us down when it comes to the interior of its cars. The sports seats of the e-tron S series are made of leather + Alcantara seat covers, which surpass the cheap and cold interior of the Tesla Model X in terms of both appearance and sitting comfort.

Overall, although Audi has only officially entered the electric vehicle market for two years, it has been able to go from being on par with Tesla Model X to surpassing it in just two years. On the one hand, this highlights Tesla's technological stagnation, and on the other hand, it also reflects that Audi has a deep technical foundation in the field of electric vehicles.

Will Audi overtake Tesla because of this?

In fact, Audi’s strong counterattack is definitely not accidental, as it officially entered the electric vehicle market in 2018 and became a blockbuster just two years later. In addition, if we take into account Audi’s comprehensive product development capabilities, we can also see that Audi has a certain absolute necessity in the field of electric vehicles.

First of all, Audi has been stepping up its preparations for the electric vehicle field since the last century.

As early as 1989, when fuel vehicles were in full swing, Audi launched the first generation of the duo concept car with hybrid drive. From then on, Audi began to explore electric vehicles.

In 2009, Audi released its first pure electric concept car named e-tron at the Frankfurt Motor Show in Germany. The biggest highlight of this car is that it is equipped with a 42.4kWh lithium-ion battery, which can provide a maximum range of 248km. Although from today's perspective, the range of 248km is not worth mentioning, we cannot ignore that in 2009, there were only a handful of electric vehicles with a range of more than 200km. From this perspective, we can see the preciousness of Audi.

Therefore, it would not be surprising to see Audi launch electric vehicles that can compete with Tesla twice in 2018 and 2020 - after all, Audi entered the electric vehicle field far earlier than Tesla.

Second, plan your strategy first and proceed step by step.

Unlike Tesla's strategy of launching products first and then operating the series step by step, Audi had already planned four major electric platforms: MLB evo, MEB, J1 and PPE long before entering the electric vehicle industry.

For example, the e-tron series is based on Audi's mature fuel vehicle platform MLB evo, which brings two obvious benefits. First, consumers are familiar with this platform and will have a higher degree of acceptance. Second, a mature platform will also reduce the difficulty of the process and increase production capacity. Therefore, Audi can boldly declare that it will release 20 pure electric models before 2025, and the A8 and R8 series we are familiar with will be electrified.

Therefore, Audi's strategic approach of taking the lead and proceeding step by step can effectively avoid the problem of Tesla having to rashly launch new products and then desperately educate the market.

Third, mature global factories avoid insufficient production capacity.

At present, the most important factor restricting the development of new energy vehicles is production capacity, which is why Tesla attaches great importance to China's Shanghai Super Factory. On the other hand, Audi, after a century of development, currently has seven factories around the world, and its annual delivery volume in 2019 reached 1.846 million vehicles.

Audi's e-tron series is officially mass-produced at the Brussels plant in Belgium, one of the most advanced electric vehicle production bases in Europe. At the same time, the advanced experience of the Brussels plant in producing electric vehicles can in turn stimulate the production of electric vehicles at other Audi plants.

According to Audi's plan, the Audi Q4 e-tron will roll off the production line at the Zwickau plant in the future, and SAIC Audi in Shanghai will also carry out localized production of the Audi Q4 e-tron, while the Audi e-tron GT will also be mass-produced at the Audi Burlingerhof plant together with the Audi R8 at the end of 2020.

Although Tesla's Shanghai Super Factory is currently in full swing, its production capacity is currently only 3,000 vehicles per week, which is far from meeting the strong market demand for electric vehicles. This may cause consumers to shift their attention to the Audi e-tron S series, which is of the same level, has a better experience and a shorter waiting time.

On the other hand, due to the "condition of the industrial chain", the domestic Model 3 products delivered by Tesla recently even had their configurations reduced without permission, changing the more user-friendly HW3.0 chip to the previous generation HW2.5 chip. Although Tesla announced that it would upgrade the HW3.0 chip for free for owners of cars with problems, this first exposed Tesla's lack of control over its products, and secondly, it would greatly undermine consumers' confidence in Tesla.

Overall, although Tesla electric vehicles have temporarily gained a high level of market acceptance due to its early entry, it cannot be ignored that traditional car companies represented by Audi have been keenly aware of technological trends and have been actively promoting improvements in related businesses.

Audi’s electric cars surpassed Tesla in just two years, and we can see that Audi has surpassed Tesla in terms of technology, strategy and production capacity. As Audi continues to make efforts on the four major platforms, the future electric car market will surely not have room for “Tesla” to survive, but will be redefined by Audi.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.