2025 Audi RS e-tron GT Performance Is Severely Quick—and Seats 4
Technically it's a midcycle facelift, but the Audi RS e-tron GT Performance feels all-new from behind the wheel, particularly in Launch Mode, where 0-60 mph takes just 2.4 seconds.
Optional Active Suspension tilts the car into turns, which feels crazy, man.
Prices start at $168,295. Available now.
I don't know how but somehow my brain squeezed out from between my track-issue rental helmet and throw-away Nomex helmet sock, leapt out the back window, and bounced around on the track for a while, getting run over a few times before they flagged the race, and corner workers came out with a pair of salad tongs to pick it up and put it into one of those plastic laundry bags they leave in hotel rooms here in Vegas.
They stacked it with the others near pit-in.
Same thing will happen to you when you put the Audi RS e-tron GT Performance into Launch mode, step on both pedals then release the brake and—whoosh/wham!—off you hurl.
In my case it was down the main straight at Speed Vegas, a track that is so much fun to drive on it's worth the $249 starting price for five laps. (They don't offer this Audi RS e-tron GT Performance at Speed Vegas yet, but you can drive an Audi R8 V10 at $299.)
I didn't have to pay anything, since Audi rented the whole track, but maybe if it was my money I would have kept the hammer down for all 2,000 feet of the main straightaway. As it was, I actually lifted off the accelerator pedal before I had to—the first time I'd done that ever in my 40 years of car-writing and shrimp-eating.
Such is the power and torque of the new Audi RS e-tron GT performance.
The RS line, as you know, is the most powerful, highest-performing lineup of products Audi makes.
There are A and Q models with no suffix that are perfectly fun and well-engineered, a healthy roster of S models with 'Elevated Performance and Premium Sophistication,' and then there are the RS models like this one, for 'Maximum Performance,' and there are only five of those. Of the five, the RS e-tron GT Performance is the top of that line. Way up at the top.
'(The) 2025 RS e-tron GT Performance is the most powerful and quickest accelerating Audi production vehicle of all time,' Audi crows (the 13 Audis that won Le Mans were not production).
The RS e-tron GT offers up to 912 hp from a pair of permanent-magnet synchronous (PSM) electric motors sucking juice from a new, larger 105-kWh lithium-ion battery good for a 0-60 mph time of 2.4 seconds (Audi said independent testers have gotten 2.1).
It really is extraordinary. I've driven the Rimac Nevera (1.74 seconds to 60), Pininfarina Battista, Tesla Model S Sport (also 2.4 seconds to 60), and the Porsche Taycan Turbo S (2.6 seconds), as well as a couple of electric motorcycles (the latest being the Livewire S2 Mulholland, 3.3 seconds) that had me clinging to the handlebars like Mr. Toad on a Wild Ride, and nothing prepared me for the launch of this car. Maybe my brain is getting old and squishy.
But to limit the list of the RS e-tron GT's praises to acceleration is to miss everything else about it that zings your senses into an altered state.
After the 2000-foot straight at SpeedVegas are a series of 12 splendid turns, each unique, with its own radii. Trying to string them all together will remind you why the great racers are great while you (and that brain of yours) are trying to play catchup with the corners. It's a fun challenge.
My RS e-tron GT Performance came with the optional active suspension that uses separate front and rear high-pressure hydraulic systems to augment the two-chamber air springs to counter roll, dive, and squat.
It'll actually lean into corners like a sport bike and raise the nose under braking or the rear end under acceleration. It was completely counterintuitive and a bit of a party trick, especially when the car raises several inches for ingress and egress.
I prefer a car to exhibit old-fashioned lean on a race track so I get better feedback. I was able to try it in both modes and preferred it off. Maybe you'll like it.
'The Audi drive select system lets the driver control the vehicle's characteristics with the three usual profiles (efficiency, comfort, and dynamic),' Audi explains.
'In addition, two individually configurable RS-specific modes, RS1 and RS2, allow the driver to select specific drive, suspension, ride height, and sound parameters. The driver can engage these modes directly via the satellite controls on the flattened top-and-bottom steering wheel.'
Performance mode also changes the characteristics for anti-slip control, torque vectoring, suspension tuning, aerodynamics, and cooling strategy.
In performance mode, the car uses the same transmission strategy as in dynamic mode, which means the car stays in the first gear of its two-speed gearbox as long as possible, to make acceleration more 'emphatic.' That's a word many NHRA drivers use for acceleration, isn't it?
I also drove the car over some mountain roads around Las Vegas, heading up toward Lee Canyon ski resort on Mt. Charleston. On the road, without active suspension engaged, the car felt fun enough, a little more like a luxury sedan, but gave less indication how much fun it would be at the track.
Getting in and out was less comfortable than I thought, almost like getting into a race car. The bucket seats are snug and the driving position all business. This is more of a performance setup inside than a luxury car.
The interior material in the car I had featured piano black layered above a crushed carbon-fiber lower dash.
'Forged carbon,' as Audi calls it, is also used in the inlays on the bumper, rocker panel, parts of the diffuser and side mirrors, with decorative forged carbon interior inlays for the door sills and dashboard to match the exterior. It's supposed to look raw, like a race car, perhaps.
To top it all off and make the experience really sporty, you can key up something Audi calls 'an audible expression of the Gran Turismo experience.' Yes, fake sounds to enhance the drive!
Passenger compartment audio is re-enhanced for the performance model, while two control units and amplifiers in the trunk generate separate exterior and interior sounds emitted through two speakers, one outside and one inside the vehicle. I left both off.
One slight drawback—and it won't be a problem for a high-roller like you—is price. The RS e-tron GT Performance starts at $168,295 and tops out at over $190k.
Another model, the S e-tron GT, starts at $126,795 but does with just 670 hp and a 0-60 mph time of 3.3 seconds. I didn't get to drive that one but it still sounds like a pretty solid performance experience for $41,500 less. It's good to have options.
Do you want a car with active suspension, or do you prefer a little roll? Please comment below.
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