The Final Frontier

Electric SUVs cannot do serious off-roading for long distances? Audi beg to differ

- Ben Barry

EVER MIND PORSCHE and their 911 Dakar, if anyone has dibs on jacking up a car, fitting knobbly tyres, and calling it Dakar in 2024, it is Audi. As you read this, Team Audi Sport will either be competing in or will have recently completed the Dakar Rally for the third time in the RS Q e-tron.

Now the Q8 e-tron Edition Dakar sprinkles some of that desert dust on the roadgoing all-electric Q8 e-tron, though the link is more marketing than mechanical (the racer is a spaceframe prototype that combines all-electric drive with a rangeextender petrol engine; the road car is not and does not).

Perhaps, more important is the sub-text, given Audi plan a rugged EV off-roader in the Land Rover Defender space a few years from now. Think of the Edition Dakar as both an amuse bouche for a tougher strain of Ingolstadt DNA and a dry run for engineers tasked with delivering it they admit as much, even if they will not talk specifics.

We are in Oman rather than Dakar (or Saudi Arabia, where the Rally has been held since 2020) for an early drive, heading inland from the white-sand beaches of its Arabian coast to a starker interior of washboard gravel roads, bone-dry river beds, and inquisitive camels.

Second in a high-speed convoy, the dust trail thick as a shuttle launch, I am controlling the Q8 e-tron Edition Dakar more with suggestions than demands as it floats and dances over the loose surface. Air suspension knocks the sting out of the ruts for a surprisingly refined ride and I tweak the pointy steering and lift the throttle to easily adjust the e-tron's cornering attitude.