Mercedes-Benz AMG GT vs Audi e-tron GT

What's the difference?

This is no Lotus, but damn if it ain't a hell of a good time, and proof positive that electrification can enhance the V8 experience, rather than ruin it.

The e-tron rightfully takes its spot at the top of Audi’s range. It’s a harbinger of all things electric in the performance realm for years to come and to look at, touch, and feel, it’s Audi all the way through.

The spirit of the Taycan also lives here, though, so while it’s a little less imposing to look at, it’s almost every bit as impressive to drive, making it compelling if you’re looking for an early slice of what performance electric motoring can look like.

Our pick of the range? The base is really all the GT car you could ever need, but at the end of the day most buyers will opt for the RS anyway...

It's a mean, but somehow still sleek, looking beast, this big AMG, but it's also immediately recognisable as a thing of intent.

Up front, there's the huge vertical-slat grille that looks like it drove straight out of a Stephen King novel, a massively domed bonnet, and these vacuum-like side intakes that look like they could suck in stray animals.

Then, at the back, there are twin dual-pipe exits (for four in total), and an automatic wing that pops out of the rear bodywork. And all of that's capped off with these massive 21-inch forged alloy wheels hiding golden ceramic-composite brakes.

Mean, yes, but not quite as aggressive as you might expect the most powerful AMG to date to come across, perhaps.

Inside, it's more subdued again, with the AMG presenting a pretty passenger-friendly space, with all the Benz tech you'd imagine, including the massive screens, and — thanks to its air suspension and drive modes — the ability to tailor the ride to your liking, meaning a comfortable and premium experience, despite the power under your right foot.

I was an e-tron doubter. When I first saw pictures of Audi’s flagship electric offering I thought it took the brand’s oval formula to the extreme, with the silhouette of a bar of soap on wheels.

Up close and I couldn’t have been more wrong. The e-tron is spectacular to gaze upon, with awesome details which really cement its place at the top of the brand’s performance range.

The best angle is by far the rear three-quarter, the imposing stance of this car, the way its glossy rear diffuser lifts up to reveal the ultra-wide track of its rear wheels, and the enormous ‘blisters’ which curve over the rear arches are elements poorly communicated in pictures.

When seen up close, though, it leaves no doubt of this car’s aggressive intent and alludes to its on-road prowess.

The rear light fittings, which look flat and like any other Audi in the pictures, are all alluring and three-dimensional in reality.

The side profile has elements of RS7 in there, touches of Taycan, but a signature overall Audi shape, with the most interesting element being the wheel designs.

Like many new EV wheel designs, they’re optimised for aerodynamics, and consist of alloy elements with plastic hubcap-like pieces integrated into them.

The ones on the RS in particular have an interesting effect of looking entirely different depending on how close you get.

The black contrast elements serve to shrink the car from a distance, making it look less intimidating than its Taycan relation.

The front is the least complex part of the car, but the way Audi’s designers have managed to blend the blanked-out grille but maintain the contrasting face shape it shares with the combustion range is admirable.

It doesn’t scream ‘electric’, but subtly blends the best parts of both worlds. I like it.

Inside is equally impressive. I like it almost as much as the rear haunches, if only for the fact that it feels like an Audi, and not just a re-skinned Porsche, which is what I was expecting.

Instead, the flat, minimalist, and almost retro appeal of the Taycan is swapped for a dash design more deeply three dimensional in the e-tron GT, complete with signature Audi elements like a rhomboidal theme, angular detailing, and flush-set screens.

All the materials and buttons feel properly Audi, as well as the refreshingly simple three-spoke wheel which the GT shares with the e-tron SUV.

Personally I wasn’t sure about the Alcantara finishes on the wheel or centre console of our RS test-car. They look nice now but won’t in a few years with enthusiastic use. I’ve seen enough older performance cars to know the Nappa leather is the better choice.

It's not overly practical, given its size, with AMG locking in a four-seat configuration with a fixed rear pew that limits boot space. You can get folding seats, but only as part of an option package.

What you're left with is a vehicle that stretches 5054mm in length, 1953mm in width and 1447mm in height, but that serves up rear seating for only two – albeit very comfortably – and, because of the electric battery and motor being housed at the rear, boot space of just 335 litres.

There is triple-zone climate control, and the rear seating is lounge-like and luxurious, while the up-front space is ample for two full-size riders, too.

