2021 Audi E-Tron Price Slashed by $8,800, Range Increased by 18 Miles

For reference, that’s $13,000 cheaper than a Tesla Model X.

byJames Gilboy|
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Though sales of Audi's E-Tron have bucked the COVID-19 downturn, soaring 57 percent over last year's numbers according to Automotive News, they're still really nothing for Audi to boast about, and it's not hard to see why. Relative to the similarly sized Tesla Model X, it costs less, but offers fewer seats and inferior range, limiting uptake of Audi's flagship EV. But that could soon change as for 2021, Audi will introduce a reduced-cost, entry-level E-Tron trim that'll widen the gap to the Model X's base price and include a tidy range boost to boot.

Dragging the 2021 E-Tron's base price down a whole $8,800 is the new Premium trim, which starts at $66,995 delivered—a whole 13 grand south of the starter Model X, the Long Range Plus. It still includes a heated steering wheel and front seats, four-zone climate control with pre-conditioning, lane departure warning, and self-dimming, folding, and heated mirrors. Thanks to "optimized drive system hardware and software adjustments," three more kilowatt-hours of the E-Tron's 95-kWh battery pack are usable, escalating range from an EPA-verified 204 miles to 222.

2021 Audi E-Tron Sportback, Audi

Upper trims get enhancement too, in the form of charge ports on both sides of the vehicle. This goes for both the E-Tron and its new half-sibling, the stooped-over coupe-over E-Tron Sportback, whose range falls marginally short of the E-Tron's at 218 miles.

Whether these improvements can drive sales of the underperforming E-Tron, however, is questionable. Now that 2021's Q4 E-Tron and corresponding Sportback model don't seem so far in the future, pennywise EV adopters might hold on to their cash until the smaller, cheaper, and newer model drops. That assumes they aren't instead waiting for the Porsche Taycan-lite E-Tron GT, its rumored RS sub-model, or some future Allroad variety to be realized. And whether or not they are, Audi will still need to figure out its range problem if it hopes to compete with the promising new EVs coming from domestic rival Mercedes-Benz.

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