While it isn’t at all unusual to see an automaker benchmarking products created and sold by another automaker, sometimes, we see a company benchmarking the same exact model multiple times – even over the course of several years. This happened previously with the Lucid Air and Cadillac Escalade, each of which Ford Authority has spotted The Blue Oval benchmarking on multiple occasions, and now, it’s also the case with the all-electric Audi e-tron – which is now known as the Q8 e-tron, given the growth of that family – too.
Ford Authority originally spotted FoMoCo benchmarking the Audi e-tron back in August 2019, and then again in May 2021. Now, Ford once again has a copy of the EV crossover in its possession, and once again, this model appears to be different than the one spotted a couple of years ago. With a starting price of around $72k and topping out at more than $90k, Ford doesn’t currently have a direct rival to the e-tron in its stable, though it is set to add a host of all-electric crossovers to its Lincoln lineup in the coming years – at least one of which will likely rival the Audi in most aspects.
In the meantime, the Audi e-tron just received a few mild updates for the 2023 model year, but remains largely the same after originally launching several years ago. That means it’s available in either the traditional SUV-like e-tron or the sleeker Sportback configurations, each of which is equipped with dual motors generating 355 horsepower and 414 pound-feet of torque (or up to 402 horsepower and 490 pound-feet for a brief time in Sport mode), all-wheel drive, and an EPA-estimated range of as much as 226 miles, or 225 miles for the Sportback. Performance is reasonable, with 0-60 taking 5.1 seconds.
The Audi e-tron comes equipped with a 150 kW fast-charger that’s capable of taking the battery up to an 80 percent state of charge in around 30 minutes, with 4,000 pounds of towing capacity available via an optional package, making it a proper all-rounder in the burgeoning world of EV crossovers.
We’ll have more on everything Ford and Lincoln’s competition is up to soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for ongoing Ford news coverage.
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