Audi A6 Avant e-tron

Report 1: Audi's new all-electric A6 estate joins the fleet

We'll be running the new Audi A6 Avant e-tron - Audi's first electric estate car - for the next four months.

Date: 1 May 2025 | Current mileage: 2636 | Claimed efficiency: 3.7 miles/kWh | Actual efficiency: 3.5 miles/kWh

While the number of EVs on sale has sky rocketed in the last few years, there's been a conspicuous absence of electric estate cars. With SUVs very much flavour of the month, those of us who favour estate cars have had slim pickings to say the least. In fact up until recently there's only been one - the MG 5 - and while there's now the likes of the Peugeot e-308 SW when it comes to bigger family estate cars there's been nothing.

Thankfully that's changing. Last year BMW launched the excellent BMW i5 Touring and hot on its heels, Audi has now introduced the Audi A6 Avant e-tron. This sits alongside the standard petrol and diesel Audi A6 Avant. In 2027 we will also see an electric Mercedes E-Class Estate.

But back to our car. We've gone for an Audi A6 Avant e-tron performance Launch Edition finished in Daytona Grey - traditionally a trademark colour choice for performance Audi models. With options including virtual mirrors, 21-inch black Audi sport alloys and the B&O Premium Sound System, it comes in at £87,360. 

That's far from cheap, but then this is a fully loaded launch edition. Go for a standard Sport model and prices start at around £65k. Over the next few months we'll have a chance to find out whether all the extras fitted to our car are worth the money.

So what about range? Well the A6 Avant e-tron line-up is a little confusing when it comes to range as it's dependent on trim. The performance models get a bigger battery than the Sport which means a better range - somewhere between 390 and 408 miles according to official figures. Which goes to show just had much EV range is rapidly improving.

Despite being the performance trim, this isn't the quickest version. Somewhat confusingly there's a quattro variant that has the same battery but is quicker (although with a shorter range as a consequence). Not that our car is exactly slow, with 565Nm of torque and 367PS it will cover 0-62mph in 5.4 seconds. The quattro manages the same in 4.7 seconds - on par with the Volvo EC40 that I previously ran.

First impressions are very positive - I'm already loving the huge boot and the lack of a transmission tunnel in the rear, which is a deal breaker for us with three children under 12. Our three-year old is already a fan of the red brake calipers and the fact that he can sit in the front thanks to Isofix mountings on the passenger seat.

With summer holidays looming, one thing I need to look at is fitting a roofbox. There are no roof bars on our A6 Avant e-tron, plus it has a panoramic roof, so I need to find out whether I can safely fit our Thule Motion 3 roofbox for our trip to Europe in August.