If you go looking for stories about the Volkswagen Group's transition to electric vehicles, you probably won't find a ton of positive headlines.
The original "pivot to EVs" company has suffered through software issues, delays to crucial new cars, C-suite upheavals and other crises, and now it's staring down the barrel at brutal new tariffs—arguably none more so than its Audi brand, which doesn't even build cars in the United States.
When your company's press releases open with "Challenging half year," well, the vibes aren't exactly great.
But here's what gets lost in all the noise: every single VW Group EV that I've driven is a quantum leap forward over the last one.
Nothing illustrates that better than the new Audi SQ6 E-Tron and the related Q6 E-Tron. It's built on an all-new platform that was once a part of those many delays, but now that it's here, it's one of the more impressive luxury electric SUVs on the market. In terms of charging, range, features and performance, it handily outclasses what we've seen from Audi's EVs before. Now, we'll see if it has the juice to be the sales success that Audi needs it to be.
(Full Disclosure: Audi gave us an SQ6 E-tron with a full charge for a week, followed by a Q6 E-Tron later on.)
2025 Audi SQ6 E-Tron: Overview
The Q6 and SQ6 E-Tron models ride on the VW Group's new Premium Platform Electric (PPE), alongside the related A6 and S6 E-Tron sedans and the similar-but-has-its-own-energy Porsche Macan Electric.
That's a groundbreaking EV platform for this company on several fronts. It has an 800-volt electric architecture, which allows it to rank among the fastest-charging EVs on the market. It offers over-the-air software updates, an Android Automotive-based infotainment system with native Google Maps, new electric motors that are vastly more efficient than those on its first-generation EVs, along with a host of other new and improved components.
In the U.S., the Q6 and SQ6 E-Tron models are powered by a 100-kilowatt-hour battery pack with 94 kWh of usable capacity. The base Q6 E-Tron starts at $63,800 before destination fees and up to 321 miles of range and 322 horsepower in single-motor rear-wheel-drive form. Opt for dual-motor all-wheel-drive and you get up to 456 horsepower and an estimated 307-mile range.
If you want more power, go with the SQ6 E-Tron, whose trims come with Quattro AWD only. That bumps the base price to $72,900 and gives you 483 hp—up to 510 hp in Boost Mode—but cuts range to an estimated 275 miles. This test primarily covers the SQ6 E-Tron, but I'll explain later where the sweet spot is in this lineup.
2025 Audi SQ6 E-Tron: Driving Experience
The best compliment I can give to the SQ6 E-Tron is that it drives like an S-Line Audi should. That's to say, it handles spectacularly well and it's damned quick, all while being considerably less vulgar and ostentatious than an AMG or one of BMW's M cars.
The old Q8 E-Tron was a good handler by the end, too. This is better. It'll do zero to 60 mph in a stated 4.1 seconds, but instrumented tests I've seen put it more in the high-3 range and I believe it. It's a genuinely fun EV to drive, especially when the Boost function is used liberally.
It has another advantage over even the Macan Electric: adjustable regenerative braking. The VW Group is tepid on one-pedal driving in general, but the SQ6 E-Tron at least offers several different strength settings using a "B Mode" toggle. The steering wheel paddles can also let you adjust regenerative strength temporarily.
Overall, it's athletic, fun and balanced, but doesn't offer many surprises in this field.
2026 Audi SQ6 E-Tron: Exterior and Interior
Let's get this out of the way first: for such an important car, it doesn't look like much. In fact, it looks like something the Audi design team won in a low-stakes poker game against the Infiniti design team, and I don't mean that in a nice way. Its voluminous grille, anodyne profile and those narrow, insect-like headlamps are a far cry from the hits of the past like the Audi TT and R8, or even the comparatively elegant first-generation Q5. And its algebraic name doesn't evoke anything special, either. Audi seems to get that it needs a reset on this front.
Hop inside, and a lot of those cares go away. This is a comfortable, tech-laden interior that loses nearly all of the gripes I had with the old Q8 E-Tron, as this car is a completely different animal in terms of hardware.
The seats are comfortable, bolstered well without being too aggressive (it's thankfully not an RS Q6 E-Tron, after all) and the cabin is airy and modern. The grippy, rectangular-ish steering wheel is a delight to use.
I liked the abundance of physical buttons and air vents, although not so much the haptic buttons on the steering wheel. Those aren't as irritating here as on older cars, but my thumb often slipped when trying to change the audio track on the sound system, for example. Just button-buttons would be preferable. But overall, the quality is exceptional and worthy of its price tag.
