600 miles in the Audi A6 Avant e-tron - the perfect electric estate?

Close

Promoted

10 mins read

27 November 2025

For the thoroughbred car enthusiast, few words stir the soul quite like Avant. It’s the name Audi gives to its estate cars – and over the years, that badge has graced some true icons, including the Porsche-fettled RS 2 of 1992, the earth-shattering current-gen RS 6, and the seminal Audi 100 Avant of 1977.

The name comes from the French avant-garde – a byword for progress, innovation and style, and to that end, it couldn’t be more fitting. Whether through groundbreaking aerodynamics, mind-bending performance or ingenious use of space, Audi’s wagons have consistently pioneered the sector – and continue to thrive in today’s increasingly SUV-dominated world.

So why are we talking about this now? Well, this year Audi launched an all-new Avant. And while that alone would usually make headlines, this one is particularly noteworthy: it’s Audi’s first all-electric estate car.

The question, then, is whether the new Audi A6 Avant e-tron can live up to the brilliance of its predecessors – and bring the Avant name into the electric age. To find the answer, we drove one more than 600 miles from Autocar’s headquarters in London to the Scottish Highlands. Here’s how it went.

Learn more about the Audi A6 Avant e-tron

Style you can’t keep your eyes off

As any learner driver will be told a thousand times before their test, one of the keys to driving success can be found in simply keeping your eyes on the road ahead as much as possible. And as I sit behind the wheel of the Audi A6 Avant e-tron, silently scything through London on this bright, misty August morning, I’m finding that particularly easy – for the most part…

For starters, the augmented reality head-up display that’s projecting our speed, sat-nav directions and nearby road signs onto the windscreen means I seldom need to glance away from the road and down at the virtual cockpit display for information – a particularly useful feature as the regular onslaught of mopeds, cyclists and taxi drivers push their way through the capital’s morning traffic.

And the large, curved 14.5in panoramic touchscreen to my left is angled so starkly towards the driver that operating it while on the move takes little more than a flick of my index finger – and looking at it requires no more than a rapid glance.

Even the virtual mirror screens in the doors have been positioned in such a way that they’re just as easy, if not easier, to glance at than traditional mirrors, meaning less time with your eyes off the black stuff.

Back to top

Yes, for all intents and purposes everything inside the car is working exactly as it has been designed – to help me keep my focus firmly where it should be. What’s causing me issues is something less easy to engineer your way out of: every time I catch a glance of our A6 Avant e-tron in a glass shopfront, I can’t help but look.

By their very nature, estates are usually sleek, pleasing-looking things, with proportions that would get any seasoned car designer frothing at the mouth; and it's fair to say that Ingolstadt has produced its fair share of devilishly handsome wagons over the years. But for me, this new A6 Avant e-tron is different gravy.

At the front, its super-slim LED daytime running lights – the thinnest Audi has ever created and featuring customisable light signatures – are as brilliantly piercing as they are fiercely modern, while the razor-sharp bonnet creases, steep-raked windscreen, muscular rear haunches, blazing coast-to-coast rear light bar (with illuminated Audi rings) and athletic, low-slung body all combine for something that looks staggeringly close to the spaceship-like concept car we saw back in 2022. If Audi’s intention was to design the Avant of the future, it has succeeded spectacularly.

As the traffic ahead of us begins to move, I tear my eyes away from the reflection in the glass facade opposite and once again bring my focus back to the road ahead.

Back to top

We’re just a few miles into our mammoth drive from Autocar’s headquarters in Twickenham to Applecross Pass in the Scottish Highlands – the steepest road in the UK. We’re heading there as part of our ongoing exploration into the deeper meaning behind Audi’s iconic mantra, Vorsprung durch Technik [LINK]. In our eyes, the A6 Avant e-tron is the latest embodiment of ‘progress through technology’ and perfectly represents Audi’s ascent into the electric era. So, what better place to take it than a road which requires a bit of forward-thinking to conquer?

