The Audi Q6 E-Tron Off-Road Is Here To Tackle The Toughest Terrain
Featuring truly impressive off-road tech reengineered by Audi to generate more power and climb steeper terrain.
Following the Audi RS Q C-Tron’s wildly impressive Car class victory at the 2024 Dakar Rally—marking a first for both the German automaker and a hybrid vehicle—Audi is continuing to feed electrified off-road dreams with a truly extreme concept.
After his test drive in the Q6 E-Tron Off-Road prototype, Audi CEO Gernot Döllner mused: “[This] is a reinterpretation of quattro [Audi’s AWD platform}. The model shows the potential that our platform for all electric vehicles already has today. This vehicle can claim new ground. We look forward to seeing our customers’ reactions to this highly emotive car.”
Statements from executives on their respective brands’ achievements are almost always grossly exaggerated, but here’s why Döllner’s isn’t: The Q6 E-Tron Off-Road boasts four portal axles, a rare upgrade where the axle tube is set higher and power is transferred to every wheel via gearboxes built into each wheel hub. Portal axles are virtually never offered on factory production models, instead being typically reserved for full-time off-roaders and military vehicles. What’s more, Audi has engineered a new portal axle design that increases torque by up to 50 percent at the wheels, as opposed to the 30 percent uptick other designs offer, enabling it to climb gradients of up to 45 degrees.
As Road & Track notes, Audi also lifted the metallic black body up 6.3 inches, increased the track width by 9.8 inches, added a massive light bar for extra visibility and installed some knobby new new tires—other specifics on the off-road customizations weren’t revealed. While Audi clearly states that this is a prototype only, spectators of Zell am See, Austria’s F.A.T. Ice Race can catch the Q6 E-Tron Off-Road in action on February 1.
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