Audi Goes Electric With New SUV

e-tron, the German carmaker’s full-sized electric SUV, is set for an India launch at the end of 2019.

-  Pablo Chaterji

Before I continue, perhaps I should add a sentence to the headline of this article — “if you have roughly Rs 1.5 crore to spare.” Whatever else it may be, thee-tron isn’t going to be cheap, since it will be a fully built up vehicle when it’s imported into the country by Audi; the target customer will almost certainly have two or more (IC-engined) luxury cars in their garage already. With that out of the way, let’s get on with it.

If you’ve been keeping up with the news, you will know that the buzz about electric vehicles is everywhere. The government seems dead set on India being a 30 per cent EV market by 2030, which is a mere 11 years away; additionally, it wants only electric three-wheelers sold from April 2023 and only all-electric sub-150cc two-wheelers sold from April 2025. Hyundai launched its Kona EV on the 9th of July; Maruti has the Wagon R EV coming up; other electric cars set to be launched by 2020 include the MG eZs, the Nissan Leaf and the Mahindra eKUV100, not to mention the variety of electric two-wheelers already available in the market from the likes of Hero, Okinawa, Ather, Indus, Avon, Ampere and Tork, with more to come. Clearly, electric vehicles are the flavour of the season and the future.