---
title: "Audi H-tron Quattro Is Detroit’s Most Forward-thinking Car"
description: "Fuel-cell SUV makes an unlikely dream machine."
date: "2016-01-13"
modified: "2016-01-13"
authors:
  - name: "Lawrence Ulrich"
    job_title: "Contributor"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/lawrence-ulrich"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/1642/audi-h-tron-quattro-is-detroits-most-forward-thinking-car"
categories:
  - "News"
tags:
  - "Audi"
---

# Audi H-tron Quattro Is Detroit’s Most Forward-thinking Car

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/archive-images/audihtronquattroconcept_hero.jpg>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

Once wedded to diesels, Audi now believes that [fully electric cars](<https://www.thedrive.com/tech/1157/audi-boss-electrics-not-diesels-are-the-future>) will make up one of every four sales in America by 2025. With its $38,000, plug-in hybrid A3 Sportback E-tron already on sale, Audi will begin backing up that promise with an all-electric E-tron Quattro, headed to American showrooms in 2018.

Yet despite that bullish position, Audi—along with the likes of Honda, [Toyota](<https://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/1474/what-its-really-like-driving-a-hydrogen-fuel-cell-car>) and Hyundai—continue to peer out further into the future, to cars powered by hydrogen.

Below its Michigan-maize paint and handsome scythe-blade wheels, the Audi H-tron Quattro concept packs six kilograms of compressed hydrogen in a trio of multi-layered tanks. That fuel-cell system supplies 148 horsepower, with a lithium-ion battery adding a 134-hp burst, for a total of 406 pound-feet of torque. The Quattro can surge to 60 mph in less than seven seconds, and a solar roof soaks up enough rays to add 620 miles of bonus driving range per year. At least that’s what Audi says.

![audihtronquattroconcept\_art\_1.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/audihtronquattroconcept_art_1.jpg>)

Siegfried Pint, Audi’s chief of electric powertrains, acknowledged hydrogen’s stiff headwinds in terms of fueling infrastructure and technology costs—including the need for up to 120 grams of precious-metal platinum for the fuel-cell catalyst, at a current cost of some $35 a gram. But the H Tron’s upside includes a four-minute fueling time and roughly 375 miles of driving range, both shaming battery-electric vehicles.

![audihtronquattroconcept\_gal\_1.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/audihtronquattroconcept_gal_1.jpg>)

![audihtronquattroconcept\_gal\_2.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/audihtronquattroconcept_gal_2.jpg>)

![audihtronquattroconcept\_gal\_3.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/audihtronquattroconcept_gal_3.jpg>)

![audihtronquattroconcept\_gal\_4.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/audihtronquattroconcept_gal_4.jpg>)

![audihtronquattroconcept\_gal\_5.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/audihtronquattroconcept_gal_5.jpg>)

“If you take long trips and want a zero-emissions vehicle, a fuel cell is what you want to buy,” Pint said.

Audi’s Virtual Cockpit display is aboard, but in a new, curving, thin-screen treatment. Exterior mirrors are replaced with more aerodynamic, wide-angle cameras, whose captured images are relayed in real time onto the interior door sills.

![audihtronquattroconcept\_art\_2.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/audihtronquattroconcept_art_2.jpg>)

Pint’s career includes one year working on the BMW i8 and six-years with the BMW/Williams Formula 1 team, in the glory days of naturally aspirated engines that spun to 19,500 rpm. Pint realizes that car geeks might be more envious of developing F1 engines than battery-powered models, but the switch made perfect sense to him.

“Thinking of what I can do with my life, I could be one of 10,000 powertrain engineers in Germany, or the first one to do electric powertrains,” Pint says.

## Author
Born and forged in the Motor City, now a Brooklynite, Lawrence is the former chief auto critic at the *New York Times* and *Detroit Free Press*. His award-winning work has appeared in *Automobile*, *Road & Track*, *Fortune*, *Conde Nast Portfolio*, *Men's Journal*, *Popular Science* and others.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://twitter.com/lawrenceulrich>)