Zhenghe Island once conducted a survey on why Chinese people are anxious, and the results showed that the environment ranked second among all the problems that caused anxiety.
Although we always feel that environmental protection is too far away and the environmental problems of society have nothing to do with me personally, the inability to be close to beautiful nature is indeed a major hidden factor that causes anxiety in our lives.
Probably because of this anxiety, we are reluctant to drive a station wagon to experience the other side of life, because clear water and blue skies are not easy to find, but the wild is full of garbage and odors.
Not to mention buying a pure electric station wagon – the scarcity of a quality environment is worrying, but it's still a little bit of a witch compared to breaking down halfway.
So when Audi dared to be the first in the industry to release the first pure electric station wagon A6 Avant e-tron concept today, I would like to ask: Who would want to drive a pure electric Avant to travel?
To answer this question, we have to start with Audi's new PPE platform.
The PPE platform for the production of the Audi A6 Avant e-tron, full name "Premium Platform Electric", is a luxury pure electric platform of the group led by Audi and developed by Porsche. Remember the A6 e-tron unveiled at last year's Shanghai Auto Show, which will be mass-produced in 2023 as the first batch of PPE platform models, and there will be higher-level models such as the Q6 e-tron and pure electric Macan.
When planning the PPE platform, Volkswagen Group only mentioned three indicators, not lower cost, not harder quality, nor automatic driving of castles in the air, but very pragmatic elements to solve the pain points of trams: faster acceleration, longer endurance, and shorter charging time.
Unveiled last year, the A6 e-tron has thrown out a number of specifications, including 800V electrical technology, 270kW DC fast charging, 100kWh battery pack, and more than 700 kilometers of endurance.
These technologies will also be carried on the A6 Avant e-tron, when you can charge the station wagon from 0% to 80% in 25 minutes, when charging 10 minutes can increase the endurance of nearly 300km, you will also feel that the station wagon is not suitable for long-distance travel.
On February 11 this year, the Jilin Provincial Development and Reform Commission announced the official landing documents for audi FAW's new energy vehicle project, a joint venture company controlled by Audi for the first time in China, which will officially produce localized models in 2024. Many people also have great expectations for pure electricity Porsche from this domestic production, but I think the greater significance of the PPE platform is not how tall the word "luxury" becomes, but the word "pure electricity" becomes more grounded.
Let people who love to travel can travel with confidence, and will not be unable to enjoy the joy of embracing environmental protection and nature because of the poor experience of battery life, which may be the motivation for Audi to stand up as a game-breaker.
After all, everyone knows that this market is very small, but who called Audi Avant has become a common belief among travelers - to hold on to the market segment, the dragon chair can always have.
Although the official does not say, but the choice of A6 Avant as Audi's first pure electric station wagon, I guess there are two considerations.
One is that the A6 Avant is indeed the totem of the station wagon.
The Audi A6 has been the world's best-selling C-Class since its birth in 1968, and in 1977, the Audi A6 Avant quickly opened up the station wagon market with its excellent balance of handling and practicality.
In the past 45 years, the Audi A6 Avant has won the title of "most beautiful station wagon", and has also divided a new branch of the Allroad all-terrain model, and in 2010, it has a younger brother A4 Avant... We don't argue about which of the Audi A6 Avant, Mercedes-Benz E-Class Oste and BMW 5 Series Touring represents the station wagon, at least the latter two have not been officially introduced to the Chinese market.
From this point of view, FAW Audi has made a lot of efforts to develop the domestic station wagon culture, and the A6 Avant, which has been introduced into China for many years, is obviously closer to Chinese consumers.
Another more important reason, I think, is RS6.
Audi's RS high-performance series originated in the Avant station wagon – in 1994, Audi quattro and Porsche co-created the RS2 Avant based on the Audi 80 Avant. Whether it's playing as a pig eating a tiger, a thug in a suit, a yuppie crock pot or the strongest station wagon on the surface, the RS6's endless stream of nicknames is a testament to how popular the combination of RS and Avant is.
The one that can inherit the RS performance experience and take it to a new level is the e-tron model.
The A6 Avant e-tron front and rear dual motors have a combined output of 350 kW, a maximum torque of 800 Nm, and a high-performance version with an acceleration time of less than 4 seconds per 100 km/h, which is only stronger than the RS6 in performance.
Although it is a taller-looking station wagon, the A6 Avant e-tron has made more aerodynamic design optimizations on the basis of the A6 e-tron.
For example, the one-piece rear wing above the rear of the car, and the two large diffusers integrated under the rear bumper, finally achieved a drag coefficient of 0.24, only 0.02 higher than the A6 e-tron.
In addition to these aerodynamic designs, the A6 Avant e-tron is one of the few pure electric models to retain its grille shape, while a large number of patterns are done in the headlights and through taillights.
Don't underestimate the design thinking here, as more and more trams adopt a narrow headlight and abandon the front face grille shape, you will find it only more and more difficult to distinguish between the models of various brands.
If you look at the L9 that the ideal has just released, it is inevitable that you will be criticized for having a small face.
This is also why Audi's pure electric models have always insisted on making a more complex front face design than fuel vehicles, and adding more and more complex details to the light cavity.
Of course, this headlight, which looks like it is full of pixel eyes, is not only decorative.
Like the A6 e-tron, this headlight, called a digital matrix LED, can project "XXL" level images. When you're charging in front of a wall, you can use it to project gameplay footage, which is really much better than the experience of playing a game with a dozen inches of screen in a car.
In addition to displaying different customized flat patterns, the OLED taillights of the A6 Avant e-tron can also be changed in three dimensions to project 3D lights. What is the use of this feature? The 3D light cluster can obviously cast symbols more accurately on the road, giving safety cues to other traffic participants.
A6 e-tron concept
In addition, the A6 Avant e-tron also hides four LED projectors in the four corners of the body, which can project the turn signal to the ground, and there are also three small LED projectors on each side of the body, which can project welcome animation and text to the ground.
Whether it is the details contained in the grille, headlights or projectors, audi as a traditional luxury brand in the face of the impact of the new era, and not to go with the flow of expression.
For the A6 Avant e-tron car, I have more curiosity, such as whether this car will share the E.3 electronic architecture with Volkswagen, whether there will be a new intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving system, and the plan to land a charging and replacing supporting system in China.
Audi's friends didn't give me a definitive answer, but to be sure, they didn't feel that "pure electricity" and "travel" were two completely contradictory opposites.
After all, in American stations a hundred years ago, people did not feel that the small wagons, which were mainly made of wood, could not be more capable of the task of travel than the horse-drawn carriages.
Moreover, when Audi FAW has the opportunity to make the A6 Avant e-tron domestically, it will also make those travelers who have lost their wagons because of import prices reactivate.
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