The new running director of Audi Australia, Jeff Mannering, continues to lobby Audi HQ in Germany for what would very likely become the brand’s greatest-advertising electric powered automobile, the 2023 Audi Q4 E-Tron modest SUV.

But, inspite of Mannering’s lobbying, Australia is unlikely to get its hand on the all-electrical compact SUV until finally 2024 at the earliest, some a few yrs after the product went on sale globally.

“We will get the Q4 [e-tron],” Mr Mannering told Push at the current launch of the brand’s SQ7 and SQ8 performance SUVs. “It’s not verified [but] it will arrive.

“The query is just will it be up coming yr or the calendar year following. And that’s what we are performing with now. We even had our phone with Germany. And it can be very higher on our precedence and it is really large on Germany’s priorities to get the vehicle below as perfectly.”

But, with the most reasonably priced E-Tron starting off at about $138,000 before on-street expenses, and with the E-Tron GT slated to get started at about $181,000 as well as on-road costs, the gap among – and area underneath – the present types in Audi’s electric powered automobile (EV) line-up is both massive and empty.

“If you appear at the current market, it really is probably all around the $60-$80,000 mark which is where by the competitors is, wherever the quantity is,” reported Mr Mannering, including he hoped to have the Q4 E-Tron marketing in just that bracket.

“I’m not specifically positive [but] that would be my would like,” he told Travel. “That’s our occupation with the factory, to negotiate the most competitive price.”

The Audi Q4 E-Tron went on sale in Europe mid-very last calendar year, with a starting cost of €41,900 ($AU65,000). Offered as either a traditional SUV ‘wagon’ or with the sleeker Sportback entire body design and style, the Q4 E-Tron is underpinned by the ‘MEB’ electric powered architecture shared throughout Volkswagen Group brands.

The entry-degree 125kW/310Nm Q4 E-Tron 35 is equipped with a 52kWh battery delivering a quoted driving array of 341km/h (measured on the WLTP cycle). The mid-spec Q4 E-Tron 40 and assortment-topping E-Tron 50 each and every get a 77kWh battery pack giving 520km and 488km of selection respectively.

Though timing of the Q4 E-Tron’s most likely arrival into Australia remains unclear at this stage, when it does land locally it will go up against a slew of rivals such as the greatest-offering Tesla Design Y (priced from $72,300 in addition on-highway prices) and the not too long ago-current Volvo XC40 Recharge Pure Electric powered (from $72,990).