Connect with us

News

Audi debuts e-tron GT: 293 mile range, 155 MPH top speed, 590 HP, $99,900 starting price

Audi e-tron GT (Credit: Audi)

Published

on

German automaker Audi has unveiled its newest all-electric vehicle: the e-Tron GT. The e-tron offers between 269 and 293 miles of WLTP-estimated range with several different variants, a top speed of 155 MPH, and a 3.3 second 0-62 MPH time. The new e-tron will start at $99,000.

Audi unveiled the e-tron during a live event on February 9th, detailing the exterior and interior design, as well as the vehicle’s specifications and performance figures. The e-tron GT aims to bring world-class performance to an all-electric platform as Audi begins to transition to a more broad offering of EVs for the future, with plans to offer more than 30 cars by 2025. Audi says 20 of these cars will be fully-electric.

Audi e-tron GT: the embodiment of Audi

The introduction of the e-tron GT “perfectly embodies Audi’s innovative and pioneering spirit,” Hildegard Wortman, Member of the Board of Management of Audi AG for Sales and Marketing, said. The e-tron will offer four-wheel steering, along with torque vectoring for improved handling.

With range offerings between 269 and 293 miles (433 and 472 kilometers), the e-tron will offer plenty of driving range for travelers far and wide. Additionally, Audi stated that the vehicle’s 95 kWh battery pack would have the ability to charge from 0 to 80% in less than 23 minutes when plugged into a 700kW station. Audi focused heavily on aerodynamics to complement the range ratings, and stated the vehicle has a .24 drag coefficient.

Audi e-tron RS GT: the most powerful Audi ever

Audi’s premier, top of the line GT variant will be the RS. Its 0-60 MPH in 3.1 seconds is lightning fast and will compete with some of the quickest electric cars in the world. Additionally, a top speed of 155 MPH gives it a face-melting maximum rate of travel, although it will rarely be reached by the traditional driver.

Niko Rosberg, a former Formula One World Champion noted that the RS GT’s performance was one of a kind. The four-wheel steering system combined with the performance specifications offered one of the most unique driving experiences from a production car he’s ever experienced. Rosberg spoke highly of the GT’s performance variant, adding that it was unbelievable to drive an all-electric powertrain with the power, acceleration, and speed that was reminiscent of his F1 days.

Advertisement

Sustainable interior materials for unmatched environmental consciousness

One of the main focuses of Audi moving forward is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions during the vehicle’s life cycle. This begins with the manufacturing process, which Audi detailed in its goals to be CO2 neutral by 2025. The e-tron GT’s manufacturing facility is fully-powered by renewable energy, making the production process Earth-friendly.

Additionally, Audi looked to use sustainable materials within its interior. One focus was to eliminate waste within the vehicle by using sustainably-sourced materials that could be recycled when the car reaches the end of its cycle. The seats within the e-tron GT use around 99% of zero-waste materials, making it one of the most sustainable interiors in the automotive market.

The 2022 Audi e-tron GT starts at $99,900 plus destination fees, which haven’t been defined by the automaker yet. The RS e-tron GT will be $139,900, Autoblog says. The car is expected to begin sales later this summer.

Audi’s full unveiling of the e-tron GT is available below.

https://youtu.be/StkkIdBY5r0

Advertisement

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

Advertisement
Comments

News

Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders

Published

on

Credit: Tesla

Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.

The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.

On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.

Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD

Advertisement

It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:

“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”

This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.

It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something

There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

News

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ Release Notes: new capabilities and features

Published

on

(Credit: Megan Gale/Twitter)

Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.

Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.

Here are the full release notes for the suite:

  • Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
  • Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
  • Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
  • Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
  • Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
  • Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.

These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released

Advertisement

He added:

“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”

Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.

Continue Reading

News

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released

Published

on

tesla model 3 model y
Credit: Tesla Inc.

Tesla has finally released its Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite for older cars that equip the Hardware 3 or AI 3 chip, which have not been able to handle the newest versions of the company’s driver assistance software.

Tesla officially started releasing the v14 Lite suite to owners in the Early Access Program last night. The company’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said that the rollout will continue over the next few weeks. The build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of an AI3 car.

It also includes a variety of new features that were available to AI4 cars running v14, including:

  • Start Self-Driving from Park
  • Arrival and Parking Options
  • Speed Profiles

The release is highly anticipated because those owners with AI3 vehicles were early adopters into the FSD platform and were promised that their cars would be capable of achieving Full Self-Driving.

However, Tesla CEO Elon Musk admitted during the company’s recent Q1 Earnings Call that these vehicles would not be capable of achieving unsupervised Full Self-Driving, which is what Tesla had originally said.

Owners were not pleased with this answer, or the idea that their commitment to buying the suite outright for thousands of dollars would not yield the ability to drive without operating the car. Tesla gave some solutions for this, including a discount on a new car, or an upgrade to an AI4 or AI5 self-driving computer and new, upgraded cameras.

Advertisement

Tesla owners do not seem pleased with these options, as they require giving the company more money.

Nevertheless, it is important to note that Tesla came through for owners here by releasing v14 Lite before the end of Q2, something it had promised owners during the previous Earnings Call. Tesla has had trouble keeping up with timelines, but this is a big achievement for the team.

Continue Reading