There's no spare, with AMG's 'Tirefit' puncture repair system on board.

As with most performance cars, there are some wins and losses here. The e-tron GT gets off to a rolling start though with its front seat (let’s be honest, this is where the action is meant to happen anyway), offering great adjustability, a sporty low position, and plenty of headroom and arm space for the front two occupants.

On the downside, storage space isn’t as stellar as I’ve come to expect on cars with new EV platforms. Most of this is down to the GT’s intent as a sports machine first, with low-set seats meaning less room to carve out for batteries under the floor, and hence less storage cutaways down the centre.

The two cupholders are nice and big, and the console armrest box is okay, complete with a little side-mounted wireless charger, but the door pockets are embarrassingly small with no bottle cutouts, and there’s precious little storage elsewhere.

The low seat and curvy roof means you have to duck down low to get in, and oddly the big fixed sunroof doesn’t have a retractable shade, so this car is going to get hot being left out in the Aussie sun.

The screens, as usual with Audi products, are a highlight, offering super fast, sharp hardware, and attractive and functional software, with the only real downside being some of the touch areas when phone mirroring can be quite small with such a high-resolution screen.

The back seat lays claim to this Audi’s big EV party trick, the fact that there are sizeable cutouts in the under-floor battery pack so adults can enjoy usable legroom.

It works. I have airspace for my knees behind my own seating position, and headroom is surprisingly good, too.

Technically the e-tron GT is a five-seater, but the centre rear position is all but useless, at least for adults, as it is very narrow.

There’s nowhere to put your feet thanks to a raised centre floor to facilitate additional battery space, almost like a transmission tunnel in a combustion vehicle.

Rare amenities for rear passengers include two USB-C ports and a third climate zone with a control panel, although, unlike some EV rivals, there’s no full-size household power outlet.

Boot space comes in at 350 litres which isn’t huge considering the e-tron GT’s rather large footprint.

As a result it could only hold two of our three CarsGuide test luggage cases. There’s no under-floor storage here, although you do get an elastic net.

The GT also scores a surprisingly large under-bonnet space, perhaps a good spot for keeping your charging cables.

There are two forms of the Audi e-tron GT, the regular GT version with prices starting from $180,200, or the full-fat RS, which takes a healthy jump to $248,200 along with a corresponding rise in performance and standard equipment.

Audi promises the e-tron GT is better value than its Porsche Taycan rival like-for-like, starting with all-wheel drive only as opposed to the Taycan’s rear-drive base-spec.

For those worried about EV value, consider the e-tron GT is both faster and much more affordable than the R8 was before it was discontinued in Australia last year, with the latter starting from a whopping $316,377, before on-road costs, before it met its end.

Taking its spot at the helm of Audi’s range, the e-tron GT certainly doesn’t want for standard gear, with equipment on the base version including 20-inch alloy wheels, adaptive air suspension, a fixed glass roof, LED matrix headlights, a 12.8-inch digital instrument cluster and 10-inch multimedia touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a 710-watt audio system, and of course all the expected safety gear.

The standard GT variant is slightly less powerful than the RS with its dual-motor set-up producing ‘just’ 350kW/630Nm, but maintains the rather unusual two-speed transmission and, of course, the all-wheel drive system.

Let-downs for this model include the surprisingly average feeling synthetic leather seat trim, and the plastic filler panels adorning the dash which the RS replaces with much more attractive carbon-look inserts. These are no deal-breaker for sure, but the seat trim in particular feels a bit rude on a vehicle which costs over $180,000.

The RS e-tron GT meanwhile ups the power to a whopping 440kW/830Nm, increases the standard wheel size to 21-inch, adds actual Nappa leather seat trim with an additional ventilation function, as well as an all-wheel steering system, rear differential lock, upgraded laser headlights, and tungsten carbide brakes as standard.

The car we primarily tested for this review had further options, taking the price to nearly $280,000, including a more hardcore carbon ceramic brake package, coming in at a staggering $12,500.

The e-tron GT also offers an extremely rare option in the world of EVs, a 22kW AC charging inverter ($6900), which makes it the fastest charging car in Australia on this standard. Good luck finding a public outlet which will actually go that fast.

Thanks to its heavy-duty 800-volt battery hardware, it is also one of the fastest charging electric cars in Australia, full stop. More on this in the charging part of this review.

