Who said wagons were dead?
While Mercedes-Benz and BMW have yet to preview station wagons for the electric era, Audi is preparing to introduce its first electric Avant.
The Audi A6 Avant e-tron concept has been previewed in a series of teasers as a wagon version of last year’s A6 e-tron concept.
Given the sedan has been confirmed for production and Audi has previously said a wagon was possible “if the market wants it”, the A6 Avant e-tron may enter production.
There’s a sleeker roofline than the internal combustion engine-powered A6 Avant, while the concept features – as concepts typically do – a set of enormous wheels.
The sedan concept, for reference, rode on 22-inch alloy wheels, almost as large as those you’ll find on an RSQ8.
There are slim headlights and camera mirrors like the sedan concept, though a spied prototype of the production sedan shows it’ll adopt a split-level lighting arrangement.
The production sedan may also offer the choice of conventional exterior mirrors and the camera mirrors, à la the e-tron SUV.
Audi has previously confirmed the A6 e-tron will be sold alongside the internal-combustion A6.
Riding the rear-/all-wheel drive Premium Platform Electric co-developed with Porsche, last year’s concept used a 100kWh lithium-ion battery with a claimed WLTP range of more than 700km and DC charging capability of up to 270kW.
The PPE will first debut later this year on the Audi Q6 e-tron crossover, with the A6 e-tron following.
According to Audi executives, it’s been developed with a greater focus on efficiency and with “completely different battery development” compared to the J1 platform underpinning the Audi e-tron GT and Porsche Taycan.
Though it’s less performance-focused than the e-tron GT, Audi executives say they “can imagine” an RS6 E-Tron.
The company has released outputs for only one A6 e-tron variant, a sportier model that’ll produce 350kW of power and 800Nm of torque.
The suspension uses a five-link axle up front which Audi says is optimised for electric vehicles, while there’s a multi-link axle at the rear. Last year’s concept also featured air suspension with adaptive dampers.
The A6 e-tron sedan concept measures 4.96m long, 1.96m wide and 1.44m tall, extremely similar to the A6 sedan in overall dimensions.
Expect the Avant e-tron to hew closely to the ‘regular’ Avant, and offer a similarly slippery drag coefficient to the A6 e-tron sedan concept (0.22).
While wagons remain popular in Europe, they’re very much a niche body style in Australia.
A6 allroad 
RS6
Despite this, Audi offers a range of wagon options: the A4, including its allroad and sportier S4 and RS4 variants, plus the A6 allroad and the rapid RS6.
BMW, in contrast, offers only the 3 Series Touring. Mercedes-Benz now doesn’t offer any wagons in Australia, citing the popularity of SUVs.
MORE: Everything Audi A6
