Enigmatic Audi Q6 e-tron offroad concept Revealed

This is an interesting way to introduce a concept. In the era post international motor shows, brands typically reveal new concepts or technologies at other industry events – Monterey Car Week, Goodwood Festival of Speed… even CES come to mind. And while the Dakar-winning Audi RS Q e-tron did appear at CES a few weeks back, the lifted Q6 you see here literally popped up on social media with little to no warning or associated public relations fanfare. Even more mysterious, it appears to be the same lifted Q6 Sportback mystery concept Autocar published spy photos of back in September.

From Audi directly, all we know is the name (Q6 e-tron offroad concept) and that it debuts new portal axles that represent “quattro redefined”. Okay, you’ve got our attention Audi. We’d embed the post here, but so far it’s only been posted by the @Audi Facebook page and embeddable sharing isn’t allowed. Direct link it HERE.

Doing a quick search, we’ve also found reference to it, along with the same photos, over on Top Gear Netherlands. Most of what’s covered in the story appears to be deduced from examining the photos, including that the concept uses Toyo Open Country M/T tires. The only fact we found in there not describing the car in the shots is that it was reportedly developed by Audi Sport GmbH.

The Top Gear NL story doesn’ mention the portal axles. If this design is the same as the traditional understanding of a portal axle, the design basically lets the axle sit above the center bore of the wheel, giving more ground clearance. There are also gears allow for tailoring of final drive ratio at each tire. Both of these qualities combine to make the running of large tires on a vehicle like this Q6 Sportback you see here.

We’re including a video that’s got some great information on portal axles. As for more details on this concept, we expect them to drop soon. Watch this space.