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Audi e-tron Available for Pre-Order in Four EU Countries, Germany Not Among Them

If you're looking for someone to point the finger at for starting this pre-ordering trend, then you need to look no further than a company called Tesla Inc. The Silicon Valley enterprise used this method for its first mass-market product, the Model 3, and proved to be quite successful.
Audi e-tron quattro concept 1 photo
Photo: Audi
Up to that point, it wasn't exactly common practice for the automotive industry, especially not when it came to regular cars that weren't part of a special limited edition or anything like that. However, the traditional manufacturers are now starting to use it as a means of gauging the demand for what is a completely new type of vehicle for them: the EV.

It was Jaguar who opened the ball last fall with its I-PACE electric crossover and, according to the company's CEO Ralf Speth, they had received over 25,000 orders in a very short time. There hasn't been any update on the number of I-PACE EVs booked since, but considering most of those came from the brand's network of dealers - and not actual clients - we doubt there is much of a change. It's just Norway citizens that can reserve their electric Jaguar, and even though they're big fans of EVs, the overall car market in the Scandinavian country isn't among the largest.

Audi has followed a similar route for its e-tron quattro, the electric crossover that will become one of Jaguar's main rivals. Now, though, Auto News informs us that the books have been opened in three more countries, with Austria, Switzerland, and Belgium joining Norway.

Weirdly enough, Germany - Europe's largest car market and the home of Audi - didn't make the list. The e-tron quattro will be buit at a plant in Belgium, granted, but that doesn't explain the decision. The Ingolstadt-based company is probably trying to assess the response in similar but smaller markets before coming up with a strategy for the much more important domestic one.

People interested in placing an order for Audi's electric crossover in Norway are required to make a deposit the equivalent of €2,000, that's despite not knowing what the final price of the EV will be.

Technical specs aren't exactly set in stone either, but the ones mentioned so far sound convincingly enough: 311 miles maximum range (500 km, but by the NEDC standard), 496 hp, all-wheel-drive, 130 mph (210 km/h) maximum speed, and a 0-62 mph (0-100 km/h) acceleration time of 4.6 seconds.

Sat between the Q5 and Q7 in terms of length, the e-tron quattro will be significantly larger than the Jaguar I-PACE and could even dwarf the upcoming Mercedes-Benz EQC. However, it's not Audi's only electric crossover set to debut before the 2020 mark: the e-tron Sportback is also in the works, which should be an even closer competitor for the British model.
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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