We (myself, a photographer and a project manager) have been driving in slow-moving traffic for the last 30 minutes, yet I’m already impressed by the A6 Avant e-tron’s on-road dynamics. This is a big car – 4928mm long and 1923mm wide – yet it doesn’t feel it. The light steering and effortless thrust from its twin electric motors help us nip and dip our way through the congestion with ease.

After 10 more minutes, we finally reach the A40. Time to make some serious progress.

Executive-level cruising

One key talent any good estate car needs is the ability to cover vast amounts of miles without its driver or passengers feeling any aches, stress or discomfort. Great estate cars go one step further, allowing occupants to feel just as relaxed when they reach their destination as when they started their journey. And while we’re still more than 400 miles from Applecross as we thunder past Stoke-on-Trent, it’s already apparent that the A6 Avant e-tron falls firmly into the latter category.

Back to top

To ensure the interior is as serene and cocoon-like as possible at motorway speeds, Audi’s engineers have woven some seriously impressive sound-deadening technology throughout the cabin. Combine that with the whisper-quiet electric motors and ultra-slippery drag coefficient of just 0.24cd – making it Audi’s second-most aerodynamic model ever, only behind the Sportback version – and the A6 Avant e-tron is able to whisk away the miles with exceptional effortlessness.

That’s of course also aided by the sheer plushness of our surroundings. Up front, the dashboard is dominated by not one, not two, but three large screens. Audi claims this is its most advanced interior ever – and it looks it.

In the middle sits the 14.5in curved panoramic touchscreen I mentioned earlier, through which we can access Audi’s advanced, always-online MMI infotainment system – equipped with smartphone mirroring, live traffic updates, charging and battery information, and Audi’s new AI-powered voice assistant system.

Directly in front of me is the high-definition 11.9in virtual cockpit screen, while on the far side sits a 10.9in passenger touchscreen. With the car’s onboard Wi-Fi enabled, it allows the person riding shotgun to browse the web, play games and even watch movies. And thanks to clever privacy glass tech, all this can happen without the driver getting distracted. In the words of Back to the Future’s Marty McFly: “Your kids are gonna love it.”

Back to top

Screen real estate aside, the rest of the cockpit features a door-to-door soft-wrap design, where plush fabrics, gloss black surfaces and soothing ambient lighting make for a cosy, enveloping and positively luxurious feel. And because we’ve been treated to a top-spec Performance First Edition version of the A6 Avant e-tron, we’ve also got use of a 20-speaker (yes, 20) Bang & Olufsen sound system, complete with integrated headrest speakers for a truly 3D listening experience.

But it’s not just the tech, quality and quietness that’s helping us munch the miles. As standard, the A6 Avant e-tron comes with a wealth of advanced driver assistance systems, such as adaptive cruise control, traffic sign recognition, lane departure warning, attention detection and much, much more. The upshot is that as we approach the Lake District, I feel as though the car has done most of the heavy lifting so far.

A scenic (and rapid) top-up

Now, you’ll notice I haven’t mentioned range yet – and that’s intentional. You see, not only does the A6 Avant e-tron pioneer in-car tech and aerodynamics, it’s also Audi’s most efficient electric car yet. Depending on which version you go for, it’ll do up to 437 miles (WLTP) on one charge. When you’ve got that sort of mileage to play with, you really don’t have to think of this as an electric car.

That figure’s achieved through a mixture of clever weight-saving in the form of slimmer, more energy-dense batteries and electric motors, as well as the exceptionally low drag coefficient and a huge 100kWh battery. And all that means that even on an epic journey like this, we theoretically only have to charge once. However, if our photographer’s coffee addiction has anything to do with it, we’ll stop for another quick splash and dash somewhere north of the Scottish border.

So, as midday approaches and with the stunning hills of the Cumbrian countryside flying past in flashes of green and brown, we peel into Tebay Services for a spot of lunch and a quick charging blast. For those who haven’t been to Tebay, it’s not your usual fast food, newsagent and smartphone repair shop ordeal. Think quaint farm shop tucked beside a roaring motorway and surrounded by rolling fields.

Back to top

As we park at one of the rapid chargers, the juxtaposition of the A6 Avant e-tron’s exquisitely modern silhouette against the backdrop of a nearby drystone wall raises a smile from all three of us.

