E5 Sportback a reality

What started life as another concept vehicle in November last year, the AUDI E concept, is now a reality – the AUDI E5 Sportback – with the first cars being delivered to showrooms and customers in China just weeks ago. Note of course that we are talking about AUDI, as in the partnership with SAIC which was formed to produce vehicles specifically for the Chinese market.

Although Audi has long been very successful in China and boasts partnerships going back to the late 1980s and its partnership with FAW (First Automotive Works), such are the challenges of the vast Chinese markets that the new partnership was formed to develop and produce vehicles to meet those very specific demands. The AUDI E5 Sportback is the first series-production model of the newly established AUDI brand, a sharp, all-electric model that was first showcased at this year’s Auto Shanghai in April, along with other models from Audi designed specifically for the Chinese market – Audi A5, A5 Sportback, Q5 and A6 e-tron.

Speaking at the vehicle’s first public appearance at Auto Shanghai, Audi CEO Gernot Döllner, was obviously excited by the new venture and its first offering:

“With our new China-only brand AUDI, we are continuing to push boundaries,” he said.

“The E5 Sportback offers the very best qualities of Audi, reimagined for and tailored to customers in China.”

Rolling off the dedicated production line west of Shanghai, the AUDI E5 Sportback has already generated tremendous interest with more than 10,000 orders received in just 30 minutes.

“Every vehicle from the AUDI brand embodies the best of both worlds,” says Fermín Soneira, CEO of the Audi-SAIC co-operation project.

“Iconic design, premium quality, technical precision, emotional driving dynamics, combined with China’s cutting-edge technology, innovation and digital ecosystem. The E5 Sportback enters the market fully equipped to deliver an uncompromising experience for Chinese customers. This milestone marks the beginning of a new era of ICVs.”

The dedicated production facility is built on the existing SAIC Volkswagen site in Anting, Shanghai, where some 700 employees are tasked with building the sleek, four-door, all-electric AUDI. Built on the new Advanced Digitised Platform (ADP), the AUDI E5 Sportback offers up four powertrain options at launch, with rear-wheel or quattro drive, power outputs of up to 579 kW and a maximum range of 770km. 

It also delivers scintillating performance, with acceleration from 0 to 100km/h of up to 3.4 seconds. Yet despite its extraordinary performance, the AUDI E5 Sportback is a veritable feast of the latest onboard automotive technology, so popular on the Chinese market, including next-generation connectivity and full-car over the air updates.

Not surprisingly for such a hi-tech vehicle, the production facility in Anting is also state-of-the-art, and features a high degree of automation, as well as machine learning for quality monitoring and a fully digitalised production management system.

The AUDI E5 Sportback signifies a milestone for the brand in China and will spearhead a whole new offering of vehicles to be created under the AUDI name. The development of this first model in such a short period of time showcases the capabilities of the partnership with SAIC and an additional two new AUDI models are scheduled to follow the E5 Sportback within the next two years.