2027 Audi S6 Sportback e-tron review – is this the best EV sports sedan?

This is the 2027 Audi S6 Sportback e-tron, and it has a problem: it’s an electric car, which means it has to convince us that driving it is actually fun. Making an electric car fast is easy. Put in a huge battery, add two motors, and suddenly your family sedan accelerates like it’s been shot out of a cannon. But making it entertaining? That’s much harder. Audi thinks it has cracked it. And they’ve given this thing 543 horsepower to prove it. So…Let’s find out. 

EXTERIOR 

First, it looks fantastic. This is what happens when Audi is allowed to design an electric car without turning it into an enormous jellybean.  It’s low. It’s wide. It’s slippery. And it’s got that Sportback shape. Which is German for: “We wanted a hatchback, but that sounded too practical.” The S6 gets its own styling, bigger wheels, more aggressive details, and plenty of little S badges because if you’re spending this kind of money on a car, everyone needs to know.  

POWER

And speaking of going quickly… it has 543 horsepower with launch control from two electric motors, which is a ridiculous amount of power for a family car. It’s faster than the sadly discontinued gas-powered S6. This one will do 0-60 in 3.4 seconds, which is fast, especially since Electric cars have an advantage here: there’s no waiting, no gear ratios, no turbo lag, no engine-building revs. You just press the pedal and…GO, which is particularly useful when passing someone on a 2-lane highway.  

BUT HERE’S THE CLEVER BIT

The S6 isn’t just about straight-line speed, and this is where things get interesting. The motors are rear-biased, so most of the time, the rear motor does the work. The front motor joins in when you need more traction or more power, or you’re trying to frighten yourself and that gives the S6 a surprisingly balanced feel because there isn’t a giant gas engine hanging over the front axle. 

HANDLING

Audi has also done quite a lot to the chassis. Bigger brakes. Different dampers. Different anti-roll bars. Revised steering and standard air suspension, and the steering has more weight than the regular A6. So, this isn’t just an A6 with a bigger battery and an S badge. 

SUSPENSION

The air suspension is clever too; in Comfort mode, it glides. It’s quiet. It’s smooth. It’s effortless. This is the sort of car that makes a 400-mile road trip feel like you’ve driven to the shops. Then you switch to Dynamic. And things tighten up. The car gets lower. The steering gets heavier. And suddenly the S6 thinks it’s a sports car, which is slightly ridiculous. But I like it. 

RANGE

Then there’s the battery. It has around 94 kilowatt-hours. And Audi says the S6 can manage roughly 324 miles on the EPA cycle. That’s pretty good. Especially for something this quick. Choose the larger wheels and summer tires that my tester had, and that number comes down to around 300 miles. You can charge up to 270 kWh.  

Wheel and tires

As part of the Black Optic Package for $2,000, you get 21-inch 5-arm dynamic design wheels, with a bicolor finish and summer tires. They are Pirelli P Zero PZ4 Elect, 245/40s at the front and 275/35s at the back.  Brakes are 15.8-in vented discs at the front, and 13.8-in vented discs at the rear. 

The Glass Roof

The glass roof is clever, though, since it can switch between transparent and opaque. So if the sun is blasting through…Press the button. Dark roof. Problem solved. And if your passenger starts complaining that they can’t see the sky…Press it again. 

Driving

This is where the S6 e-tron starts to make a rather convincing argument for the electric car because it is brutally quick. Not quite quick for an electric car, just properly quick. Put your foot down, and the two electric motors unleash 543 horsepower with the sort of enthusiasm normally associated with being pushed off a cliff. There’s no waiting for revs, no transmission to make a decision, no turbocharger gathering its thoughts, just instant, enormous shove. Yet, bizarrely, it doesn’t feel frantic; the S6 is remarkably composed. You can bury the throttle, and it will hurl itself towards the horizon, but it does so with the sort of calm efficiency you’d expect from a German railway.

The steering is another surprise; it’s accurate, nicely weighted, and gives the car a sense of purpose without trying to turn every corner into a qualifying lap. And that matters because this is still an S6. It’s supposed to be a fast executive car, not a roller-skate with a battery strapped underneath it.

The suspension does an impressive job, too. It keeps the body controlled when you’re pressing on, while still being comfortable enough when you’re simply trying to get home without your spine leaving your body, and then there’s the weight. Because, yes, underneath you is a gigantic battery, which means this is not exactly a featherweight sports car, but Audi has done a surprisingly good job of hiding that mass. You don’t get the sensation that you’re piloting a small apartment block through the corners; instead, it feels planted, and that’s probably the most impressive thing about the S6 e-tron: it doesn’t drive like an electric car trying desperately to convince you it’s a sports sedan. It simply drives like a very good sports sedan that happens to be electric.