It's not just what's under the bonnet, but what's at the rear axle, too.

But let's start at the front, shall we? Here, a familiar twin-turbo V8 engine lurks, producing a potent 470kW and 900Nm, which is fed through a nine-speed automatic, complete with paddle shifters and several drive modes, including the traction-limiting 'Race'.

But that is then joined at the rear by an electric motor with its own two-speed transmission, and which produces 70kW and 320Nm – or up to 150kW for 10-second blasts under heavy acceleration.

Combine both, and you're tapping into around 620kW and in excess of 1000Nm, enabling a sprint to 100km/h in just 2.9 seconds, and a flying top speed of 316km/h.

The e-tron GT is stupidly powerful. The 350kW/630Nm available in the base GT allow a 0-100km/h sprint time of just 4.1 seconds, while the even higher 440kW/830Nm available in the RS reduces that to a mind-melting 3.3 seconds. Not bad for a car which weighs nearly two and a half tonnes.

Like the Taycan, the e-tron GT sports a two-speed transmission, with the low gear primarily used in sport mode as a take-off ratio, with the second made for highway cruising or when the car is set to 'Eco' mode.

Two electric motors allow for fully adjustable all-wheel drive to enhance handling while the RS goes a step further with its subtle all-wheel steer system and locking rear differential which enhances its agility at both low- and high-speeds even further.

Fuel efficiency is surprisingly impressive for a vehicle this big and powerful, with Mercedes claiming 7.7L/100km and 175g/km of CO2 on the combined cycle.

Helping that is a the 6.1kW battery, which delivers just 12km in all-electric driving range, but helps reduce overall fuel use.

This AMG is AC power only, meaning you can't recharge using fast chargers, but the brand says its secret trick is its ability to recharge itself using captured kinetic energy incredibly quickly – largely negating the need to plug in unless you want to unlock that EV range – with Merc suggesting that, on a race track for example, the battery will discharge and charge itself continuously as you're lapping.

There is just one massive battery in the e-tron range, a huge 83.7kWh (net) lithium-ion unit. This grants the GT a driving range of 540km to the more lenient NEDC (rather than WLTP) standard, while the RS scores 504km of range.

The battery is an 800-volt unit, with an integrated water-cooled design which helps the e-tron GT join the Taycan, Kia EV6, and Hyundai Ioniq 5 as one of the fastest-charging EVs on the market.

On a compatible DC charger which can hit this car’s 270kW peak, the e-tron GT can charge from 5-80 per cent in just 22 and a half minutes.

To help this process along, setting the destination to a charger in the car’s built-in navigation will help to pre-condition the battery to ideal charging temperatures.

Other impressive charging specs include the option to install a 22kW AC inverter, bringing the ‘slow charging’ time down to just four hours if you can find a compatible unit.

Otherwise the standard rate is an acceptable 11kW. The e-tron GT is also one of the only EVs on the market with AC charging outlets on either side, ensuring you won’t have to stretch to reach the nearest charging port.

The downside of all of this is the fact the e-tron GT, like its SUV sibling and Porsche Taycan relation, has a comparatively high energy consumption.

The official numbers are 19.2kWh/100km for the standard GT, or 20.2kWh/100km for the RS. These numbers are already high, but we saw significantly higher again on our test route.

While you probably won’t be driving the car as thoroughly during the every-day commute, I have experienced similarly high numbers in the mid-20kWh/100km range in the e-tron SUV during standard weekly testing, so expect similar. Good thing it charges quickly.

There's a lot of big numbers surrounding the Mercedes-AMG GT63S E Performance, but let me throw another one at you – 245km/h.

That was the high score I saw pop up on its digital speedo as the big and electrified Mercedes flew down the main straight at Sydney Motorsport Park (formerly Eastern Creek), before my courage ran out and my foot found the brake.

That kind of velocity is mind-bending in a vehicle this big, and so is the way that power is delivered, with the AMG's big brain deciding how and when to maximise power from the engine and electric motor to deliver a constant surge of torque that shoves you back, and the GT63S E Performance into the future.

But big acceleration is hardly surprising with that much power. What is a little more impressive is how easy this four-door supercar is to wrestle around a racetrack.