2026 Audi SQ6 E-Tron: Technology
Thankfully, those delays were worth it on the tech front, because the PPE cars are a technical tour-de-force. Audi's infotainment system uses the Android Automotive OS for the first time, and like other EVs it's featured on—cars from General Motors, Volvo and others—it offers a tremendous degree of speed and customization. Want a certain display or setting featured more prominently? Just drag it on over to where you want it.
Or you can talk to the voice assistant, which is better than most. It can do a lot of things you ask it to, like change the climate settings or defrost the rear window. It can't do a lot of physical functions, like opening the windows, for example.
You get a 12-inch OLED virtual cockpit in front of the driver that blends into a 14.5-inch center touch display. There's also an optional 10.9-inch display in front of the passenger, but like most screens placed there, whoever's riding shotgun may wonder what they're supposed to do with it. (This tends to be a vastly more popular feature in China.)
No matter how many screens you get or use, the displays are high-quality and powered by software that's far more quick and responsive than what was on older Audis. Because it's Android Automotive, you get a bunch of native, built-in apps, like YouTube, Spotify, and Zoom.
In terms of automated driving assistance tech, it's a solid setup, but nothing groundbreaking: adaptive cruise control with lane-keeping, traffic sign recognition, a distraction and drowsiness warning system and other features. But it remains fully hands-on, so visit your Cadillac dealer instead if that's a dealbreaker.
2026 Audi SQ6 E-Tron: Range, Observed Efficiency and Charging
Here's where the SQ6 E-Tron falls down a bit. Going under 300 miles of range is par for the course for modern "performance" EVs (outside of China, anyway), but this model isn't quite enough of a screamer to justify that range hit.
I drove the SQ6 E-Tron earlier this summer, when it was still on the colder side here in upstate New York. Even on a full charge, I never really got close to the claimed 275 miles of range. This, for a car with a 100 kWh battery; I often wondered where all of those kilowatt-hours actually went. In mixed driving, I saw between 2.7 and 3.2 miles per kWh pretty consistently. Not bad, but nothing at all special in terms of efficiency.
Where the SQ6 E-Tron acquits itself well is in DC fast-charging. It has a peak rate of 270 kilowatts, so if you find a fast enough charger, you can go from 10% to 80% in just about 20 minutes. On a slower 150 kW charger, I saw it jump from 34% to 60% in just nine minutes. Like their Porsche brethren, these modern Audi EVs do quite well on the charging front.
2026 Audi SQ6 E-Tron Or Q6 E-Tron: Which To Buy?
Incidentally, I drove a standard Q6 E-Tron Quattro a few weeks after the SQ6 E-Tron, and that's the one I would tell you to buy. That car offers 456 hp with the same battery pack, the same fast-charging speeds, the same tech features, and largely the same interior. And it'll do zero to 60 mph in the upper-mid four second range, which isn't slow, either.
For all that, you still get Quattro AWD and a much more palatable 307 miles of range. The point is, I don't think the SQ6 offers enough of a performance premium to sacrifice at least 30 miles of range, and at least $10,000. In real-world situations, they don't even feel that different.
My hope would be that Audi adds some spice to the SQ6 E-Tron over time to justify that price premium, or finds a way to boost range across the board.
2026 Audi SQ6 E-Tron Verdict: Strong Contender
MY SQ6 E-Tron tester came in at $83,395 including the Prestige and Edition One packages. Not at all shocking for a loaded German luxury SUV. (And I don't want to start any inter-family drama, but it may be a better overall deal than the Porsche Macan Electric is.)
I like the SQ6 and Q6 E-Trons a lot, and both of them finally put Audi where it needs to be in the modern EV space. Overall, the duo feel like an EV gateway drug for anyone who's enjoyed their gas-powered SUVs over the years and wants to drive the technology of the future—and that's a lot of people.
It also feels like a convincing luxury upgrade for anyone moving on from a Tesla Model Y, though those people may miss its hands-free highway driving features or the ubiquitous Supercharger network. (Audi will join that network at some point too, via an adapter at first and a native NACS plug later.) Ultimately, it needs more range and better efficiency to match its impressive hardware and first-rate driving experience, but there's a lot to like anyway.
Globally, the Q6 E-Tron family is selling pretty well so far, so it's good to see Audi's big swing pay off. We'll soon see how true that is when tariffs hit in the U.S., but I hope Audi loyalists give this thing a shot. And it's proof that EV technlogy is getting better, and more quickly, than most people think.
Gallery: 2025 Audi SQ6 E-Tron
Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com
