Portal Axles, Big Lift, Massive Torque: Audi Q6 Offroad Concept Is an Electric Monster

The Q6 e-tron offroad concept is an Audi that’s ready for anything. An EV with an extra 6 inches of ground clearance, portal axles, and some massive tow hooks on the front and rear bumpers. This is an Audi that could give any Jeep a run for its money crawling over rocks and then absolutely destroy it when it’s time to head back into town.

Sure, Audi has done off-roading before. The original Quattro rally cars were legends. Audi has a long history at Dakar, too, even winning with a range-extended electric rig in 2024. This, though? This is a whole new ballgame.

50% More Torque From New-Design Portals

Start with the portal axles. The tall hubs that separate the axle shaft from the center of the wheel to give a vehicle more ground clearance for nearly every single component, not just the body.

The gears in portal axles, as you might find on a custom-built off-road racing rig, multiply torque to the wheels. It’s not normally a large amount, but an extra 20-30% is nothing to sneeze at.

For the Audi Q6 e-tron offroad, the German luxury car company designed a new kind from scratch. These portals multiply torque by 50%, boosting maximum wheel output to 9,883 pound-feet for the 10 seconds of overboost that the EV’s computers allow.

Do some math, and the portals boost the Q6 e-tron’s 631 pound-feet to 934 pound-feet — without changing so much as a winding in the motors.

The total increase in ground clearance is 6.3 inches, and Audi has redeveloped the suspension to handle it. Then, it pushed the wheels outward, adding 9.8 inches of total width. Matte black fender flares give it a serious look and cover the studded mud-terrain tires to keep them road-legal.

The Q6 e-tron offroad concept is a reinterpretation of quattro. The model shows the potential that our platform for all electric vehicles already has today. This vehicle can claim new ground. We look forward to seeing our customers’ reactions to this highly emotive car.

— Audi CEO Gernot Döllner

Is Audi Planning On Building This Beast?

This Audi’s face is different from any other modern Audi. The Singleframe Audi grille is gone because the bottom has been cut out for a new bumper. Inside the bumper, Audi added massive tow loops that look beefy enough to lift the whole Q6. Another set of loops at the back makes it easy to yank this Audi out of anything or let it pull out some seriously stuck other rigs.

Audi revealed the Q6 e-tron offroad concept model at the FIS World Cup event in Kitzbühel, Austria, and it plans to run it at the historic F.A.T. Ice Race in Austria on February 1. However, Audi might have more in store for this idea.

This isn’t Audi’s first off-roader in the last few years. Audi showed the Activesphere EV, which looks a lot like this Q6, in 2023 and the moon-buggy AI: Trail Quattro concept in 2019. The difference with this one, though, isn’t just that it runs and drives. It’s that Audi might actually build this.

Late last year, a very tall and very mean-looking Q6 was spotted driving around testing with a full prototype camouflage wrap. That could have been Audi working on this concept car, but concept cars don’t normally end up testing on the road. So stay tuned, because Audi might be coming after Jeep and even the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon with this silent off-road monster.