Couple of bright sparks
The air slips quietly over the aero-tweaked body as the corners arrive with a furious but soundless rush
IT’S A PRETTY abstract concept, this whole ‘future’ thing. But here’s one indicator you may have noticed: it doesn’t actually feel like the future. Instead of being startlingly unfamiliar and difficult to navigate, it actually feels the way things should have always been.
Perhaps you remember Apple founder Steve Jobs on stage unveiling the then-new iPhone back in 2007. If you were like me, your first thought was: “This guy sure doesn’t spend his billions in clothing stores.” But then, watching as the iPhone’s multifunction smarts and user-optimised interface were explained, you may have sat there going: “Of course. Makes complete sense. Why did anyone bother trying to do it differently?”
I’m experiencing that overarching sentiment from behind the wheel of Audi’s first mainstream EV as I thread it down a jinking, winding backroad in the lush, green Southern Highlands of NSW. Ahead of me, former Wheels Road Test Editor Nathan Ponchard is not sparing the watts to our 2020 Car of the Year, the Mercedes-Benz EQC. The pace is on, but the in-cabin tranquillity of the e-tron is that of a Bentley being used to chauffeur royalty. The tyres generate only a distant hiss on the bitumen, the air slips quietly over the aero-tweaked body, yet the corners arrive with a furious but soundless rush.
Later Ponch and I will dig a bit deeper into the downsides of trading combustion for electric motors, but right now there are a couple of irrefutable facts. One, this pair
