Audi has cancelled plans for an electric RS6 e-tron

Remember 2022’s Audi A6 e-tron concept? If not, there’s a picture of it above. With its enormous wheels, huge diffuser and widescreen ‘grille’, it was a dead ringer for how an electric RS6 would look.

Well, forget it. Audi insiders have admitted to TopGear.com the RS6 e-tron project is dead, meaning the A6 e-tron family will remain crowned by the current S6 e-tron, which offers up 543bhp of quattro dual-motor wallop and whooshes from 0-62mph in 3.9 seconds.

The reasoning, we are assured, is not that Audi couldn’t build anything faster. Indeed, it already sells the 923bhp RS e-tron GT Performance saloon capable of 0-62mph in just 2.5sec.

Rather… it doesn’t sell. Not enough, at any rate. Audi insiders say there simply hasn’t been the demand from the RS6 faithful for the company to plough on developing a dual-motor hyperwagon with Tesla Plaid and Lucid Air Sapphire levels of punch. The EV landscape is in a very different place from the ‘electrify all the things’ head-rush of, say, five years ago.

Weirdly, that doesn’t mean the Audi RS6 is history. Because while it takes many degrees and doctorates to understand the Audi range these days, in simple terms there are now two completely different cars called the Audi A6.

One of them is the A6 e-tron: available in hatchback ‘Sportback’ and estate ‘Avant’ shapes. It’s based on a bespoke electric-only chassis and is designed to be extremely slippery through the air.

Because Audi thought not everyone would like that (good call), it also makes a totally separate executive saloon and estate called the, um, A6. It is fitted with a variety of not-very-interesting petrol, diesel and hybrid powertrains.

And it’s rumoured – in fact we know with 99 per cent certainty because we’ve seen the disguised prototypes testing – that this version of the A6 is going to get the blistered wheelarch, oval tailpipe, out-of-my-way-peasant treatment from the RS skunkworks.

It might even get a V8. With the next Audi RS4 (set to be called RS5 because Audi’s badges make literally no sense) expected to feature a twin-turbo V6 with plug-in hybrid boost, the RS6 should surely retain its V8 motor to keep ahead in the Audi pecking order. If Audi RS was to rummage around in the VW Group parts bin, it could borrow the ‘Ultra Hybrid’ drivetrain from the magnificent Bentley Continental GT… and the Porsche Panamera Turbo S. And the Lamborghini Urus SE.

That could churn out something like 780bhp. Okay, and weigh 2.5 tonnes – like the M5 Touring it’ll battle for the title of ultimate uberwagon. But that’s still probably lighter than what the RS6 e-tron would’ve been…