Sure, the feeling-out process is a little more involved, as you figure out how and when you'll feel the weight shifting, and as your brain struggles to compute how what's happening is even possible, but after a couple of laps the AMG settles into an easy, flowing rhythm that, while never feeling light on its feet, also doesn't feels like you're piloting a bus.

At least part of that is down to the wizardry on board, like the 'AMG Air Suspension', the rear-axle steering and the limited-slip diff, all of which combine to make the GT63S feel tighter and sharper than it would otherwise.

But it's also partly down to the prodigious power on offer – perfect corner entry and exits are less relevant when you have a cruise missile strapped to your right foot that doesn't just quickly make up for any driver errors, but shrinks the space between corners to the blink of an eye.

Yes, it's heavy, and there isn't much that's pure about the go-fast experience, but it left an ear-to-ear grin on my face, and isn't that priority one for any new AMG?

How does it drive on the road? That I don't know, as this was a track-only drive day. But we will get one on a proper test soon and let you know.

You’re probably wondering if you can even see out of the e-tron GT given its low-set shape and seemingly small windows, but the answer is yes. Mostly.

There’s decent visibility out the front with surprisingly good mirror coverage to see out the rear, although the rear window is a bit hopeless, offering just a letterbox aspect of what’s behind you.

The seating position is excellent, though, allowing you to sit nice and close to the ground, rare for an EV.

It feels every bit the sports car it claims to be, and when you step on the accelerator pedal it is ridiculously, enormously fast.

Even if you’re already at velocities higher than 100km/h, the e-tron can draw from a well of seemingly limitless torque to jolt you forward even faster.

One of its most impressive traits, and I think the e-tron GT shares this with the Taycan, is how the car seems to shrink the faster you drive it.

Particularly in RS trim with the four-wheel steer, this doesn’t feel like a two-and-a-half tonne, five-metre long grand touring monolith, responding to your inputs with the agility of a much lighter two-door coupe.

It ducks and darts around corners, and while its steering seems to have a noticeable artificial component, regardless of drive mode, the all-wheel steer isn’t as invasive as you think it’s going to be.

In fact, it’s only noticeable when driven back-to-back with the base car which doesn’t have it, with the RS having noticeably better road holding with the tech equipped.

It furiously holds onto corners, with the electric all-wheel drive and fat tyres keeping everything under control. You have to be really irresponsible in this car to get the tyres to even scream out in pain, let alone slip, a feat I suspect 90 per cent of buyers won’t come close to experiencing.

These observations, mind you, come from exclusively on-road use of the e-tron GT. It will be curious to see how it handles more punishing conditions on-track, for the rare set of buyers this will appeal to.

For those keeping it to road-use, the adjustable air suspension grants pretty impressive ride quality considering the size of this car’s wheels and its overall weight.

It’s excellent at smoothing out corrugations and shrugging off smaller bumps, but when dealing with bigger hits this car can’t quite hide its limitations. Things go from ‘ooh’ to ‘owch’ very quickly as the dampers and bump stops intervene.

On the whole though, this car is hugely impressive. Does it feel like a Taycan? Yes, actually. This is one area where the two EVs feel their most similar. But the Taycan is awesome, so this is high praise for the Audi.

All the key active gear is present, and refreshingly, aside from the arguably unnecessary laser-equipped LED headlights, nothing is on the options list.

The e-tron GT is equipped with autobahn-speed auto emergency braking with vulnerable road user (cyclist and pedestrian) detection, as well as intersection assist.

There is also lane keep assist with lane departure warning, adaptive cruise control, and blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert and rear auto braking.

This combines with the clever all-wheel drive system and array of front, side, and curtain airbags to make for a theoretically safe car, although the e-tron GT is yet to be rated by either ANCAP or EuroNCAP.

The GT63S E Performance is covered by Mercedes' five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, and you can pre-pay your service costs to keep the prices down.

Service pricing for the electrified model is yet to be confirmed.

Audis now have a competitive five year and unlimited kilometre warranty, and the e-tron GT also scores a separate and industry-standard eight-year warranty for its high-voltage battery components.

The additional ownership perks for this car are significant, however. Audi throws in complementary installation of a 7.2kW wall charger at your home, as well as a six-year Chargefox membership, making your energy consumption free from public outlets for the first six years of ownership.

There’s also free servicing for six years (covering the first three bi-annual or 30,000km visits). A truly premium car with no truly premium service costs? What’s not to like about that?