We hook up to the charger and head inside for a predictably pricy sausage roll and some kind of caffeine-infused drink. The wait, however, won’t be all that long. That’s because the A6 Avant e-tron’s clever Premium Platform Electric (PPE) underpinnings boasts 800v charging architecture, which allows it to accept charging speeds of up to 270kW – that’s 10%-80% charge in as little as 21 minutes on the right charger.

After virtually inhaling our lunch and nipping to the loo, we’ve already got enough charge to get us well into the land of St. Andrew. We buckle up and hit the road again.

The UK’s steepest road

Within a few hours, we’ve passed the iconic Scotland sign, traversed Glasgow’s horrendously complicated motorway junctions, slithered up the side of Loch Lomond and swept our way through the spectacular valleys of Glencoe – the A6 Avant e-tron taking all of it in its stride.

Before embarking on our final stretch to Applecross Pass, we pull over at a bunch of chargers in Fort William so my colleagues can get their last taste of coffee before heading into the depths of the Highlands. You’d think we were in 28 Years Later…

Back to top

As they do so, I plug the car in for a quick splash of charge and open the boot in an attempt to find a bag of sweets I’d forgotten about until roughly 10 minutes ago. As the tailgate opens, I’m greeted by a whopping 502 litres of storage space, and despite it holding all our overnight clobber and camera gear, it looks far from full. If I wasn't already convinced this was a full-blooded estate, I certainly am now. With all three of us back in the car, we set off for the last leg of the journey.

After a couple more hours of breathtaking Game of Thrones-like scenery, the sat-nav tells us to turn left towards the foot of Applecross Pass.

For those who don’t know, Applecross Pass, also known as Bealach na Bà, is a spectacular 5.2-mile stretch of single-track road carved into the side of a small mountain near the Isle of Skye. It starts at sea level and ends 2070ft in the air, making it the steepest road climb in the UK. As we look up through the A6 Avant e-tron’s enormous switchable transparency panoramic sunroof at the snaking ribbon of Tarmac ahead, it certainly looks like it…

With the clock reading 7:02pm and with a clear road ahead, we begin our ascent. As I compress the accelerator pedal, the A6 Avant e-tron’s dual motors surge into life, the advanced quattro all-wheel drive system getting all 380PS and 565Nm of instant torque onto the road with ease.

Back to top

At full chat, the A6 e-tron Avant would get us to 62mph in just 5.4 seconds. Not here, though, because we arrive at the first turn well before that.

With the car now in Dynamic driving mode, the steering has weighted up beautifully, and as I turn into the first corner I’m immediately brimmed with total confidence that it will go exactly where I point it.

My wrists rise and fall as we gently slalom our way up into the mountains with incredible fluidity. I glance in the rear mirror – our starting point is now just a distant speck. In what seems like a matter of moments, we’ve already climbed more than half way and quickly arrive at the famous switchback section – a series of three tight hairpins, all draped in brand spanking new asphalt; it shares a striking resemblance with Italy’s iconic Stelvio Pass.

Back to top

We turn one way and then the other, surging between corners with immense potency. As I apply the brakes for the next hairpin, the pedal has a solid, reassuring feel to it. Many electric cars suffer with spongy brakes – not this one.

We take the final turn and gently come to a rest at the summit of the pass. We take a moment to process the exhilaration of the last three and a half minutes, before getting out looking back over the colossal valley we’d just conquered.

As the wind slowly pushes the dappled clouds through the sky and the distant sound of an approaching motorbike fills the air, we turn back and admire the car that, over the last 11 hours and 44 minutes, had taken us more than 620 miles from the heart of the capital to this wonderful corner of Scotland.

From silently weaving through the cut and thrust of London’s morning traffic to effortlessly demolishing mile after mile of motorway to surging up the UK’s steepest road with staggering composure, the Audi A6 Avant e-tron had proven to all of us that it not only deserves to wear Avant badge, but has redefined the entire genre. If this is the future of Avant, we can’t wait for more.