Slippery wagon set to be a year behind an electric sedan entering production next year.

REGARDLESS the type has taken a battering from consumer abdication to sports utility and crossover designs, Audi still sees a future for a medium traditional wagon … in an electric world.

It has just revealed this A6 Avant e-tron concept, offering a preview of the production electric A6 wagon due to enter production in 2024.

The concept's unveiling follows the reveal of last year's A6 e-tron concept, the all-electric sedan version of the A6 cited for 2023. It’s thought both models will go on sale alongside combustion-engined counterparts.

Dimensionally, it shapes up well in company with the existing A6 and A7 derivatives and unsurprisingly the Avant's design language is very much in keeping with that of the e-tron concept sedan. It rides on 22-inch rims.

Among interesting features are the ‘smart’ lights. The LED matrix headlights can project videos onto a wall, allowing the passengers to play games. LED projectors beam messages and signals onto the ground such as indicator signals to alert pedestrians and cyclists as to the driver's intentions.

The Avant e-tron concept's shape is as slippery as it looks. The drag coefficient is a relatively slippery 0.24 - the same as the Tesla Model S and Toyota Prius.

The electric A6s are, of course, built around new PPE (Premium Platform Electric) architecture, co-developed with Porsche.

The 800V system enables rapid charging at up to 270kW meaning top-ups from five percent to 80 percent take less than 25 minutes. An additional 300km of range can, at a high-capacity DC rapid charger, be gained in 10 minutes. This is in line with the e-tron GT quattro already available in New Zealand.

The 100kWh battery is the biggest for the line-up and it’s for the all-wheel drive system model, utilising motors front and rear. Peak power of 350kW, maximum torque of 800Nm and a 0-100kmh time below four seconds comes with that one. Audi is also talking about a single-motor version which delivers the optimal maximum range of 700km.

Audi has yet to reveal interior details, but given the car's dimensions chance of it being at least comparable luggage space-wise with the current A6 Avant, which delivers 565 litres with the rear seats in place, seems strong. Audi reminds the batteries are under the floor and, of course, that it won’t have a transmission tunnel.