Let’s start with the big party piece, the cargo area. Press a button on the Activesphere and the glass on the liftgate slides forward to reveal a hard-lined truck-like bed. There’s even a mid-gate for larger cargo and a drop-down tailgate for loading. It’s as cool as it is difficult to execute, and it gives credence to the car’s off-road motif.
Speaking of the off-road motif, check out those tires. Measuring around 34 inches in diameter, these 285/55R22 meats mean business, while extensive plastic cladding should ward off minor stone chips when this thing’s really blasting along the gravel.
Moving to the interior, the Activesphere is chock-full of augmented reality a la Tony Stark’s laboratory. While it’s meant to let drivers do their thing as the car drives autonomously, common sense says it’s a complete flight of fancy, so I’m not particularly enthused by it.
Fundamentally, the Activesphere is the very near-term future of Audi and Porsche. It rides on the new PPE platform, so it gets an 800-volt architecture with charging speeds of up to 270 kW and dual motors. In this application, those motors kick out 436 horsepower and 531 lb.-ft. of torque and are fed by a massive 100 kWh battery pack.
On paper, the idea of a high-performance sedan-truck sounds awesome, but the Audi ActiveSphere just doesn’t quite do the trick for me. To explain why, we’ll have to look at some Audis that I love. [Ed Note: I think it looks badass. It’s like a modern Vehicross. Find the joy in it Thomas! You’re young. Don’t live in the past. Live in the glorious future. – MH]
Here’s a second-generation A8. These things are now heavily-depreciated heaps with mortgage-sized repair bills that generate generational poverty, but they’re also some of the nicest sitting rooms on or off four wheels. Keep in mind that the image below is of a car that entered production in August 2002, which means that the interior was likely worked out before Limp Bizkit won an MTV VMA on Sept. 6, 2001 for their Rollin’ music video, which was partially shot atop the World Trade Center.
Gorgeous, isn’t it? From the motorized screen to the acres of leather and wood, the cabin of the second-generation A8 felt light-years ahead of what Mercedes-Benz had to offer in the S-Class, and even cut the tech-heavy Bangle-butt BMW 7-Series down a notch. If it weren’t for the running costs, I would already own one of these cars.
Right, let’s go a little bit older and a little bit cheaper. This is a first-generation Audi A4 and right away, this looks so much fresher than any other compact luxury sedan from 1994. As much as I love the E36 BMW 3-Series, it looks very ‘90s with its unpainted rub strips, contrasting trim, and relative lack of curves. Meanwhile, you could tell someone that the Mk1 A4 came out in 2002 and they’d probably believe you.
Jumping into the 2010s, here’s the original A7. It’s as cold and modern as a zinc bartop, and it’s hard to believe that this shape is almost 13 years old. More importantly, the A7 was a pioneer of sorts. Large liftback sedans weren’t a huge thing in 2010, and now Mercedes-AMG, Tesla, and even Kia have taken a crack at it. I feel like none of them have been quite as successful styling-wise as Audi.
While the Activesphere concept is fine, it lacks a certain X-factor. It doesn’t have the astonishingly plush yet forward-looking interior of the Mk2 A8, or the simplicity of the original A4, or the perfect lines of the original A7. Maybe it’s the cladding that makes the whole car look like a FILA dino-stomper. Maybe it’s the way the fake grille wraps around the nose. Maybe the very rotund roofline is at odds with the sharp hood surfacing and prominent haunches. The package as a whole isn’t offensive and the whole e-tron GT meets Envoy XUV idea is gloriously absurd, but the execution gets a light shrug from me. (Photo credits: Audi)
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