The mid-cycle refresh is a fact of life for most car models—a few nips and tucks made by designers and engineers after something has been on the market for a few years. The goal is to deliver renewed presence at your local dealership, but the updates tend to be scant. That’s not the case for Audi’s newly refreshed RS e-tron GT Performance. The big clue about what’s new is right there in the name: Performance.
Audi’s RS e-tron GT has never been a slouch. When it launched in 2020, it offered over 600 horsepower in an electric sedan, along with a good dose of comfort and practicality, and no shortage of curb appeal. It served as a visual preview of Audis to come, and now that many of the company’s models have caught up to its look, it’s time for a refresh.
But while the new e-tron GT has the obligatory minor styling tweaks to nose and tail, it also offers a massive leap forward in terms of speed and accelerative aggression, areas where the previous generation of the car was certainly not lacking.
More, More, More
It starts with more power, way more, to the tune of 912 hp if you go for the top-spec RS e-tron GT Performance. And why wouldn’t you? There’s a lesser, S e-tron GT with 670 hp plus smaller wheels and a few other downgrades, but the Performance is the only one that can blast you from a standstill to 60 mph in just 2.4 seconds.
That is a literal eye-opening experience. At full tilt, the RS e-tron GT Performance is uncomfortably quick. For my time behind the wheel, the Speed Vegas track outside of Las Vegas, where, under the lights, the car and I within it surged forward up the inclined straight.
Launching is easy, with no complex preparations or warming procedures as required in the Tesla Model S Plaid. In the Audi, you just put your left foot on the brake, your right foot on the gas, and then lift off the brake again. But don’t do that before taking a deep breath and resting your head back on the headrest. The sudden onset of G-force is so strong that you’ll struggle to breathe during the launch, and trying to keep your head upright without support is a great way to get a strained neck.
Thankfully, it’s over soon enough. I ran an RS e-tron GT Performance up over 130 mph, a process that took only a few seconds more than the initial sprint to 60. It’s impressive how the car just keeps on pulling hard well past triple-digit speeds. Plenty of EVs are geared so short that once you get up to a decent rate of velocity, their acceleration starts to taper off.
Not the Audi. It relies on a two-speed transmission for the electric motor at the rear axle, a rare setup that ensures optimal torque and power at a much broader range of speeds. This car was, after all, designed and tested in the land of the limit-free Autobahn, and I can only imagine how good it would be to run there.
“This car was, after all, designed in the land of the limit-free Autobahn, and I can only imagine how good it would be to run there.”
Desert Cruising
The rest of my testing was sadly limited to the highways and byways around Las Vegas, running out to Charleston Peak and back. It’s a stark and lovely landscape once you leave the casino trappings behind, but the roads are not only marked with extremely conservative limits, they don’t tend to have a lot of character to them. After all, if you need a road from A to B and there’s nothing but desert in between, there’s no reason to inject many curves.
While not the most exciting drive, it was a good chance to sample the GT’s chops as a cruiser, where it excels. This year, the car also picks up a new active suspension. It’s the same basic setup found on Porsche’s Panamera and the GT’s corporate cousin, the Taycan. It relies on an advanced hydraulic setup on all four corners that can do everything from countering roll in corners to lifting the car about two inches as soon as you open the door. That makes getting into and out of this ultra-low sedan a lot easier.
More importantly, the suspension can work some magic on imperfect roads. The RS flavor of the GT rolls on ultra-low-profile tires stretched over 21-inch wheels, which would typically result in disastrous ride quality. But even over bumpy, broken asphalt, the GT was perfectly comfortable. Ad, if you have passengers with sensitive stomachs, you can set the car to lean into turns and even tilt forward and backward during acceleration and braking. This sensation is a little odd, but strangely easy on the inner ear.
Eventually, I got far enough into the Spring Mountains that the road found some terrain to wind through. Here, that suspension proved its worth. Combined with the quick, sharp steering, the RS e-tron GT Performance swung through the corners like something far lighter than its 5,137 pounds. Even over stretches of gravel or snowmelt, it never faltered, its Quattro all-wheel drive ensuring all the power went to the ground.
Mechanical Details
That power is provided by a pair of revised motors, which pull from an upgraded battery pack. Capacity is now 105 kWh (95 kWh usable), and range climbs to 278 in the RS e-tron GT Performance, up from 249 before. If that weren’t enough, a new charging architecture means it can suck down electrons at a rate of up to 320 kW, which means you can go from a 10 to 80 percent charge in just 18 minutes. That means adding over 200 miles of charge in about as much time as it’ll take you to use the restroom.
The interior hasn’t seen any real upgrades outside of the steering wheel, a new design featuring capacitive-touch buttons of the sort that everyone hates on Volkswagen’s current crop of EVs. I hate them here, too. The only other notable change is the option of getting something called forged carbon fiber on the dashboard, mirror caps, side skirts, and rear diffuser.
Instead of the smooth, orderly, woven carbon you’re used to, forged carbon is chopped and mixed into a resin slurry before being molded, creating a messy, speckled look. I’m not a fan of the look, but Lamborghini has certainly sold plenty of the stuff on its cars, so I may be in the minority here.
The other visual tweaks to the GT are more appealing. The refreshed nose is more open, with more room for breathing, allowing those upgraded motors and battery to stay cool, while the diffuser on the rear end is far less fussy than before. It’s still a very busy car from a visual standpoint, but its mix of angular forms and organic shapes is still compelling.
For 2025, Audi’s updates to the RS e-tron GT Performance are certainly more than a typical mid-cycle refresh. Big power and range gains will keep everyone grinning, and the suspension is a revelation. Yes, the new starting price of $167,000 is a substantial boost over the outgoing car, but it feels eminently worth it.