This brings us neatly to one of the more interesting things about the S6 e-tron: what happens when you take your foot off the accelerator. Because unlike most Audis of old, this one lets you drive using just one pedal. Select B instead of D, and suddenly the accelerator becomes both accelerator and brake. Lift off, and the car starts harvesting energy while slowing you down. And if that’s too much enthusiasm for your right foot, the steering-wheel paddles let you dial the regeneration down. You can even turn it off completely and simply coast along like a normal car. Or, because apparently making decisions is now optional, there’s an Auto setting. This lets the car decide how much braking you need by looking at traffic and what’s happening ahead. So, essentially, the Audi is now thinking for you.

Interior

Inside, the S6 e-tron is exactly what you’d expect from a modern Audi; it’s smart, it’s beautifully put together, and there are enough screens in here to make you wonder whether you’ve accidentally climbed into a very expensive gaming console. Up front, though, it works. The driving position is excellent, and the seats are comfortable enough that you could spend hours behind the wheel without needing a chiropractor afterwards.

The big 14.5-inch central screen is responsive, slick and easy to use. Swipe it, tap it, ask it to do something and, unlike some systems, it doesn’t sit there thinking about it like a teenager being asked to get out of bed. There’s also a rather impressive head-up display, while the optional passenger screen means the person sitting beside you can stare at something other than your increasingly questionable driving.

But then we get to the back, and this is where the Sportback shape comes with a small price, because Audi has created this lovely, sweeping roofline. It looks fantastic, but unfortunately, human beings have heads and those heads require space. Rear-seat passengers will find things a little tighter than they might in a conventional sedan, particularly if they’re tall.

Overall, the cabin feels properly premium, properly modern and, importantly, still recognisably Audi. It’s a very good place to spend time assuming you’re sitting in the front and assuming you’ve remembered that the person in the back has a head.

Inside, Audi has gone completely digital. There’s an 11.9-inch driver’s display. A 14.5-inch central screen. And an optional 10.9-inch screen for the passenger because apparently passengers can no longer survive without Netflix. 

The Dash

There is also carbon fiber and Dinamica faux suede and lots of lovely materials. But there’s one problem: buttons; there aren’t many. Audi has decided we don’t need them anymore, everything is a touchscreen or touch-sensitive or hidden in a menu. 

Practicality

Now, because this is a Sportback, you might expect practicality to suffer. It doesn’t. There’s roughly 26 cubic feet of cargo space behind the rear seats. Fold them down, and you’ve got around 39 cubic feet.  That’s plenty for luggage, golf clubs, camera gear, or Shopping. 

Price

Base price is $79, 600 but this one is a Prestige with the Audi Exclusive Design package, which provides this Jet Gray/Ocean Blue interior with contrast stitching in Ocean Blue. That is $7,300. The Prestige package is $3,700. Add that to the 2,000 Black Optic package, and the total price is $94,490.  

VIDEO REVIEW

Verdict

So… what do we have here? A very fast electric Audi, yes, but that’s not the interesting part. The interesting part is that it’s actually fun.  It’s balanced. It’s comfortable. It’s quiet. It’s quick. It’s practical. And it has enough range that you don’t have to plan your life around charging stations. The rear-biased power delivery makes a difference. It doesn’t understeer the way Audi sedans traditionally have 

There are some annoyances. Too many screens and not enough buttons. It’s heavy too.  But the S6 hides that weight remarkably well. And that’s the trick. This doesn’t feel like an electric car pretending to be a sports sedan. It feels like a proper Audi sports sedan… that just happens to run on electricity. And that’s quite an achievement. 

2027 Audi S6 Sportback e-tron numbers

BASE PRICE: $76,600
AS TESTED PRICE: $94,490
VEHICLE LAYOUT: Front and rear-motor, all-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door hatchback
ENGINE: 2 induction permanent-magnet AC motors
BATTERY: Liquid-cooled lithium-ion, 94.4 kWh
ONBOARD CHARGER: 9.6 kW
PEAK DC FAST CHARGE RATE: 270 kW
COMBINED POWER: 543 hp 
TRANSMISSION: 1-speed automatic transmission
0-60 MPH: 3.4 sec
CURB WEIGHT: 5,225 lb
CARGO VOLUME: 30 ft³, 60 ft³ with seat area
FRUNK VOLUME: 1 cubic foot
RANGE: 301 miles
EPA FUEL ECONOMY: 95 MPGe Hwy
PROS: Seriously quick, superb handling, beautiful interior, doesn’t shout that it’s an EV 
CONS: Small frunk, expensive with options 

2027 Audi S6 Sportback e-tron review